Contemporary Authors

• All the Castles Burned ( novel) Turner Publishing Company (Nashville, TN), 2017

• Strategies Against Extinction - 2012 Queen's Ferry Press, Plano, TX

• Amazon -

  Michael Nye was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. He attended the Ohio State University, where he graduated with a B.A. in English, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where he earned his M.F.A. in creative writing. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in American Literary Review, Boulevard, Cincinnati Review, Crab Orchard Review, Epoch, and New South, among many others. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.

• Michael Nye Website - http://mpnye.com/

  Michael Nye is the author of the story collection STRATEGIES AGAINST EXTINCTION (Queen’s Ferry Press, 2012) and the novel ALL THE CASTLES BURNED, forthcoming from Turner Publishing in February 2018.
  He was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. He attended the Ohio State University, where he graduated with a BA in English Literature, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where he earned his MFA in creative writing.
  His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in American Literary Review, Boulevard, Cincinnati Review, Crab Orchard Review, Epoch, Kenyon Review, New South, Normal School, Sou’wester, and South Dakota Review, among many others. His work has been a finalist for the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in fiction and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He lives with his wife in Columbus, Ohio.
  Fiction
  “A Fully Imagined World” (Boulevard)
  “The Hit King” (Hobart)
  “The Photograph” (American Literary Review)
  “The Utility Room” (Atticus Review)
  “The Ecstatic” (Hobart)
  “Who Are You Wearing?” (The Normal School)
  Nonfiction
  “For The Love of the Cliche; Or, Why I Dislike Sports Movies” (LitBridge)
  “Five Easy Ways to Publicize and Promote Your Book” (Writer’s Digest)

  Interviews
  My conversation with writer Fred Venturini is up at LitReactor. We discussed slush piles, editorial work, favorite short stories, and books that can be (quite literally) thrown across a room.
  Braddock Avenue Books, conducted by Jeffrey Condran
  Vouched Books: Awful Interview, conducted by Laura Relyea. We talk about NBA Jam, Jay-Z, Andre Dubus, movie villains, and how I cannot spell.
  Here’s an interview I gave to the good folks at Every Writer’s Resource about my experience as the managing editor of The Missouri Review, with a nugget or two of good (decent?) advice on publishing.
  And another interview with Priyatam Mudivarti over at The Review Review. We talk about the importance of the first page of a submission, my own experience with rejection (of which I have tons), and what I look for in a story.
  Michael Rudin of Fiction Writers Review fired off a few questions to me about my work and literary magazines.
  Reading
  River Styx at the Tavern. My reading in St. Louis with my old pals at River Styx is online. The whole thing is pretty fantastic, and Alison Pelegrin’s poetry is wonderful, but if you’re impatient, hop to the twenty-eight-minute mark to watch the whole thing. I read my story “Beauty in the Age of Chaos and Savagery” (Kenyon Review)
  Oh, and KR fiction editor Caitlin Horrocks explains why she selected my story for publication.
  Other Good Stuff
  I blogged regularly at The Missouri Review. Picking one post is tricky, so why not two? This is about my post-college years and coming around—slowly—to being a writer; this one is about one of my favorite writers, Andre Dubus. And, this was my goodbye post from 2015.
  The best place to get at me is Twitter. Or your nearest basketball court. Either works.
  I’m represented by the hardest working man in the publishing business, the amazing Mark Gottlieb of Trident Media Group.

• Bill and Dave's Cocktail Hour - http://billanddavescocktailhour.com/table-for-two-minus-one-michael-nye-interviews-himself/

  QUOTE:
  they are faced with hard choices, broken promises, and the fear of self-destruction.

  Guest contributor: Michael Nye
  Table for Two, Minus One: Michael Nye Interviews Himself
  categories: Cocktail Hour / Table For Two: Interviews
  10 comments

  Q. What are you doing here?
  This is it! Today is the official Bill and Dave’s celebration of the publication of my first book, STRATEGIES AGAINST EXTINCTION. It’s a collection of eight stories and one novella, written over a period of almost seven years. I’m delighted that this book is now out in the world, and just wanted to take a moment to share the joy and toot my own horn (honk!) and let you all know. I’m sure many of you have lots of questions about this earth-shattering event, so I’ll try to answer as many of them as I can.

  author and monkey
  Q: Hey, congratulations! Um … who are you again?
  A: Right! Michael Nye. For some of you, it might have been a long time since we crossed paths. To narrow it down, you and I probably met in one of these four ways: 1. We went to school together (Princeton, Seven Hills, Ohio State, UMSL) 2. We played basketball together, likely in St. Louis 3. Academia: you’re a former student from my creative writing or composition classes, a writer like me, fellow editor or intern, or other wayward fan of all things literature and book related or 4. You used to beat me up in grade school. Also, you might have seen my film and television roles on Band of Brothers, Homeland, or that show about the cop that eats fruit.
  Q: I remember beating you up! Your nose looks much better! So, what’s your book about?
  A: Glad you asked! These nine stories are about regular people who find themselves at difficult turning points in their lives—times when they are faced with hard choices, broken promises, and the fear of self-destruction. These diverse characters include a 1940’s war veteran turned radio broadcaster, a film projectionist whose new boyfriend might be a terrorist, a second-generation comic book store owner, a vascular surgeon at one of Boston’s premier hospitals, an ex-baseball player turned financial advisor, an American ambassador who has a judo match with Vladimir Putin, a recently divorced woman who rents a room in her house out to an adulterous couple for their afternoon trysts, and more.
  Q: Sounds fantastic! Where can I buy a copy of your book?
  A: Your local bookstore or library will certainly order it if you swing by an ask them. But there is this thing called the Internet, and that’s probably easier. You can order a copy from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or IndieBound (ordering through them will mean the book comes from an independent bookstore), or directly from my publisher, Queen’s Ferry Press. My book is primarily in paperback but there is a limited number of hardcovers available. You can also get an e-book for your Kindle or Nook or any other e-reader.
  Q: Hot damn, this is terrific! Hey, are you doing one of those author book tour things?
  A: Absolutely! You could of course click over to my website and see when and where, but I’ll just tell you about the next two months: In the next six weeks, I have events in Columbia (Oct 9 and Oct 25), Chicago (Oct 5), Cincinnati (Oct 19-20), San Francisco (Nov 2), Atlanta (Nov 9), and St. Louis (Nov 19). All these events are free and open to the public. You should come! I’d love to see you.
  Q: Aw snap! You aren’t coming to where I live! How are we supposed to have a celebratory beer together?
  A: We should correct that! While I can’t do any more events in 2012 due to my job, I’m definitely thinking about early 2013 as time for another bit of touring. Let me know if there is a good bookstore or venue or book festival or library or whatever (McDonald’s? I do love McNuggets …) for readings in your area, and I’ll contact them and see what I can do.
  Q: That’ll work. Okay, so I’ve ordered your book. Now what happens?
  A: After you’re done reading the book – which I’m positive (positive!) will Change Your Life – and if you genuinely dug it, hop on Amazon and Goodreads and give the book a positive review and rating. This is really helpful to small press authors like myself who don’t have the full force of the marketing wing of a New York publishing house. Also, being all 21st century, you can get after me on Facebook and Twitter and say Howdy.
  Q: Consider it done! By the way, do you realize you sound crazy if people don’t get your sense of humor?
  A: Very likely.

