107 pages
Published 2021
Read from October 5 to October 6
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
It's been a bit since I read what might be termed artsier, more literary prose. This novella begins dense, making you navigate a wall of backstory that vanishes in wisps of abstruse prose the moment you try to find a fingerhold. I struggled with it, but that's on me as a reader, out of practice as I am; Rocklyn's way with words is considerable. When we finally settle into the immediate perspective of our narrator, the prose becomes fiercely, almost frightfully embodied, a subcutaneous experience of muscle, salt, urine, breath, and heaving bone.
As with so many novellas I've read recently, I think Flowers could have benefitted from an additional 20-30 pages, particularly to help pace out and expand upon the whirlwind beginning. Even so, there is no denying the magnificence that Rocklyn achieves even in this brief space.
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