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CAPP ROAD · MATT BORCZON
$10.00
Capp Road is a brutal, unflinching portrait of small town America. Here, Matt Borczon trains his laser-focus upon the claustrophobic, suffocating, sinking feeling of not being able to escape the nowhere fate that threatens, at every turn, to capture us like bugs under glass. What makes this book work, really work at a fundamental level, is Borczon’s minimalistic storytelling approach. The broken characters that wander Capp Road are neither good nor bad – they simply are. They are doing the best they can with the fucked-up situation they were born into. Their hopes, dreams, fears, stories, and journeys through madness and redemption, through Borczon’s trademark smashed-up sentence narrative, becomes ours. Capp Road is not a book to be read – it is meant to be ingested, injected, scraped from under our fingernails and shaken off like dust. This book is a triumph.
Wolfgang Carstens, Epic Rites Press
| Weight | 5 oz |
|---|
Read excerpts
RICK
Rick was
new to
the family
had been
with Jenny
only a
few months
so when
the kids
wanted to
keep the
litter of
kittens born
to their
barn cat
he was
happy to
say yes.
After the
first one
got sick
they begged
him to
take them
all to
the vet
but he
told them
to go
play outside.
They both
heard the
gun shots
and Kim
told me
later that
she never
forgot the
look on
Rick’s face
that night
as he
sat there
downing shots
of whiskey
trying not
to cry
the pistol
still in
his lap.
Capp Rd.
is full
of shit
smelling
cow farms
and there
are dead
animals
everywhere
because the
kids drive
the dirt
roads like
there’s no
tomorrow
maybe its
because their
closest
neighbors
are miles
away or
maybe it’s
to create
the illusion
that their
lives are
going
farther than
the local
university
that their
lives are
going
anywhere
other than
here.
DEBIE
everyone
thought she
would end
up with
Eddie
but even
she called
him old
farmer Ed
and she
laughed at
the train
conductors hat
he wore
when ever
we would
walk up
Capp road
if there
was a
dead animal
she’d punch
me in
the arm
and yell
hold your
breath
and run
so death
can’t get
inside.
About the Author
Matthew Borczon is a nurse and Navy sailor from Erie, Pa. He has published four books of poetry, A Clock of Human Bones (Yellow Chair Review), Battle Lines (Epic Rites Press), Ghost Train (Weasel Publishing), Sleepless Nights and Ghost Soldiers (Grey Boarders), and The Smallest Coffins are the Heaviest(Epic Rites Punk Chapbook). He was a recipient of the Emerging Artist Grant in his hometown of Erie, Pa. He was nominated for a Pushcart and a Best of the Net for poetry in 2016.
Interviews, Reviews, Media
Copyright © 2017 Matt Borczon
Cover photograph by Jay Miner
ISBN 978-0-9991882-4-8
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.
