An Archive of Brightness

by Kelsey Socha

Overview

Two stoic lobstermen harboring a secret affection. A lonely architect building houses and machines from the exoskeletons of scorpions in a desert town. A girl painfully growing into new wings. A flock of crows and an untidy vulture observe and collect these moments of human tenderness as they build an archive of brightness. Each love story becomes, in its own way, the end of a world—and the beginning of a new one.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781941360651
Publisher:	Lanternfish Press
Publication date:	08/30/2022
Pages:	144
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.38(d)

About the Author

Kelsey Socha once wrote and staged a performance piece about lobsters before subsequently quitting theatre to become a librarian. She is originally from Kalamazoo, Michigan, but now lives in Western Massachusetts with her wife and two cats. This is her first book.

Editorial Reviews

05/02/2022

Straddling the line between poetry and prose, Socha’s melancholy debut novella is a set of nonlinear, dialogue-light queer human romances as documented by the birds that watch the stories unfolding. Crows compile the eponymous archive, which includes stories of a girl who sprouts wings, the missed connection between a scientist and an assistant chef in an Antarctic research station (as observed by the penguins), the enemies-to-lovers saga of two women in a desert full of scorpion-bone homes, the first kiss of two lobstermen in Maine, a tearful goodbye between two girls in Vermont, and a variant of the Brothers Grimm’s “The Six Swans” retold with seven geese. Interspersed are musings on the birds themselves and the ways in which finding and losing love can feel apocalyptic. The dreamy, shifting narration causes some confusion, but readers who embrace the nontraditional format will be rewarded with clever wordplay and quiet philosophy. The result is a quirky tribute to the messy, often world-changing experience of love. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Socha’s intimate and sharp-witted musings give staying power to the ephemera of our individual and collective experiences. As sincerely human as it is philosophical, An Archive of Brightness brings insight and depth to the small details of life that are only disguised as ordinary.”

author of Ship of Fates Caitlin Chung

The perfect hurricane of rich folklore. Socha has woven together a lawless assortment of experiences, telling a story of queerness, mundanity, and a murder (of crows).”

author of Elegy for the Undead Matthew Vesely

A beautifully shaped, poetic book. Socha's writing is witty but never shallow, with a crow's eye for detail and an archivist's eye for the unexpected meanings that come to the surface of a story when you shake it. She is bold, unpredictable, and a writer to watch.”

author of Lambda Literary Award-winning novel The Isaac Fellman