The Balloon Containing the Water Containing the Narrative Begins Leaking

ISBN 9780996227605

Rich Ives’ latest book is full of exquisitely worded stories. He’s a master at detailed description, but also in creating narrative from small, well-chosen moments that add up to an emotional connection. In “Train Song”, for instance, we meet an artist who overcomes a dry spell and begins to paint elements of his youth. But it is his interaction with the other characters in the story that paints a picture of his personality. The story leads us into their lives in an intimate way even while linking us with characters outside the main tale. His prose is precise, almost crystalline, sharp and illuminating.

––Anita Endrezze, author of Butterfly Moon (Univ. of Arizona Press, 2012) and A Thousand Branches (Red Bird Press, 2014)

...a strong offbeat literary voice...with a fabulist element to it...almost, but not quite, fairy tale like but for adults. I was reminded of Donald Barthelme when he was doing stuff like Dead Father and Robert Coover when he was doing stuff like Pricksongs and Descants.

––Alan Catlin, editor of Misfit Magazine

Continuing in the wonderful tradition of those oral storytellers who often mixed incidents and characters endowed with profound talents, Rich Ives, in his collection of stories, The Balloon Containing the Water Containing the Narrative Begins Leaking, exudes the essence of every personality and situation he’s created through a language that is witty, profound, introspective and revelatory all at the same time and consistently so. Ives is at full power manipulating the subtleties of experiences so often gone unnoticed, so perceptually taken for granted, and yet which he so wondrously brings to life in such a way that any reader can’t help but feel welcomed by the warmth of his unexpected stories.

—Paul B. Roth, Bitter Oleander Press