Vincent Reusch
Author of
The Mercurial Science of the Human Heart
IN THE PRESS
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The Mercurial Science of the Human Heart catapults us into a world where imagination is real and real imaginary. Vincent Reusch is a prose trapese artist, defying gravity on a high wire, which only makes us more keenly aware of the threatening domestic landscape below, strewn with familial discord, missed phone calls, forgotten errands, the 'intimacy of bruised feelings' feuled by boxed wine. These stories chart lives that may sink beneath the weight of desire or soar into the sky in chase of comets.
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“Domestic relations are the beating heart of Vincent Reusch’s wise and graceful debut collection, but here the sworn union of lovers is not ‘the full catastrophe’ of certain male writers, but rather an Eden always vanishing behind us, a promise that human beings, because they are human, fail in an infinite number of ways. It takes rare maturity, both as a thinker and as a prose stylist, to do justice to the tragicomedy and deep mystery of this state of affairs, and that is Reusch’s accomplishment in The Mercurial Science of the Human Heart.”
JOHN SMOLENS, author of WOLF'S MOUTH and COLD
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The stories in this tightly written book begin in mid-flight—ascent, freefall, one doesn’t know yet, and before it’s clear, the energy kicks in, and as a reader you’re seized as the characters are, and swept along by the propulsive drive of life. The very power of that drive is what these stories are about, but in Vincent Reusch’s aptly titled The Mercurial Science of the Human Heart the commanding ride never outruns empathy for the human condition.
STUART DYBEK, author of ECSTATIC CAHOOTS and COAST OF CHICAGO
JAIMY GORDON, author of LORD OF MISRULE
Vincent Reusch is a magician, and the stories in The Mercurial Science of the Human Heart are like so many rabbits pulled from a hat. At once gorgeously written and enormously felt, they’re the kind of stories that remind us how vulnerable we are to the vagaries of love and loss. Sometimes hilarious and sometimes melancholy, Reusch is never anything less than exactly right about who we are. I already can’t wait for more from this exciting new voice.
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PETER GEYE, author of WINTERING
BIO
Vincent Reusch's fiction has appeared in a number of national literary journals including Gettysburg Review, Madison Review, and Alaskan Quarterly Review. His work has also been recognized in a number of contests including the DANA Award Portfolio Contest and the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. He lives with his wife and sons and teaches creative writing at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota.