xTx Drops Bombs.

26 Feb

Hot holy damn, have you read this book?!

There are, on occasion, tiny things that make huge things happen in the world: the lump of plutonium in Little Boy, the butterfly that flapped its wings in Africa and caused Hurricane Katrina, the first fish that realized it could breathe air. And most recently, xTx’s book Normally Special.

There are many things I could say about this book. But if I was allowed only one thing, it’s that xTx has the gift of the perfect moment. This is a special gift. She understands how to take what other writers might write as an entire scene, and whittle it into the precise, devastating moment that gets at what can break a reader wide open.

To call these moments brutal would be an understatement, but they are also kind. They treat a reader with a tenderness you wouldn’t expect, with breastplate split so open, a pumping fist on your heart, a violence necessary to sustain life.

I keep thinking of the atomic bomb. I am in a loop. Something so terrible, so awful, and yet, it was dropped twice, both equaling a body count of over 200,000 people, but doing so saved hundreds of thousands more lives than they cost–a kindness in all that devastation, an end and a hope to something that had been so horrible for so long.

Read this fucking book.

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8 Responses to “xTx Drops Bombs.”

  1. Roxane February 26, 2011 at 4:15 am #

    This is an astounding thing to say, Chris, about Tiny Hardcore’s first book. Thank you.

    • ce. February 26, 2011 at 4:20 am #

      It was an astounding thing to release, Roxane, as Tiny Hardcore’s first book. You’re welcome, and thank you.

  2. Xtx February 26, 2011 at 4:28 am #

    Pretty much speechless. Thank you, chris.

  3. Jeremy Bauer March 1, 2011 at 2:55 am #

    You had me at “Little Boy.” Cool description. The former statement wasn’t supposed to be a pedophilia joke.

    • ce. March 1, 2011 at 8:42 pm #

      I wish I could “Like” this.

      • Jeremy Bauer March 2, 2011 at 1:35 pm #

        In my heart, you just did. You just did.

        Someday we’ll be able to “like” everything, like people’s fridges and car dents and stuff, like in the physical world. Everything with a “like” button. I can’t wait. I “like” this milkshake! I “like” this Christmas…that one could have a lot of pressure.

  4. Amber Sparks March 1, 2011 at 8:32 pm #

    I should be getting this in the mail today, and I am as excited as I can possibly be.

    • ce. March 1, 2011 at 8:42 pm #

      You should be. It’s so good. You should post your own review of it here when you’re finished. Ha. Seriously.

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