  [Michael Nye was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. He attended the Ohio State University, where he graduated with a B.A. in English, and the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where he earned his M.F.A. in creative writing. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Boulevard, Cincinnati Review, Crab Orchard Review, New South, Red Cedar Review, Sou’wester, and South Dakota Review, among many others. His work has been a finalist for the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in fiction. He is at work on new stories and a novel. He lives in the Midwest and works as the managing editor of The Missouri Review.]

• The Lit Reactor - https://litreactor.com/interviews/secrets-of-the-slush-an-interivew-with-editor-and-author-michael-nye

  Secrets of the Slush: An Interview with Editor and Author, Michael Nye
  Interview by Fred Venturini April 20, 2017
  1 comment
  In: editing Interview michael nye Slush submitting teaching
  QUOTE:
  Reading for a magazine has been the best and most valuable part of my training as a writer. I don't have a sophisticated guess as to how many stories I've read over the years, but it's well into the thousands, maybe over ten thousand now. So, even if I couldn't tell you exactly why, I have an immediate "this is working" reaction to page one, or (and this is even better) a "why is this working?" All the rookie mistakes are easy to avoid now, but I get to read and experience what my contemporaries are doing in real time: what other writers are working on right now. That's tremendously helpful as a writer, exciting as an editor, and fascinating as a reader.

  Michael Nye lives, eats, and breathes literature—when he's not playing pickup basketball, anyway.
  As a former or current editor of esteemed literary journals such as Boulevard, Missouri Review, and River Styx, he knows a thing or two about busting through the slush pile. He's also a gifted teacher (full disclosure: he was my literary Yoda when I was in my MFA program) and badass author in his own right.
  Don't believe me? Pick up a copy of his short story collection, Strategies Against Extinction, and read "Sparring Vladamir Putin." Try to keep your face from melting off with glee. It's one of my favorite stories ever, and that was before Donald Trump turned Putin into a permanent fixture of our current news cycle.
  Oh, and that Michael Nye jumper? Smooth as silk.
  So I interviewed Michael to help you be a better writer, get inside the head of an elite editor, and have a little fun along the way.

