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Roses Are Red, Violets Are Stealing Loose Change from My Pockets While I Sleep
In his previous collection, Not Quite so Stories, David S. Atkinson twisted reality with small absurdities. Roses are Red, Violets are Stealing Loose Change from my Pockets While I Sleep leaves sanity completely behind, pondering modern life through surreal humorous flash fiction involving Margaret Thatcher, jam appearing in boxers overnight, Gene Roddenberry, and more.
256 pages, Paperback
First published June 30, 2018
2 people are currently reading
42 people want to read
About the author
David S. Atkinson
12 books146 followersDavid S. Atkinson is the author of books such as "Roses are Red, Violets are Stealing Loose Change from my Pockets While I Sleep" (forthcoming July 1, 2018), "Apocalypse All the Time," and the Nebraska book award winning "Not Quite so Stories." He is a Staff Reader for "Digging Through The Fat" and his writing appears in "Spelk," "Jellyfish Review," "Thrice Fiction," "Literary Orphans," and more. His writing website is http://davidsatkinsonwriting.com/.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
July 13, 2018
I was lucky enough to get an advance copy and blurb this bad boy. Here it is:
"Brace yourselves, fair readers, because [Roses are Red, Violets are Stealing Loose Change from my Pockets While I Sleep] is one weird ride. David S. Atkinson’s stories don’t just walk the fine line between satire and surrealism, they dance on top of it while juggling knives. From the hilarious titles, to their far-out premises, to the noodle-like leaps of logic that dictates how each of these micro-universes function: this collection of flash fiction is a cannonade of well-crafted absurdity."
Suffice it to say I LIKED THIS BOOK!
"Brace yourselves, fair readers, because [Roses are Red, Violets are Stealing Loose Change from my Pockets While I Sleep] is one weird ride. David S. Atkinson’s stories don’t just walk the fine line between satire and surrealism, they dance on top of it while juggling knives. From the hilarious titles, to their far-out premises, to the noodle-like leaps of logic that dictates how each of these micro-universes function: this collection of flash fiction is a cannonade of well-crafted absurdity."
Suffice it to say I LIKED THIS BOOK!
December 7, 2018
Short, sweet, scatological and superlative - David S. Atkinson’s collection of flash fiction stories offers a reading experience like no other. Incorporating a vast array of pop culture references from throughly the high/low brow spectrum and drawing from an impressively eclectic imagination that blends absurdism with astute observational humor, this is a fun and entertaining book that showcases the flash format very well!
December 11, 2018
Shake it up, stir it up, mix it up … go ahead and hit that button all the way over there on the right. The one past grind and blend. Yes, puree. Toss all those words and ideas in the glass container, make sure the rubber lid is snugly secured, and lean on that power button with all you’ve got.
The stories in "Roses are Red, Violets Are Stealing Loose Change from My Pockets While I Sleep" give you that feeling that anything goes. No, it’s not a feeling. It’s a fact. Anything does, indeed, go. The stories are free-floating, free-form, and fun. Words dance, ideas bounce off each other like ping-pong balls on speed, and bold associations fly in your face at warp speed.
There are more than a hundred entries in this collection of stories, but check your definition of ‘story’ before you leave the copyright page. These are idea bombs mixed with characters sketches loosely tossed with Hunter S. Thompon’s worst fever dreams after spending an hour on the psychiatrist’s couch under the nonsensical questioning of The Cheshire Cat. With a slightly different approach toward punctuation and white space, some of these “stories” could be turned into edgy poetry.
The bottom line? They are enormously fun to read and very well written. David S. Atkinson has a comedian’s timing and a playful vocabulary, though you may want to dip in every now and then. Read back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to (well you get the idea), you might feel overwhelmed, like glugging cream when you’re used to sipping low-fat milk.
Examples?
In “Eternal Insult Comics and Postal Forwarding Claim Forms,” the Apocalypse arrives in the mail. “A few thought about sending it back, marking the addressee deceased and leaving it on their porches again, but there were no longer any postal carriers to claim it.”
