Temples’ imagination never sleeps, and his literary cupboard never runs dry of imagination and ideas—marvelous ideas, as you’ll discover in this new collection of short fiction. Luckenbach is a tsunami of rich themes and plots, all of which captivate this fellow writer’s imagination (and envy!) Phillip Temples is no small wonder at the computer keyboard.
~ Michael C. Keith, author of All the Noise in the Room
Luckenbach
The short pieces In Luckenbach, the latest collection of micro-fictions by Phil Temples, unveil the ironies and absurdities hiding in plain sight in our everyday lives: a dying atheist, beckoned forward by a bright light, chooses to “walk back into the darkness”; Rudy the drug pig fails at his job because he was actually trained as a truffel pig; at an extremely early stage of our fetal development our anuses and mouths are indistinguishable; a “loaded” dreidel complicates life for Jewish gamblers; a writer is blocked because he is obsessed with the opening sentence of Out of Africa. Exposing the philosophical lurking within the trivial, the micro-fictions in Temples’ Luckenbach move from premise to revelation with understated ease. The observations in these pieces surprise us, then entertain us, and ultimately lead us to deeper contemplation, making the collection both a pleasant and enlightening read.
~ Greg Wolos, author of What the Children See
Luckenbach is an excellent collection of light-hearted sallies at our very unlight-hearted time. It is a relief and a pleasure. Enjoy.
~ Luke Salisbury, author of The Answer Is Baseball, The Cleveland Indian, No Common War