Bloodwork

Samuel E. Cole's first collection of short stories provides all the hilarity, all the pathos, and all the passion readers of his poetry have come to expect. Bloodwork is full of strange, fascinating characters doing strange, fascinating things to one another, portrayed in energetic, often breathless prose: "Stormie's thoughts overcloud themselves again, this time taking on the scary elements of a rain-soaked evening fifteen years earlier, when her parent's voices collided like thunder and lightning, her father's veiny hands strangling her mother's veiny neck before tossing her to the floor like a stuffed animal, leaving the front door wide open as he drove off as fast as wild rain, her mother's trembling hands leading Mary into the kitchen to sit on lime-green seat cushions, telling Mary, "Now it's time you hear the sad story of how Aprosinia Plakovich met Randall Dunkle. Are you ready?"