  You have to read a lot of bad stories to find the gems. How does the metric ton of critical reading affect your writing? Did reading a bunch of slush ever degrade your prose?
  Reading for a magazine has been the best and most valuable part of my training as a writer. I don't have a sophisticated guess as to how many stories I've read over the years, but it's well into the thousands, maybe over ten thousand now. So, even if I couldn't tell you exactly why, I have an immediate "this is working" reaction to page one, or (and this is even better) a "why is this working?" All the rookie mistakes are easy to avoid now, but I get to read and experience what my contemporaries are doing in real time: what other writers are working on right now. That's tremendously helpful as a writer, exciting as an editor, and fascinating as a reader.
  My hope is to read something that I tear through, read cover-to-cover, and as soon as I'm done, I close it and just think "wow."
  And I hope it doesn't degrade my prose! I think it most helps with remembering to write something, or aiming to write something, great rather than good or good enough.
  Let's walk through the process. There's a slush pile. Then some junior readers or interns or students or whoever read through it to get the obvious crap out of the way, and then you get whatever remains from that filtration process. Correct me if I'm wrong here. With this filtration in place, how many stories did/do you typically read in a week or a month? What's your personal record for most stories in a month or a week?
  Most literary magazines receive their submissions directly through the slush pile. 99.9% Every place I've worked has had writers or literary agents send directly to the editor; every place I've worked has generally not liked this, and even those pieces, generally, get turned down. A love of discovery drives literary magazines, finding gold Sierra Madre-style, and though editors like myself will complain about submission piles, we secretly love it.
  Yes, most magazines have readers, interns, or screeners who act as "first readers." Depending on my mood, I'd say 50% to 90% of submissions are really that bad and don't need to be looked at by a senior editor or the editor in chief. This may sound harsh, but here's the math: the Missouri Review receives 12,000 submissions per year, and of that, publishes 40 pieces. 40! And it's a quarterly! If you include their excellent Poem of the Week feature, TMR publishes a little bit more than that, but still, it is very difficult to crack a magazine. At TMR, the interns who read were encouraged to pitch two stories (out of 20) every week. Was every batch great? Of course not. But it encouraged them to find what is good about a story, rather than what was bad, and that makes for really generous, thoughtful readers. And ultimately, stories.
  At River Styx, I read all the fiction. I'm sure I had a week where I read 50 to 60 stories. At TMR, I read work that had received several thumbs up, so I read fewer stories, but I also read better stories, stories that required more thought and engagement. Those stories would be passed among the senior editors and discussed in detail. No week is the same for a managing editor, so on one week, I might read 40 stories. The next week? Nothing. It just depends.
  Do weird "themes" emerge when you're reading, like you would get a lot of stories in a single month with writers as the narrator of the story? Any other frequent cliches or "theme rashes" that are worth mentioning?
  Oh, man. One year I saw a half dozen stories about Lazarus. Not the department store but THE Lazarus. Why? No idea. Now there are a ton of Karen Russell knockoff stories — weird, quirky stories with one really fantastic element that's ultimately not that interesting. There are always a ton of nonfiction essays that are broadly My Year As a White Person Doing Humanitarian Work in Africa Made Me Woke, which always includes a digressive and boring love story that ends in heartbreak. A few years ago, there were more Carver knockoff stories, some kind of working-class ennui, with two people sitting around doing nothing and complaining in a stripped down vernacular. But maybe I took the blue pill, and I'm forgetting a few of the crazier trends that I've seen over the years.
  Is it true that you can tell in about one page if the writing/story is any good? How long does it take you to say "screw this, I'm out?"
  Yes, it is true. Or, maybe, more accurate, I can tell from page one if a story has the potential to be good. Bad stories are bad on page one, and it's obvious. Good stories have a quality of being intriguing, engaging, and captivating on page one. Even if the work or style is not familiar to me or even my taste (or, more importantly, the magazine's taste), page one indicates that something compelling is happening. I believe Sven Birkets over at AGNI wrote about his method: a stack of 50 manuscripts, read just the first page, and if he isn't interested, he rejects it.
  I don't have a preconceived idea of how long I will read a story until I give up on it. I usually hit that point, and then try to push ahead another couple of pages, in case I'm wrong. I'm usually not, but I can be. Also, once I reach the halfway point, I always finish reading a story. Like anyone else, I'm always curious to see how a story ends.
  What is the most common writing issue that makes you say "I'm out" when reading a story? We're looking for the top mistake for writers to avoid in their submissions.
  This is hard to explain, but I would say rhythmless writing is what gets me out immediately. Clunky word choices, cluttered syntax, constipated thoughts: all sorts of things that show the reader that the story just can't dance. I realize this is not a particularly helpful rubric, but good stories just have a quality of having a great ear. Great stories sound good. They know the distinct voice of the author, narrator, and character, and signal the reader that the author is in complete control of the story. Every good writer I know reads her/his work out loud as they write and revise, and that quality jumps out when reading for a magazine.
  To give a snarkier answer: stories about writing professors or, frankly, any university professor is a hard stop for me. I've recently read an excellent story that is about university professors, which is forthcoming in the next issue of Boulevard, but on the whole, it just screams "I HAVE NO IMAGINATION!" and the character almost always acts in the most expected ways. But, hey: art is all about breaking the rules, right?
  What is the etiquette of bypassing the slush pile because you know the editor? Like, if I wanted to submit at the Missouri Review while you worked there, should I just respect the process, or drop a line and say "hey pluck me off the slush?"
  The etiquette for bypassing the editor really depends on the editor. This is very personal, so what works for me probably doesn't work for other editors, so take all this with a grain of salt.
  In short: don't. We have guidelines. Please follow them. Second: ask. A quick email saying, 'hey do you mind if I send this directly to you?' would be great. I'd also prefer that the work still goes through the system: postal, Submittable, Submission Manager, whatever the magazine uses. It's really easy for me to grab a story this way, while at the same time, maintaining the integrity of our tracking system, which is important.
  Writer-friends who have sent me work directly know a few things about me that make this system work. One, I have never been The Decider. I can't just publish your story because we're pals. Two, I will not endorse your story if I don't believe in it. I may deliver the message gently, but if I don't think your story is right for my magazine, I will say so. Third, your chances, while certainly improved, are still pretty low. Again, I go back to how hard the reality of publishing in a literary magazine is: the competition is fierce.
  Basically, to make a tortured basketball analogy, I'm the point guard. I can bring the ball to the strong side, pull the entire defense to my side of the court, and then make the best swing pass to the opposite corner where you are standing wide-open for the easiest three-point shot in the game . . . but you still have to hit the shot. That's on you.
  Challenge: you have to teach a group of high school students to become great writers, but can only use three short stories in your curriculum. Which ones do you choose?
  I'm going to do my best to not overthink this question, though I know already that I'm going to overthink this question. With the caveat that there are probably 200 acceptable answers to this question, here goes:
  "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin. To write about America, to be a great writer, a person must think about race and class. I don't see how that can be avoided. And this is one of the best stories, ever, to do both. Further, it's about suffering and family ties, elements that resonate in every great story: not just "who am I?" but who am I in relation to others? It's also a story about artistic expression, how art can help us to express and externalize pain. Baldwin is also one of the great American writers, and the sooner high school students are exposed to his work, the better.
  "The Rest of Her Life" by Steve Yarbrough. This is one of my favorite, if not very favorite, stories to teach. The separation between narrator and character knowledge is tremendous, as too are the movements through time, which spans over twenty years in this story about a teenage protagonist whose father murdered her mother. The story is very much a crime drama and can show students how great literature doesn't have to be "boring."
  “The Ceiling” by Kevin Brockmeier. Pretty simple setup here: a marriage crumbles, their eight-year-old son is caught in the middle, all while a massive obsidian ceiling that started as a speck in the sky starts coming lower and lower on their town. Which, of course, everyone ignores, even as buildings and trees start collapsing and the sun is blocked out, and everyone is on their hands and knees because they can't stand up anymore. What is the ceiling? What does it mean? It means a great many things and for students to see that stories don't have to be realistic, that writing can be strange and wonderful and peculiar, is a lesson that I hope they would carry with them for a very long time.
  Entire industries have been built on "How to survive the slush pile" or how to get accepted at literary mags. You were a guy actually doing the accepting. Other than "write something fucking fantastic," what is your best advice? What is a breath of fresh air to an editor? Just as some examples that come to mind, maybe having a unique setting or simply taking the time to make sure the story is FINISHED (I bet you've seen a lot of early drafts as people clamor to get published).
  Your question points out the problem: industries built on "gaming the system." What if literary magazines, and books and publishing in general, is truly a meritocracy? Editors see clever all the time. Trying a sensational first page, an explosive moment, a gotcha!, is pretty transparent. Not to overstate the obvious, but writing fiction is incredibly difficult to do well. There is no trick. There is no magic elixir.
  So what jumps out? Confidence. A confident narrative voice that guides the story, and consequently the reader, along with the story. It has all the qualities that we would learn in a writing workshop: good language, use of point of view, significant and memorable details, an engaging character(s), and so forth, but it also has a "something else" to it. The rhythm of the writing has a power to it, whether that power is understated or emphatic, that sucks in the reader. The story can't be put down. And to get to that point requires many drafts of one story, many hours spent reading and writing and revising, not just the story in front of the editor, but the writer's work altogether. Don't be clever. Don't be slick. Don't think about the editor. Write the fierce story that demands to be read.
  You are a self-confessed book-thrower. Have you ever thrown a short story, or otherwise destroyed the paper it's printed on? I could see you turning a bad story into paper airplanes and launching it page by page into a roaring fire.
  I'm an expert thrower! Usually, I read short stories in literary magazines, and the print versions are usually in the same size and shape of a paperback, the aerodynamics of which are fantastic for chucking in a parabola across the room. Then, my dog wakes up and sniffs the magazine and looks up at me with a "what did it do?" expression.
  Book throwing works best when the story takes such a gross, terrible turn from the direction it was going, or suffers a total failure of imagination, a breaking of the fictive dream, etc., that when as a reader I suddenly feel cheated, tricked, or insulted. Sometimes all three, and more.
  My hope, of course, is to read something that I tear through, read cover-to-cover, and as soon as I'm done, I close it and just think "wow."