In “My Degree in Topatrical Surgery Won’t Stop Vin Diesel From Repossessing my Spleen,” the future involves living on a genetically modified green bean plantation with beans that develop sentience “so they can serve us, satisfying our every chicken-related whim.” This brief story references Norman Rockwell, Richard Marx, M&M packets, Times Square, the Lesser Antilles, George Foreman, Chilean anti-rebels, Little Rock, Marisa Tomei, and Lady Gaga.
In “Exxon Stole my Oatmeal” (the shortest title here?) a pavement crack at a bus stop yields crude oil and our narrator decides to call, of course, the Republican National Committee. But the RNC is getting out of oil because “there was so much bad press. They were going into solar and wind just as soon as they could figure out how to lock down rights on the weather and the sun.”
The titles alone offer smiles. “Keebler Elves Live in Hollow Tress and Can Really Gum Up a Chainsaw.” Or “Polident Commercials for Indentured Servitude.” (Ouch.) Or one of my favorite stories, “Willy Wonka Spent More Time in OSHA Hearings Than Making Candy,” a story that never mentions OSHA but does find its way, in eight quick paragraphs, to reference Daryl Hannah, Peter Boyle, Sherlock Holmes (actually, his deaf brother), and “Marty Feldman commemorative chafing dishes.” Reading these, at times, feels very much like the world we live in today, text-Twitter-Instragram-MSNBC-Netflix-Facebook shrapnel flying our way all day long.
Writers looking for a jolt of stylistic jazz or looking to loosen up the synapses and give the tired old image bank a fresh infusion of goods, keep this volume handy.
Readers looking for an amusing smile every now and then, and a glimpse inside a keen and active imagination, keep Roses are Red (etc). within easy reach.
The stories in "Roses are Red, Violets Are Stealing Loose Change from My Pockets While I Sleep" give you that feeling that anything goes. No, it’s not a feeling. It’s a fact. Anything does, indeed, go. The stories are free-floating, free-form, and fun. Words dance, ideas bounce off each other like ping-pong balls on speed, and bold associations fly in your face at warp speed.
There are more than a hundred entries in this collection of stories, but check your definition of ‘story’ before you leave the copyright page. These are idea bombs mixed with characters sketches loosely tossed with Hunter S. Thompon’s worst fever dreams after spending an hour on the psychiatrist’s couch under the nonsensical questioning of The Cheshire Cat. With a slightly different approach toward punctuation and white space, some of these “stories” could be turned into edgy poetry.
The bottom line? They are enormously fun to read and very well written. David S. Atkinson has a comedian’s timing and a playful vocabulary, though you may want to dip in every now and then. Read back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to (well you get the idea), you might feel overwhelmed, like glugging cream when you’re used to sipping low-fat milk.
Examples?
In “Eternal Insult Comics and Postal Forwarding Claim Forms,” the Apocalypse arrives in the mail. “A few thought about sending it back, marking the addressee deceased and leaving it on their porches again, but there were no longer any postal carriers to claim it.”
In “My Degree in Topatrical Surgery Won’t Stop Vin Diesel From Repossessing my Spleen,” the future involves living on a genetically modified green bean plantation with beans that develop sentience “so they can serve us, satisfying our every chicken-related whim.” This brief story references Norman Rockwell, Richard Marx, M&M packets, Times Square, the Lesser Antilles, George Foreman, Chilean anti-rebels, Little Rock, Marisa Tomei, and Lady Gaga.
In “Exxon Stole my Oatmeal” (the shortest title here?) a pavement crack at a bus stop yields crude oil and our narrator decides to call, of course, the Republican National Committee. But the RNC is getting out of oil because “there was so much bad press. They were going into solar and wind just as soon as they could figure out how to lock down rights on the weather and the sun.”
The titles alone offer smiles. “Keebler Elves Live in Hollow Tress and Can Really Gum Up a Chainsaw.” Or “Polident Commercials for Indentured Servitude.” (Ouch.) Or one of my favorite stories, “Willy Wonka Spent More Time in OSHA Hearings Than Making Candy,” a story that never mentions OSHA but does find its way, in eight quick paragraphs, to reference Daryl Hannah, Peter Boyle, Sherlock Holmes (actually, his deaf brother), and “Marty Feldman commemorative chafing dishes.” Reading these, at times, feels very much like the world we live in today, text-Twitter-Instragram-MSNBC-Netflix-Facebook shrapnel flying our way all day long.
