A June Night in the Late Cenozoic: Stories

In his first collection of stories, Robert Allen explores a world outside the expectations and assumptions that guide us through day-to-day realism. The fourteen short stories here have little in common beyond the eclectism of the human imagination. Allen’s short fiction bears the influence of American writers like Robert Coover and Gabriel Sorrentino. From ‘Man on a Blue Moon,’ to the thoughtful title story that brings down the curtain, Allen uses witty premises to veer away from any foreseeable narrative line. Allen seems determined to illustrate art for art’s sake: the stories suggest rather than make connections to any world other than self-acknowledged mental constructs.