• Electric Literature - https://electricliterature.com/finding-the-violence-in-male-friendship-7b6953561fa5

  QUOTE:
  What struck me about these two characters and boys in general is that we don’t often see that subtler type of friendship. It’s rarely discussed unless there are these, like you said, extraordinary events.
  I’m in my late 30s now and I’ve moved around a bit. I’ve noticed how men rarely make friends outside of school or work and we rarely discuss friendship. I’m surprised it isn’t discussed more. There’s nothing taboo about it and I think writers take it for granted. I wanted to explore it on a more personal level.
  Adam Vitcavage
  Pop culture criticism and interviews. Words in Electric Literature, Paste, The Millions, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, more. Blog: www.vitcavage.com
  Jan 29
  Finding the Violence in Male Friendship
  Michael Nye’s debut novel, ‘All the Castles Burned,’ examines 20 years shared by two men

  From flickr.

  Michael Nye’s debut novel is, in his own words, the completion of a massive apprenticeship that took twenty years to complete. All the Castles Burned is woven with many semi-autobiographical threads, but Nye never thought those stories would become his first full-length book. The author worked through other ideas for novels, published a short story collection, Strategies Against Extinction, in 2012, and spent years as an editor for the Missouri Review and Boulevard, before finding the story he wanted to tell.

  Purchase the novel.
  That story belongs to the character of Owen Webb, a charming outsider in a prestigious private school who forms a connection with the enigmatic Carson Bly. Narratives of adolescent male friendship are having something of moment in current literature, but unlike a lot of recent books, Nye’s story — like many a bored teenager — looks for the thrilling in the ordinary, the adventures in the everyday. Set in the mid-1990s, Owen and Carson bond over basketball, and begin a friendship that will last nearly two decades.

  I spoke with the author about how All the Castles Burned evolved over the years of writing, and why he chose to write about a friendship between two young men.

  Adam Vitcavage: This is your debut novel, but your short story collection, Strategies Against Extinction, published in 2012. Was this always the first novel you intended to write?

  Michael Nye: It wasn’t. This is actually attempt number four for me. The previous version, novel number three, was finished back in 2010. I went through the whole process of looking for an agent, then I got an agent, he never sold the novel, he quit the business, and he dumped me as a client. I had this novel that nobody wanted or had interest in. I had a reckoning at that moment. I sat down to read it to see what I thought. As I was reading it I started x-ing out pages and deleting chapters. Eventually my 80,000 word novel became a 20,000 word novella.

  I figured I had to start from scratch and started on the next book. I’ve always been a believer that once you finish a book — whether it gets published or not — that you move onto the next one. It took four attempts but I finally got one of these novel things to work for me.

  A Story About Two Men Unraveling in Isolation

  “No Alcohol, No Women, No Drugs, No Visitors” by Gabe Habash
  electricliterature.com
  AV: Were those first attempts Owen’s story?

  MN: They were vastly different. The novel that I didn’t sell was about a man with a brain condition who falls in love with a girl who is Asian-American. It was set in during one summer. There was a lot of writing about heat and nature. The one before that was about baseball. The one before that was chronologically backwards. I had been influenced by Charles Baxter’s First Light. I didn’t really understand how to write a mosaic novel and I just wrote it backward. That was about a son and his relationship with his father. It didn’t have anything to do with my real life or male friendship. There were similar thematic elements, but they definitely were not the same book.

  AV: All the Castles Burned is semi-autobiographical. Was that always intended?

  MN: It really wasn’t. Initially this was a book about the friendship between the two boys. Owen Webb, the protagonist, and Carson Bly who is his friend. It always had a similar structure where it started in the mid-1990s and leapt ahead fifteen years. Early drafts wanted to be like Nabokov but I’m really not a Nabokovian. It really didn’t work. The second half failed miserably.

  When I was trying to figure out what was missing from this protagonist, I started thinking about Owen’s father. In the final version of this book, Owen’s father, Joseph Webb, is a stand-in for my own father. In 1990, my father, who had been working as a chemical technician, was arrested and eventually tried and convicted for crimes very similar to what happens to Joseph in this book. That strain of the novel definitely came from a place where all of these events are true to the best of my memory.

  AV: And what about the mother? Was she similarly created as the father?

  MN: She’s a fictional character. My mother and I dealt with my father in different ways. When I was a teenager, we really dealt with it as individuals rather than as mother and son. In this book, I knew that when Owen needed help near the end of the book, he would need to reach out to somebody. Through multiple drafts of the book, it became clear that it needed to be the mother.

  AV: As I was reading the book, I was really drawn to that father-son relationship. When you were writing that part, did you find it hard to bring out those autobiographical elements?

  MN: Not so much. The things about my father and my past have been churning out in my mind for almost thirty years now. There are so many elements of my relationship with my father that I have been trying to puzzle out and think through. Of course, the more you think about the past the more you begin shaping it to who you are now. You often stop trusting those memories. I relied on the facts about who my father was and who I wanted Joseph Webb to be in the book. From there, I let Joseph become his own character. It was really just a point of reference for me. Then to have both boys have fathers who are absent in very different ways was one of those nice things that gives an undercurrent to the story and why these two boys are drawn together.

  9 Fictional Friendships that Explore Male Intimacy

  From Bolaño’s poets to Beatty’s teenagers, men in fiction often get more emotional freedom than the real world allows
  electricliterature.com
  AV: These boys have a unique bond that was refreshing to read about. Male, teen friendship isn’t often as raw as this. Young women get stories about friendship, discovery, and so forth, but boys always have to go through something extraordinary. For instance, The Loser Club battles an extraterrestrial shapeshifter that presents as a clown, another Stephen King plot finds the boys in The Body bonding, but again it’s driven by finding a dead body. Your novel is highlights the mundanity of adolescence. Why did you want to tell Owen and Carson’s story?

  MN: What struck me about these two characters and boys in general is that we don’t often see that subtler type of friendship. It’s rarely discussed unless there are these, like you said, extraordinary events. It’s funny that you bring up Stephen King because I was just re-reading my friend Aaron Burch’s book, which is about reading The Body and what friendship has meant to him as an adult. It felt like a thing I am always curious about. I’m in my late 30s now and I’ve moved around a bit. I’ve noticed how men rarely make friends outside of school or work and we rarely discuss friendship. I’m surprised it isn’t discussed more. There’s nothing taboo about it and I think writers take it for granted. I wanted to explore it on a more personal level.

  I’ve noticed how men rarely make friends outside of school or work and we rarely discuss friendship. I wanted to explore it on a more personal level.
  AV: As you were exploring their friendship, it stems from basketball. How did sports fall into the novel?

