Review of These Worn Bodies by Avitus B. Carle

Avitus B. Carle’s debut flash fiction collection, These Worn Bodies, published by Moon City Press is akin to an impressive snow globe collection you’d find in a great aunt’s attic. Each story is tightly crafted, creating a world with details that are as fine and purposeful as a pin-needle brush dotting the gleam in a ceramic man’s eyes. Reading each piece feels like being shrunken down and entering one of the miniature worlds. You can feel the snow falling onto your shoulders, hear the hum of the light from the house, and smell the cookies baking in the oven. However, in Carle’s stories it’s more often that you can feel the skin falling off of your zombie flesh, hear the voice of a peach tree, and smell the burning plastic of melting dolls. Carle’s flash collection is delightfully unique and lived in, leaving you with vertigo at the end of each story as you wonder how that life you lived was only three pages long.

Whether the story is about someone’s peach tree father, scarecrow brother, or soda pop exes, Carle creates worlds you can taste. This skill is on full display in “My Exes Show Up to Your Funeral While All I’m Craving is a Sunkist.” Imagining her past lovers as sodas, the narrator thinks of Sprite: “I don’t recognize him at first. One minute I’m sitting next to Dr. Pepper, and the next I’m sipping on the condolences of Sprite. The thank yous dance in the back of my throat, forming burps I try to swallow.” Different flavors splash the reader’s tastebuds as they move from ex to ex, making the story feel much more like it’s being read with a tongue than the eyes. 

Carle’s penchant for unique perspectives continues throughout her collection, resulting in what may be my favorite piece: “Close: A Father/Daughter Breakup Defined.” Already challenging our preconceived parent-child relationship expectations, Carle characterizes this tumultuous pair using different definitions of “close,” including “a short distance away” and “bring or come to an end,” alongside gut punching lines: “I ask if you still love me. You talk about loving the view. I ask if you still love me. You talk about cheesesteaks and Wendy’s salads. Watching icicles melt on the gutter.” Love and relationships, whether they’re familial, romantic, sexual, or platonic, are the core of this collection. Carle’s characterization of the connections between humans, animals, and objects remind the reader that the love we have for those around us is what makes life such a beautiful travesty to live. 

No matter how fantastical a piece’s concept, Carle excels at portraying beautifully human characters trying to make it through their reality. In “The King of Tent City,” Carle wastes no time in introducing the reader to her lovable narrator and their plight: “I’m in love with the King of Tent City, Chicago. Me, the woman sipping on gasoline.” I found myself falling in love with this character as they fell in love as well, all while learning the different tastes of gasoline. The narrator’s vibrance and sadness jumps off the page as this gasoline sipping person displays humanity’s desire for stability and companionship at its base form. The King of Tent City who stars opposite of the narrator is afforded just as much emotional depth. Carle perfectly captures what makes these characters so compelling and contradictory during an exchange on the second page of the narrative, “Then you expect me to abandon my people? I bite her skin to hide my anger because yes, I really do.” Carle’s ability to masterfully retell the age-old conflict of duty versus love in a unique and captivating way in just three pages is an incredible feat within itself. 

On top of this, throughout her collection, Carle tackles grief, identity, mental health, and love, young and old with fresh perspectives in bold narratives that proves Carle can make the wildest “What if?” feel grounded and undeniably full of human heart. Her ability to capture the same magic time and time again with each following story is what makes These Worn Bodies a worthy read for anyone ready to get their heart pulled in a million different directions. 

Book Review by Mar Prax

These Worn Bodies by Avitus B. Carle. Published November 2024 by Moon City Press. 209 pages. $14.95, paper.