Proposals for the Recovery of the Apparently Drowned — Michael Sheehan

Fiction. Somewhere in Las Vegas, an agoraphobic is too preoccupied by a TBS marathon broadcast of Gilligan's Island to notice that a nuclear apocalypse transpires just outside his shuttered windows; a father unknowingly captures an unspeakable horror in the periphery of his camcorder footage while recording daughter's birthday party on his spanking-new RCA VBT200; a socialite is so embarrassed by breaking a heel that she would rather self-induce suspended animation than face possible ridicule from her friends. In his debut collection, Michael Sheehan's tales of obsession make the familiar strange and the strange familiar, recalling the staggering capacity of David Foster Wallace and presenting a fresh spin on the traditions of Barth and Barthelme, Gass and Gaddis.