  MN: I needed something that put them together. I love basketball; I’m a huge pick-up junkie. I was not a good basketball player in high school and none of the boys’ feats are based on anything factual. The great thing about basketball is that there are great team elements where you can have action in the book involving all of the characters, but then there are slower moments involving practice or shooting free throws. Stuff you can do alone so you can also get the individual.

  I think for many boys, not just Owen and Carson, sports is the first foray into making friends with other boys. There are a lot of things that become unspoken in your relationship because everything is done through play, games, who wins, and who loses.

  How you communicate and express grief, loneliness, sadness, anger are things that get developed over time. That’s what you see happening between Owen and Carson as the book goes on.

  AV: Did you know where you wanted these boys to go from the moment they connected shooting hoops?

  MN: I generally thought about what was happening between these boys as something that will last for a long period of time. One of the things I love about first person novels is where that person is speaking from the here and now, what it is he or she remembers or doesn’t remember, and how the protagonist shades memory. I knew I always wanted the story to pass a long period of time.

  The challenge was those boys weren’t always going to be together during those fifteen or twenty years. How was I going to attack that? I had a basic idea of what I wanted to happen because I knew I wanted it to be about friendship and how that escalates into violence.

  Why Are Friendships Between Teen Girls So Radioactive?

  In life and literature, adolescent friendships are bright, dangerous, and quick to decay
  electricliterature.com

QUOTE:
suspenseful and memorable novel.

All the Castles Burned

Publishers Weekly. 264.51 (Dec. 11, 2017): p144.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
All the Castles Burned
Michael Nye. Turner, $17.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-68336-760-4
Nye's dark, unsettling debut novel exposes the vast differences between the privileged blue-blood students and the scholarship kids at Cincinnati's prestigious private day school, Rockcastle Preparatory Academy. Lonely, awkward, 14-year-old freshman Owen Webb is desperate for the friendship of Carson Bly, a rich, handsome, and charming junior. Both boys love basketball, and Carson improves Owen's game while subtly grooming the freshman for something much more sinister. Owen fawns over Carson, but his middle-class background means he will always "remain the lonely boy by the window, a child with no purpose but to observe the happiness of others." Carson's carefree sense of entitlement is exhilarating for Owen, despite warnings from a classmate, his'mother, and Carson's sister that Carson is dangerous and violent. When Owen's family collapses under the humiliating weight of his father's arrest, conviction, and prison sentence for burglary, he falls further under Carson's unhealthy spell, leading to a fateful climax involving an ominous road trip. This is a suspenseful and memorable novel. (Feb.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"All the Castles Burned." Publishers Weekly, 11 Dec. 2017, p. 144. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A521875909/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=46457aee. Accessed 19 Feb. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A521875909

QUOTE:
Just as Nye's characters are glued to the O.J. Simpson trial, readers won't want to look away.

Nye, Michael: ALL THE CASTLES BURNED

Kirkus Reviews. (Nov. 15, 2017):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Nye, Michael ALL THE CASTLES BURNED Turner (Adult Fiction) $17.99 2, 13 ISBN: 978-1-68336-760-4
Nye's debut novel (following a book of short stories, Strategies Against Extinction, 2012) is the story of Owen Webb, a basketball player on scholarship at a private boys' school, and his relationship with two enigmatic men: his father, whose dramatic secrets neither Owen nor his mother suspect, and Carson, an older teen.
This is a coming-of-age story with mysterious twists, a sports buddy novel that is surprisingly sensitive, and a novel of manners contrasting the aspirations of a dysfunctional middle-class family in 1990s Cincinnati with the over-the-top wealth of another dysfunctional family. It is both an appealing read and an introspective examination of the turbulence of male adolescence. Owen embodies a full range of emotions, exhibiting vulnerability and tenderness but also a raw desire to fight. As the first-person narrator, he doesn't present the other characters as fully, but what he does say is revealing, especially as he begins to suspect Carson is not a role model. Awkward phrasing sometimes disrupts the prose--"Every appliance was a pristine stainless steel, and there seemed to be more oak cabinets than would be needed for a restaurant"--but other passages are beautiful: "I turned off the television and sat in the dark and thought about how my father had never tried to explain himself, justify his behavior, make any sense of it at all. He could express the remorse, say the platitudes, but even in the moment his words felt hollow. It's like a part of being a fully formed human didn't exist in him." Even with such musings, the story is well-paced, with a sense of possibility rather than a set conclusion.
Just as Nye's characters are glued to the O.J. Simpson trial, readers won't want to look away.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Nye, Michael: ALL THE CASTLES BURNED." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Nov. 2017. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A514267845/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=988e8cf2. Accessed 19 Feb. 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A514267845

• Publishers Weekly
  https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-938466-00-7
  Word count: 273

  QUOTE:
  Nye holds his characters in sharp focus, and their emotional lives are rigorously yet sympathetically observed.

  Strategies Against Extinction
  Michael Nye. Queen's Ferry (www.queens-%E2%80%A8ferrypress.com), $14.95 trade paper (238p) ISBN 978-1-938466-00-7

  A sense of loss suffuses the keenly observed stories of Nye's debut collection. In "The Re-Creationist," a Cincinnati baseball announcer is on the verge of separating from his wife and son, who collects baseball cards, when he learns his contract will not be renewed. In the very strong "A Fully Imagined World," a laid-off lawyer is briefly separated from his two-year-old daughter in a museum, then is forced to confront the irretrievable loss of his youth when a woman with whom he had a college fling doesn't recognize him. In "The Utility Room," a young, newly divorced woman rents space in her empty house to a couple for the express purpose of adultery. In "Union Terminal," while the irascible ex-con father of two sons, one self-made and one aimless, considers having heart surgery that may not save him, his sons contemplate their vivid past and uncertain future. In "Keep," the 64-page final story, a successful executive realizes his mentally-ill brother means more to him than his failing marriage. Not all stories involve loss; in the inventive but absolutely believable "Sparring Vladimir Putin," a Clinton-era U.S. diplomat defeats the Russian in a judo match.Although characters are often bewildered and bereft, these stories aren't bleak. Nye holds his characters in sharp focus, and their emotional lives are rigorously yet sympathetically observed. (Oct. 2)
  DETAILS
  Reviewed on: 08/20/2012

