first published in http://misfitmagazine.net/
Dave Newman, She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall, Roadside Press, Magical Jeep Distribution, available on Amazon, 200 pages, 2024
Poet and prose master Newman scores big in this collection of seven tight stories. While these people don’t know each other, they probably would make instant connections. Most of them are at an age, pushing 30, unmarried, working loser jobs, half-heartedly finishing college degrees in something with a vague dream of bettering their lives at some, unidentifiable point. They are invariably women, though not always, neither really good looking or unattractive, casual drug users, alcohol abusing, one-night standers or in nowhere relationships. They are increasingly aware this life is going to offer them nothing if they don’t get their asses in gear and yet… And yet they lack motivation, the will to do so. These people are not hopeless or particularly exceptional, they are just, well, people, people I have known, hell, I might even have been one of those. Once a book I wrote based on real-life experiences was rejected with a scathing rebuke among the many, often right, alas, observations was the main character has no plans. ( I cut that part out and it became the book I wanted it to be so it wasn’t a complete loss) He has children, degrees, a crappy job but he has no real plans, well, sweetheart if you were draft eligible during the early 70s with a family or not, you’d be lucky to have a crappy job, because no one would hire you and only the government could provide the much-needed assistance to see you through to the next crappy paycheck… Newman’s people could be my children. They are not, but they could be. Read Newman, he knows of what he speaks.
—Alan Catlin, Editor misfitmagazine.net
She Throws Herself Forward to Stop the Fall by Dave Newman is available at https://www.magicaljeep.com/product/throws/168