Writers looking for a jolt of stylistic jazz or looking to loosen up the synapses and give the tired old image bank a fresh infusion of goods, keep this volume handy.
Readers looking for an amusing smile every now and then, and a glimpse inside a keen and active imagination, keep Roses are Red (etc). within easy reach.
August 28, 2018
An absurd delight!
May 10, 2019
I love this book. It's one of those that you can pick up and read any piece of flash fiction and chuckle to yourself. I am pretty sure I am going to read this one through quite a few times. The author is just hilarious and some of the weird stuff he comes up with made me laugh all throughout the day when something would remind me of the passage. I look forward to reading more of this guys work.
May 16, 2018
Short stories are always tricky beasts, with how tough they are to write in direct proportion to their length. That is why it can be so great to read a collection of very short stories that offers up laughter, great prose, and wild absurdities that bring into focus the very real ones we live with every day.
There are lots of laugh-out-loud moments. There are some sentences that you will not expect to see, such as "The elephants threatened to post pictures of the shoes naked online for everyone to see." ("Missy Wore a White Skirt with Pantyhose and I can't Handle Shoes Right Now"). I mean...how can you not laugh? The long titles, too, help cement this collection right into the tongue-firmly-in-cheek genre.
There is a good sense of pacing in these pieces of flash-fiction. The author does a good job of dropping us into the world of the narrator in each story, using just a few words to do it, before launching us into bizarre scenarios where searching for stamps that Publisher's Clearing House pasted in your organs or cutting out wooden shapes from your old elementary school floors seems logical and doable. Each story makes you shake your head and frown and laugh and keep turning the pages.
There are lots of laugh-out-loud moments. There are some sentences that you will not expect to see, such as "The elephants threatened to post pictures of the shoes naked online for everyone to see." ("Missy Wore a White Skirt with Pantyhose and I can't Handle Shoes Right Now"). I mean...how can you not laugh? The long titles, too, help cement this collection right into the tongue-firmly-in-cheek genre.
There is a good sense of pacing in these pieces of flash-fiction. The author does a good job of dropping us into the world of the narrator in each story, using just a few words to do it, before launching us into bizarre scenarios where searching for stamps that Publisher's Clearing House pasted in your organs or cutting out wooden shapes from your old elementary school floors seems logical and doable. Each story makes you shake your head and frown and laugh and keep turning the pages.
September 10, 2018
Full Review
Roses Are Red, Violets Are Stealing Loose Change from My Pockets While I Sleep is an entertaining and hilarious collection of totally absurd short fiction. Atkinson shows what the form of flash fiction really is capable of. He fits more substance in one page than many writers can fit in ten. This book will upend many people's expectations of what fiction is supposed to be, but that's all the more reason to recommend it.
Roses Are Red, Violets Are Stealing Loose Change from My Pockets While I Sleep is an entertaining and hilarious collection of totally absurd short fiction. Atkinson shows what the form of flash fiction really is capable of. He fits more substance in one page than many writers can fit in ten. This book will upend many people's expectations of what fiction is supposed to be, but that's all the more reason to recommend it.
December 8, 2018
Flash fiction which covered surreal, real and otherwise
July 31, 2018
David S. Atkinson’s imagination is a beast unleashed! The stories in Roses are Red, Violets are Stealing Loose Change from My Pockets While I Sleep are bizarre and hilarious, taking us into a highly peculiar landscape with scenarios that leave me wondering: Where does he come up with this stuff? Narrated with his signature intellectual deadpan (think “straight man”) and featuring labyrinthian titles that unroll all the way to near slapstick, Atkinson leads us from one outlandish situation to the next without flinching, apologizing, or justifying.
June 15, 2018
Funny. Evil. Funny.
November 2, 2018
These stories are addictive. I think it’s the titles. How can you resist reading “Extreme Couponing Can Yield a Month’s Worth of Existential Dread for Less than Three Dollars Canadian”? Or “Deliberately Missing Henry Kissinger.”
The stories are all short, but packed with calories so you need to pace yourself.
Excellent work.
The stories are all short, but packed with calories so you need to pace yourself.
Excellent work.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews