Brent Salish’s Cry Baby Bridge story, Skinning Bone, leaves me feeling deeply unsettled. Through lush but harsh descriptions and characters so fully fleshed out I can smell the stale tobacco on their skin, he unfolds a story of the intense danger of want and the burden of talent.
About Skinning Bone: Musician Charli Enright promised she would give anything to write one more great song. Some promises cost more than we can bear.
What are you reading right now? I’m reading Solito, a harrowing memoir of coyotes and El Norte by Javier Zamora, and Poverty, by America, Matthew Desmond’s trenchant analysis of how we have – intentionally and otherwise – created and maintain structural barriers to economic independence. Next on my list: some book – any book! – that will help me teach our puppy to stop barking, or alternatively train me to accept it.
books/short stories/poems/publishing projects you have out in the world now. My short tale of medieval horror, “April, With Her Showers Sweet,” will be anthologized shortly by Sentinel Creatives. As far as novels, I’m putting the finishing touches on Octothorpe, my (loving) satire of the music industry.
What made you decide to write a story for Cry Baby Bridge: A collection of utter speculation? When we consider a bridge, we cannot help but think of what it crosses. But what if we didn’t understand why the bridge existed?
Did you grow up with a cry baby bridge legend? Is it something that affected you or was it a new story for you? The idea of such a legend was completely novel. But when I’m in New York, I love walking across the Queensboro Bridge and speculating on the lives of those beneath – in apartments, in boats, on the roads, on the baseball fields, and especially within one odd-shaped building where I still have no earthly clue what it’s for or why it was built like that!
What other projects are you working on? Where can we look for you next? I’m working on my novel The Precise Man. In London, 1604, Ned Tilney, the humorless Master of the Revels, is swept up in court intrigues and then accused of assaulting and murdering a local tavern-woman. His only hope lies in the brilliant insights of a man who detests him, who mocks him openly, and who may have set him up: Will Shakespeare.
To keep up with Brent check out http://BrentSalish.com
Photo by Dark Rider on Unsplash
LC W. Allingham 
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