• The Journal
  http://thejournalmag.org/archives/3352
  Word count: 676

  QUOTE:
  does not simply introduce the reader to roughly a dozen separate lives; it reaches emotional depths not often touched in the short form.
  A good short-story collection will leave a reader with a handful of narratives worth remembering; a great short-story collection, like Nye’s, will leave a reader with lives worth remembering.
  Review of Strategies Against Extinction by Michael Nye
  January 7, 2013 | review
  Michael Nye. Strategies Against Extinction. Plano, TX: Queen’s Ferry Press, 2012. 238 pp. $14.95, paper.
  Andre Dubus was happy when his one novel, The Lieutenant (1967), went out of print. He excelled within the short-fiction form: his collections had thematic glue despite the individuality of particular stories. Typically, the emotional current of great short fiction is inversely related to its word count, and Michael Nye’s debut collection, Strategies Against Extinction, does not simply introduce the reader to roughly a dozen separate lives; it reaches emotional depths not often touched in the short form.
  Like Dubus’s work, Nye’s collection is careful without being reserved, mature without being telegraphed. Set in 1952,“The Re-Creationist” dramatizes a man employed as the last re-creationist in Major League Baseball. Don is fed game results through a Western Union ticker, and recreates the drama of Pittsburgh Pirates games on the radio, using “a xylophone hammer, ruler, and a block of wood.” A prerecorded “soundtrack of crowd noise” complements his imitations. He must constantly be ready to “throw in” some story, some movement. Don learns he will be fired at the end of the season, and fabricates a Pirate victory over the Reds. Don’s decision to make a more palatable conclusion for his son Timothy is consistent with his desire to remake the real world.
  In “Projection,” a small-town film projectionist falls for a bored college student. Monica soon realizes that Philip is a convenient screen for her real problems. His plan for a wild night with plastic explosives shocks her: “No one actually did such horrible, stupid things.” Nye’s collection reveals what happens when characters actually do make such unlikely decisions: momentary choices that derail established lives. In “A Fully Imagined World,” Kyle has a chance encounter with a former lover while taking his daughter to Cincinnati’s Natural History Museum. Nine years removed, the memory of their one-night stand “had become a physical ache, a dream he could call up and see and touch.” Serena, still beautiful, does not remember Kyle. Disappointed, he sulks, and loses track of his daughter. She is found, but the feeling hits the reader with equal force: how often do we put so much capital in a transient memory?
  Henry, the narrator of “Keep,” struggles to understand what control even means. After his mother’s death, Henry allows his mentally ill, thirty-seven-year-old brother, Kevin, to live at his home. His wife hates the idea, and does not hide her displeasure. Nye holds the reader’s emotions in his literary hands in the story’s penultimate act, as Kevin makes a rash decision that puts more than only his life at risk. The decision to end a story collection with the longest tale—“Keep” is a novella—is not a new one, but Nye is a meticulous storyteller, so the reader was already hoping for an extended tale. Yet completion of “Keep” will likely send readers back through the entirety of Strategies Against Extinction to savor Nye’s glimpses of what “is raw, jarring, unexpected, sometimes trashy, sometimes luminous,” as the collection’s epigraph, from Joyce Carol Oates, defines realism. A good short-story collection will leave a reader with a handful of narratives worth remembering; a great short-story collection, like Nye’s, will leave a reader with lives worth remembering.
  Nick Ripatrazone is the author of two books of poetry, Oblations and This is Not About Birds (Gold Wake Press 2012), as well as a forthcoming book of criticism, The Fine Delight: Postconciliar Catholic Literature (Cascade Books 2013). His fiction has received honors from Esquire, The Kenyon Review, and ESPN: The Magazine.

• Paste
  https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2012/11/strategies-against-extinction-by-michael-nye.html
  Word count: 1145

  QUOTE:
  Nye’s patience helps his stories keep their relevance. In Strategies Against Extinction, he presents a collection of modest narratives, elegantly written, mostly in third person. He makes no effort to distract the reader with bewitching showmanship, bypassing overbearing voice and too-showy verbiage.

  Strategies Against Extinction by Michael Nye
  The trouble with reality
  By Laura Straub | November 29, 2012 | 1:43pm

  The most socially prevalent stories of the past several years are far from pragmatic. We find ourselves bewitched by wizardry and the living dead-vampires and zombies. We face immersion in dystopian societies where lives are wagered for sport and entertainment. In short, we seem spellbound by every world except our own.
  Realists have their work cut out for them. With our culture’s predisposition for the sensational, realists face the challenge of finding a balance between entertainment and authenticity. Realist writers must pave a path allowing the reader a retreat from his own life without overburdening him with a fictional life too similar to his own.
  Kyle Minor’s In the Devil’s Territory (Dzanc Books, 2008) gives a strong example. Minor expertly walks us down the sandpapery grit of life. In one story, a tortured old woman with dementia struggles against the demons of her youth. In another, a religious man bridles his homosexuality. Elsewhere, a woman escapes from communism by swimming across the Rhine with her family.
  There’s no mistaking that Minor means In the Devil’s Territory as a realist text. Even so, the stories hold elements of the fantastic that sometimes create a barrier between the characters and their reader. How many of us will in fact risk our lives swimming a river to escape a communist regime? How many of us will actually spend decades in a fruitless marriage to resist homosexual urges? It’s not that these things don’t happen in the real world. They do…only not to most of us.
  So then we get to Michael Nye’s Strategies Against Extinction, a book with a perfect epigraph. It’s an excerpt from a short story by Joyce Carol Oates (and also where the book gets its title.) Oates’ excerpt states her case: Any semblance of design or order to the world happens to be nothing more than a mirage, and as humans we face one hapless fate-to organize chaos.
  The stories of Strategies Against Extinction do just that. The protagonists of Nye’s tales arrive disillusioned, bored, alienated. In short, they’re like most of us: living.
  We recognize these plots: A man loses track of his daughter at the museum. A girl passes her final summer of college in her hometown with her mother. A man struggles with the distance between his sons as he faces his own mortality.
  The first story of the collection, “The Re-Creationist,” removes the softened Kodachrome glow from a 1950s family portrait. Don works as the local baseball radio pundit for the Pirates … but his job is at risk. His estranged wife threatens divorce. His son grows up without him. In the crow’s nest of the booth, he turns to fantasy, at first by just exaggerating plays, then later fabricating incidents altogether. Don fancies himself a showman and finds safe harbor in illusions he creates.
  Nye approaches characters with a kind of compassion and patience in the writing of Andre Dubus II. Dubus once stated in Stories from a Moveable Chair, “I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live. They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice.” Nye shares a similar philosophy, creating stories that all deal with denial, loss and estrangement at some level. He delicately speculates on the order and patterns his characters weave in the havoc of their lives, but he never rushes the process.
  This happens most intimately in the story “The Utility Room.” Twenty-five years old and divorced, Ellen attempts to make ends meet by renting her spare bedroom to an adulterating couple. As with many recent divorcées, she associates empty space with sadness, so she does anything she can to fill the vacuum her marriage left behind … even if the love isn’t hers and it pays in cash. Gradually Ellen finds comfort in her own independent space … but Nye doesn’t rush her there. He gives her room to meander, to goof up. After all, in real life who moves in a straight path?
  In “A Fully Imagined World,” Kyle constantly loses grasp on the things that make up the terra firma of his life: his job, his youth, his dignity (first when a former lover fails to recognize him, and again when an elderly man describes taking care of children as women’s work). When Kyle returns home vexed, it proves difficult not to share the frustration: “Kyle pushed the blanket off his shoulders; he wanted to feel cold and be able to complain about it. Somehow, he lost all sense of what it was that made him sit outside in the first place, what it was that hollowed and angered him about his life.”
  Nye again allots space for Kyle’s discontent to bloom on the page. The character stays outside, alone in the cold, too long. He feels frigid, but he stays. The early autumn leaves defacing his yard anger him. Gazing inside at his daughter brings him little relief.
  Nye’s patience helps his stories keep their relevance. In Strategies Against Extinction, he presents a collection of modest narratives, elegantly written, mostly in third person. He makes no effort to distract the reader with bewitching showmanship, bypassing overbearing voice and too-showy verbiage. This could be expected; even his website is clean-cut, well formed, easy to navigate. No wizard tricks here, nothing flashy or verbose. The author portrait? Classic black-and-white, serious, unassuming. Not Kodachrome.
  None of Nye’s stories take place in present day. He seeks timelessness. We get period through context clues: a radio pundit speaks of his time in the war, a projectionist at the movie theatre works with film. Facebook would easily have remedied Kyle’s awkward run-in with his former flame in “A Fully Imagined World,” but he doesn’t have Facebook. He remains forgotten, left by the wayside.
  The fact that these stories take place at least five years in the past lends them a longer shelf-life. Nye’s choice certainly makes his point. The best strategy against extinction? Embrace our own realities.
  Some things will never change.
  Laura Straub is a contributor at Vouchedbooks.com and the Vicereine of Vouched Books Atlanta. Her work may also be read at Purge Atlanta, Creative Loafing Atlanta, and Loose Change Magazine.

