BRIAN EVENSON by Blake Butler
Expansive, thrilling, attuned, and fearless are all adjectives that come to mind when thinking about the work of Brian Evenson, but so do prolific, generous, thoughtful, and kind. Both on the page and as a human, Evenson is the kind of author any person could aspire to follow in the wake of; I know I have, devouring each of his books not once but multiple times as soon as I can get my hands on them. This year marks the advent of two new works in this continuum: Immobility, a novel released on the legendary sci-fi label Tor, and, this summer, Windeye, Evenson’s newest collection of short fiction, a work as psychologically taut and recursively terrifying as anything he’s produced thus far. Recently, Brian and I talked on the phone, from Providence and Atlanta respectively, about the creation of Windeye as well as his process as a writer, both at the desk and away from it. — BLAKE BUTLER
Brian Evenson. Photo by Valerie Evenson. 72
FIRST PROOF