Scorch Atlas

Having been on a heavy diet of J.G. Ballard and David Ohle, I thought I was pretty well inured to catastrophe and dystopian visions, but Blake Butler brings something new to the table. The stories focus on families existing for what time they have left in a world that has truly gone to shit. At times Butler's language can strain for effects that could be as effectively conveyed with grammar that does not depend on the inversions or the other peculiarities he falls into. The most consistently effective parts of Scorch Atlas are the paragraph-long sections that separate the stories. These could be read as variations on the Biblical accounts of the plagues in Genesis, but with teeth taking the place of frogs, glitter for boils.