• The Columbus Dispatch
  http://www.dispatch.com/entertainmentlife/20180211/book-review--all-castles-burned-ohio-state-grad-subtly-amps-up-dread-in-teen-centered-novel
  Word count: 563

  QUOTE:
  It’s a quietly brutal story, anchored in the everyday while hinting at dark paths there for the taking.

  Michael Nye’s rich, unsettling first novel follows teenager Owen Webb, who is growing up isolated and confused in Cincinnati in the 1990s.
  Owen, bright and troubled, is a freshman at Rockcastle, attending the “pristine, elegant private day school” on a scholarship.
  He’s out of touch with his old friends, who are well on their way to careers in petty crime, and he can’t bridge the gap between his middle-class life and the lives of the privileged young men of Rockcastle. They talk in what seems to him to be code, vacation at Vail or in Europe, and take for granted that they will be attending Ivy League colleges.
  Then, practicing his basketball moves by himself in a deserted gym, he meets Carson Bly.
  Carson, casually wealthy and two years older than Owen, takes him on as a protege, practicing basketball with him to the point where Owen is soon playing with the varsity squad, and introducing him to life in Cincinnati’s fast lane.
  Carson, as the other kids on the squad warn Owen, has a dark side.
  “Bad wiring or something,” one says. “There’s a part of that guy that just isn’t there.”
  Carson isn’t the only guy in Owen’s life with a sociopathic edge.

  • “All the Castles Burned” (Turner Publishing Company, 352 pages, $17.99) by Michael Nye
  Owen’s father, who works at Procter & Gamble, frequently blows up without warning at his wife and only child. It gradually becomes clear to Owen that his father is hiding a secret life that will break apart the family.
  Nye, who went to Ohio State University and now lives in Clintonville, has a clear sense of the tensions bound up in his males, and of the contained violence always ready to be released through sports or fighting.
  Precisely detailed descriptions of Owen’s role in several basketball games provide insight into minute changes in his mental and emotional states. Basketball fans will be able to follow the action, while those less involved with the game can observe its effects on Owen.
  Anger and fear dominate the lives of the characters. The novel plays subtle variations on the theme of dread, which subtly amps up as the story reaches its climax.
  A lot of that dread stems from Owen’s recognition that he doesn’t know crucial details about even the people he feels closest to. He can’t get past the boundaries that class casually sets between him and Carson, and later, between him and Carson’s sister, with whom he becomes involved. And as much as he wants to understand his father, he can’t ask about his father’s past or present without the threat of punishment.
  Owen’s parents are particularly well-crafted characters, never falling into caricature. The reader sees them as the adolescent Owen does, but also as they might be viewed from outside by someone less tangled in their lives.
  It’s a quietly brutal story, anchored in the everyday while hinting at dark paths there for the taking.
  margaretquamme@hotmail.com

  By Margaret Quamme
  Posted Feb 11, 2018 at 5:00 AM

• Foreword Reviews
  https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/all-the-castles-burned/
  Word count: 399

  QUOTE:
  A gripping bildungsroman that leaves many intriguing questions about trauma unanswered, All the Castles Burned is a powerful and poignant tale of human resilience.
  All the Castles Burned
  Michael Nye
  Turner Publishing (Feb 13, 2018)
  Softcover $17.99 (352pp)
  978-1-68336-760-4
  Emotional but never sentimental, All the Castles Burned contrasts privilege with working-class struggles for a gripping story of human resilience.
  All the Castles Burned by Michael Nye is a coming-of-age story that is as painful as it is touching.
  The novel focuses on teenager Owen Webb’s formative years. He is the son of working-class parents but scores a scholarship to the prestigious Rockcastle Preparatory Academy. His school experience is troubled, filled with fights and anger. As the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that his deep-rooted issues emanate from his distant and judgmental father and inconsistent mother.
  When Owen meets rich and popular Carson Bly and joins Rockcastle’s basketball team, he starts to feel like he might finally belong. However, Carson’s privileged life has a dark side. When a shocking revelation rocks Owen’s family, he realizes that nothing is what it seems.
  The book takes a deep look at emotional holes that form early in life. Against an atmosphere of looming disaster, Owen’s life is irrevocably changed by his relationship with Carson. Woven through his interactions with the older boy are empty and troubling snapshots of a home life that provided none of the security Owen so desperately needs.
  As his parents’ marriage crumbles at an ever-quickening pace, Owen looks for refuge in his mysterious friendship and acceptance in a family that may just be more troubled than his own.
  Owen may be troubled, but his charming toughness permeates the book and prevents it from becoming too gloomy or hopeless. His attempts to define who he is in an increasingly unstable world are as sharply realistic as they are heartbreaking.
  Emotional but never sentimental, All the Castles Burned contrasts privilege with working-class struggles and examines what it means to be raised by parents who, due to their own wounds, simply cannot be there for their children.
  A gripping bildungsroman that leaves many intriguing questions about trauma unanswered, All the Castles Burned is a powerful and poignant tale of human resilience.
  Reviewed by Angela Woltman
  January/February 2018

