The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break

(Paperback, Main - Canons)

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Description

Five thousand years after leaving the Cretan labyrinth, and the Minotaur - or M as he is known to his colleagues - is working as a line chef at Grub's Rib in Carolina, keeping his horns down, trying in vain to put his past behind him. He leads an ordered lifestyle in a shabby trailer park where he tinkers with cars, writes and re-writes to-do lists and observes the haphazard goings on around him. Outwardly controlled, M tries to hide his emotional turmoil as he is transported deeper into the human world of deceit, confusion and need.

Reviews

A wry, melancholy, beautiful first novel . . . The language is everywhere precise and graceful . . . Genius * * Guardian * *
Beautifully detailed and honed . . . a poetic testament to the wild, unchartable experience of human loving . . . Sherrill's vision is at once melancholy and deeply affirming. Somewhere in M's inchoate mass of sensation there exists a sharp spark of hope * * Observer * *
Immaculate . . . Sherrill is a beautiful writer . . . he finds the drama to keep you reading, your heart in your mouth, to the conclusion's defiant roar of hope * * Telegraph * *
At once ugly, tender and hopeful . . . Sherrill's Minotaur allows for allusive readings but remains rootedly among us * * Independent * *
Exceptional . . . Steven Sherrill uses M as the vehicle for a finely observed and compassionate portrayal of humanity in all its guises * * Irish Independent * *
This is the most surreal slab of realism you will read all year. Unique and rather wonderful * * Arena * *
Sherrill's dense, poetic style never falters in its creation of a perfect metaphor for the eternal outsider -- CAROL BIRCH * * Wall Street Journal * *
[A] brilliant imagination . . . Every page is a delight worth savouring for a millennium or two * * USA Today * *
Sherrill's narrative, with its dreamlike pace, shows myth coexisting with reality as naturally as it does in ancient epic * * Publisher's Weekly * *

Author Bio

Steven Sherrill is the author of five novels and a collection of poetry, and is an Associate Professor of English and Integrative Arts at Penn State Altoona. He earned an MFA in Poetry from Iowa Writers' Workshop and was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Fiction. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, the Kenyon Review and the Georgia Review. He lives in Pennsylvania.

stevensherrill.com