
In an insightful
Rain Taxi review,
Adam McOmber's
This New and Poisonous Air (BOA, 2011) is dubbed "a lyric and powerful testament to Gothic invention." Reviewer Charles Dodd White likens McOmber's stories to those of Poe and Hawthorne, as they "explore inner and outer darkness, charting shadowlines of romance and obsession."
McOmber's unique prose captures key elements of setting and historical time periods, allowing his stories to "occupy a space that comments on historic and cultural inequities without ever becoming tendentious." The review calls his writing "best" when the author uses historical settings and elements which aptly match his "baroque stylistics."
"Overall,
This New and Poisonous Air is an excellent and meditative collection that unfolds at a stately and interesting pace. While traditional in the best sense, it contributes its own subtle shape to contemporary fiction."
Be sure to put
This New and Poisonous Air on your reading list!