• Necessary Fiction
  http://necessaryfiction.com/reviews/StrategiesAgainstExtinctionByMichaelNye
  Word count: 1202

  QUOTE:
  Ultimately, what propels this collection is the urgency to survive every type of calamity: career uncertainty, loss of a home, physical combat, divorce, and death of a loved one. The strategies Nye’s characters employ are as complex and varied as the wondrous species presently roaming the earth.

  BOOK REVIEWS · 06/02/2013
  Strategies Against Extinction by Michael Nye
  Reviewed by Ursula Villarreal-Moura

  Queen’s Ferry Press, 2012
  Most discussions about extinction usually include a list of now mythical animals: the dodo bird, the mammoth, dinosaurs, and others. What if the list instead enumerated defunct professions, lost traditions, ruptured relationships, and insignificant towns and dissolved countries? In his debut story collection Strategies Against Extinction, Michael Nye depicts nostalgia and storytelling as fragile arts threatened by extinction and the family unit as a morphing organism capable of adaptation. Comprised of eight short stories and one novella, Nye’s narratives, set in Cincinnati, Boston, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and as far away as Ukraine, further examine the notion of belonging and second chances.

  In “The Re-Creationist” and “A Fully Imagined World,” Nye presents imagination as a necessary vehicle for escape as well as a dangerously convincing trap. In the first story, set in 1952, Don, a radio baseball re-creationist announcer, learns his job is being terminated. Instead of broadcasting these somewhat fictionalized accounts of games, management has decided baseball announcers will now report the games live from the stadiums. When Don begs his boss to allow him the chance to prove himself in this capacity, he is told:

  What your best at is making things up, being a storyteller. You aren’t as good with what’s literal, what’s on the field in front of you.

  Don’s existence is rooted in the past when life had purpose and success seemed imminent. Likewise, Kyle, in “A Fully Realized World,” is haunted by his memory of Serena, a woman with whom he had a fleeting romantic encounter years ago. Trapped at home caring for his temperamental child, Kyle daydreams of his lost freedom and the infinite possibilities life offered him as a single, unfettered man. After a trip to the local museum with his daughter goes awry, Kyle realizes how poisonous his desires are and previews the devastation caused by such futile longing.

  Another theme Nye explores in many of the stories is belonging. His characters struggle to belong in their towns, within their families, and in their professional careers. In “Projection,” Monica is torn between wanting to be far from her hometown and its ugly water tower, while still craving the comfort of her mother. Eventually she realizes she doesn’t belong in Ohio, and this knowledge is freeing but also bittersweet. In “A Surgeon’s Story,” Leonard wonders if he’ll fit in among the other surgeons once he returns from an unpaid suspension. He fears his act of aggression towards a medical student has blurred the line between his ability to destroy and save a life.
  Several stories in the collection examine the idea of second chances, particularly as they pertain to houses and enemies. In “Utility Room” and “Keep,” Nye skillfully portrays houses as characters capable of transformation. In the first story, Ellen, newly divorced, decides to rent the utility room in the home she once shared with her husband to a couple having an affair. The habits of her new guests—their tidiness and tendency to leave the window of their room open—help her to view her home through a new lens of possibility. Similarly, in “Keep,” the narrator seems to subconsciously compare the warmth of his childhood home with the austere, museum-like atmosphere of his current house. While now wealthy and living in a house he always dreamed of, he fears the empty rooms and the ominous ambiance. One night when arriving home with his daughter, he notes:

  All the windows of our house were black, and when the garage door rose, shining light on us from such a cavern, it felt as if we were travelers being devoured by some great sea monster, never to be heard from again.

  Friends turned enemies also pose threats. In “Sparring Vladimir Putin,” David Joyce, former mayor of Ohio, duels not once but twice with the Russian leader. Hungover and dehydrated, Joyce defeats his opponent only to find himself facing a rematch. Both men are determined to kill each other despite the friendship they had previously forged. Nye leaves it to the reader to decide who will reign victorious. In many ways, the champion himself pales compared to the actual challenge for a new outcome.

  The most fascinating concept Nye tackles in the collection is the constantly evolving family unit. Nearly every type of family is represented: from the traditional model of two parents and a child, to a daughter and mother pairing, a stay-at-home dad whose wife is the breadwinner, a sister mourning the loss of her brother, two sons dealing with the absence of their mother and the declining health of their father, and a man who realizes his mentally ill brother and daughter are all the family he has and needs. What is extinct, or at least rare, in Nye’s world is the harmonious nuclear unit. The narrator of “Keep” is cognizant of the odd dynamic occurring within his family:

  In time, however, [my wife] did become aware that I wanted this emotional separation from her; I wasn’t just helping ease the burden of raising a daughter but also keeping Catherine away from her mother. This new awareness created a paranoia based on a certain amount of truth. Gretchen believed we thought she was cold, callous, distant, and she acted on this belief until it became true, her own vertiginous, self-fulfilling prophecy.

  What do familial obligations mean when a husband no longer loves his wife, when one brother is completely dependent on another, or when ambition overrides all bonds? Surprisingly, in Strategies Against Extinction, those who succeed are not necessarily the strongest but rather the most humane and compassionate.

  Ultimately, what propels this collection is the urgency to survive every type of calamity: career uncertainty, loss of a home, physical combat, divorce, and death of a loved one. The strategies Nye’s characters employ are as complex and varied as the wondrous species presently roaming the earth.

  +++

  Michael Nye is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. His stories are forthcoming or have recently appeared in Boulevard, Crab Orchard Review, New South, Sou’wester, and South Dakota Review, among others. He is the managing editor of The Missouri Review. Discover more about Michael and his writing on his personal site, mpnye.com.
  +

  Ursula Villarreal-Moura is a writer, book reviewer, and editor. Her work has appeared in CutBank, Emerson Review, The Fiddleback, NAP, Toska, Black Heart Magazine, and elsewhere. She recently received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and is an assistant editor for Cream City Review and a senior editor for No Tokens Journal.
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