Demons In The Spring by Joe Meno

If there was ever a collection that I have wanted so passionately to be both a staggering bestseller and a quiet, hushed secret all at once, it is this one by Chicago writer Joe Meno. It feels so special that I’d love to keep it all to myself, tucked down with me under the covers. That’s not how this works though.

Demons In The Spring, Meno’s second batch of published shorts, is the kind of book found in trunks, pulled out from beneath a lacy doily of cobwebs in some grandparental attic. That is to say it consists of stories that will easily last for years. It’s one you’ll want to save in a safe place and treat kindly, treat well, even as you read and re-read its contents.

I haven’t been more creatively inspired by a writer in the past two years than I have been by Demons in the Spring. The often surreal stories include everything from a wife who becomes a cloud every time her husband touches her (“People Are Becoming Clouds”) to the painful process a couple faces after suffering a miscarriage (“I Want the Quiet Moments of a Party Girl”) and the story of a famous miniature elephant (“Miniature Elephants Are Popular”). Each tale exists in a world I have always, somewhere, imagined as real. I connect to Meno’s style, and certainly count him as a great influence in my own writing.

In short: Demons is brilliant. It also features “twenty original pieces of art by twenty different groundbreaking visual artists.” The limited first-edition of the book is bound in a red wine fabric and reminds me of an old library book. It is beautiful, guys. “An Apple Could Make You Laugh” is my most favorite story in the collection, followed by “The Unabomber and My Brother,” which made me cry.

Go below the fold to see my most favorite piece of art from the book. It’s by Geoff Mcfetridge.