Tightrope Books

200 pages, $21.95

Rolli understands the public opinion of flash fiction as a lesser literary genre. For evidence, look no further than the cover of his latest collection, I Am Currently Working on a Novel. Drawn by the author himself, who is also an accomplished illustrator and cartoonist, the cover shows a tombstone beneath a starry night with the book’s title engraved as an epitaph. It’s a joke that will hit home with any practitioner of an underappreciated art form and the first of many nods to the writers among his audience.

Rolli’s eccentric, whimsical stories exhibit a style and a brand of comedy all his own. “Candy Island,” begins like this: “In case you’ve ever wondered, all us missing kids aged two to six wind up on Candy Island.  Candy Island sounds great. But it isn’t. It’s a big, scary island. There are lizards bigger than me. We lost three kids last week.” Continue reading →