{"id":21933,"date":"2024-11-20T10:00:13","date_gmt":"2024-11-20T17:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=21933"},"modified":"2024-11-20T10:00:13","modified_gmt":"2024-11-20T17:00:13","slug":"divine-in-essence-by-yarrow-paisley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/?p=21933","title":{"rendered":"Divine in Essence by Yarrow Paisley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Uncanny, dark, and spellbinding\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paisley\u2019s latest short story collection is a darkly beautiful exploration of the human psyche, where desire, memory, and transformation unravel in vivid, surreal narratives. In the opening story, \u201cThe Great Event,\u201d a young girl anticipates a transformative moment in her strange, claustrophobic life, only to find herself at the center of a grotesque, metaphysical phenomenon involving her father and the house’s haunting. Told through the eyes of a young boy, \u201cI in the Eye\u201d captures his silent struggle for self-expression under the suffocating weight of vigilance and restraint, as his father\u2019s fianc\u00e9e looms ever larger in his life. \u201cYour Mother Loves You\u201d follows a boy forced to live as a girl by his manipulative mother, leading to fractured relationships and emptiness in adulthood. After a family death triggers memories of his true identity, he must confront his past and face a surreal reckoning with his mother that leaves his transformation hauntingly unresolved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In \u201cThe Metaphor of the Lakes,\u201d a woman struggles to make sense of her existence while trapped in a strange house with a violent man, a mysterious and kind presence, and an elusive brother. Through fragments of diary entries and metaphorical imagery, she pieces together her identity in a dreamlike atmosphere where time and logic distort. \u201cFever Visions\u201d is a hallucinatory journey of fragmented realities and fever dreams, exploring the protagonist\u2019s struggle with loss and the fluidity of existence. \u201cNancy & Her Man\u201d tells the story of an unlikely bond between a man caught between life and death and a whimsical woman who brings him joy through their peculiar interactions in a cemetery. \u201cIcarus in Bardot\u201d is the tale of an eternal wanderer afraid to land and confront reality. Torn between his longing to connect and his fear of vulnerability, he reflects on centuries spent observing humanity from a distance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRocking Horse Traffic\u201d takes readers through a surreal dreamscape as the protagonist escapes a terrifying surgery by retreating to the safety of a rocking horse. \u201cThe Life of Cherry\u201d is a poignant and poetic allegory about a character whose existence encapsulates creation, destruction, and the eternal cycle of life. This collection is a psychedelic reimagining of reality, where the ordinary brims with magic and unease, and traditional storytelling conventions dissolve. Paisley\u2019s prose is hypnotic, weaving lyrical beauty with sinister undertones. The characters, grotesque yet achingly human, grapple with metaphysical forces in landscapes where transformation is inevitable and often horrifying. Gothic in its sensibility but modern in its execution, the stories oscillate between visceral horror and reflective musing, creating an unnerving rhythm that enthrals and unsettles in equal measure. Not for the faint-hearted, the book is graphic, provocative, and deeply layered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For fans of Djuna Barnes or Angela Carter, this book offers a journey into a world where the fantastic and the bizarre merge to reflect our deepest fears and desires. Bold, unsettling, and uncompromising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Buy now<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pub date October 16, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whiskey Tit<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ISBN 978-1952600555<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Price $18.56 (USD) Paperback<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Uncanny, dark, and spellbinding\u2026 Paisley\u2019s latest short story collection is a darkly beautiful exploration of the human psyche, where desire, memory, and transformation unravel in vivid, surreal narratives. In the opening story, \u201cThe Great Event,\u201d a young girl anticipates a transformative moment in her strange, claustrophobic life, only to find herself at the center of a grotesque, metaphysical phenomenon involving her father and the house’s haunting. Told through the eyes of a young boy, \u201cI […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145610851,"featured_media":21935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[7223,91,3328,178,723770472,1747,1136176,723769804,723769803,91586,723769805,1473,1008073,856121,309,546,567658,349,723770471],"class_list":["post-21933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-author","tag-blogging","tag-book-reviews","tag-books","tag-divine-in-essence-by-yarrow-paisley","tag-fiction","tag-indie-books","tag-kindle","tag-kobo","tag-literary-fiction","tag-nook","tag-reading","tag-review-blog","tag-review-website","tag-reviews","tag-short-stories","tag-short-stories-collection","tag-writing","tag-yarrow-paisley"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/51gt57pa-WL._SY445_SX342_.jpg?fit=279%2C445&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pajKJn-5HL","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/145610851"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21933"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21937,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21933\/revisions\/21937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprairiesbookreview.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}