"Timothy Willis Sanders has style and nowhere is that more apparent than in the nine stories found in Orange Juice. Reading them is like watching secret footage of unremarkable people in unremarkable moments—you watch and at first you don't know why you cannot look away, but then, as one moment folds into another, you start to feel like you know the people you're watching. You start to care. When you read this fantastic, almost obsessive collection, you will keep wanting to know what happens next. You will care." - Roxane Gay "Timothy Willis Sanders’s Orange Juice is the second release from Awesome Machine, a sideline of the well-established Publishing Genius, and the remit for the little brother press is specific. Through short runs (125) of interesting projects, without all the hassle of a proper launch, and lots of freebie discussion copies floating around, it’s no-nonsense fiction that’s supposed to be more fun to make, read and talk about. So is it? I wouldn’t say Orange Juice was more fun to read than anything else I’ve read recently, but it was great fiction. So if it works for Adam Robinson and Timothy Willis Sanders, it works for me. Orange Juice comprises 9 short stories. Most of them study a familiar dynamic, (parents/children/friends/partners) in apparent freefall, photographing it in such slow motion that you start to question whether it’s moving at all. Reflecting its title, the writing is delivered in vivid gulps. ‘Orange Juice itself is less than 2 pages long, but it still manages to offer a convincing portrayal of family life in what approaches a K-Mart realism vein. The short, stabbing descriptive sentences are literal and stilted, but tell you all you need to know. Such as when Bill crystalises a strained family environment in just 3 words: “Goddamn your son.” ‘Out there Dancing’ is shorter still, and even more “K-Mart” thanks to the supermarket setting, before ‘Cat Stuff’ provides one of the most substantial stories in the book, and the inspiration for the cover. In the story, Jared is a teenager going to a party at a friend’s house—a house filled with cat stuff. Again the writing is taut and full of great, short lines. In fact the pared down style brings more meaning the less there is. “He looked at the party.” And “I will. I just. I think people need to go soon.” The awkward teenage interaction seeps through lines that go out of their way not to try and describe it. Jared steals from a girl’s purse, and later from the host’s parent’s room, without reason. The final line aligns these acts with a fleeting vision of himself through the eyes of the girl he likes, but who never appears in the story. It’s a whisper of epiphany, behind a fog of teenage self-absorption and weed smoke, with a beautiful, paradoxical finality and openness. ‘Sweet Potatoes’ charts Keith’s trip to visit his girlfriend’s family for thanksgiving. Immersing himself in the new, very liberal family, his attempts to fit in provide more subtly cast insights. Ben came down the stairs. He scratched his beard. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. I thought, “No. I need to relax. I opened my eyes and said “G’morning” in a folksy way. The weather is constantly on his mind, and he checks reports on his home town alongside worrying about what time to call his mother and step-father, considering the prospect of them being wiped out by a tornado. It culminates in one of the best moments in the book, both in terms of understated dialogue and emotion, when he finally calls his mother. “I miss those sweet potatoes.” “Hmm.” “We didn’t have sweet potatoes. Even if we did I wouldn’t eat it.” “Ha. Hm.” “I’ll only eat the sweet potatoes you make. With the marshmallows.” “Haha. Okay.” The rhythm and atmosphere of the final lines are beautifully measured, and a high point in the book, which then seems to enter a new phase and direction. ‘You Have a Crush on Kellz’ features characters with the names of celebrities, who are evidently not those people, much like Tao Lin’s recent Richard Yates. The effect of layering an otherwise sparse teen story under the empty showbiz glamour of yesteryear R n’ B stars creates a far different result, a very clever one. The blingy entertainment universe of R Kelly and pals is mirrored in the mall-based multiplex cinema that the “normal” characters work and socialize in. Lines like - Funny—you remind me of my jeep, I want to ride it. - are really funny, and do feel simultaneously like something a kid might think, or R n’ B star might sing. The story is built around a tough guy vs little guy exchange, the title derived from the single attempt the main character – cinema employee “R Kelly” – has at being a tough, smooth guy himself, ultimately being intimidated and humiliated at the end. While the themes are clever, they require more extrapolation than the earlier stories, and don’t feel quite as satisfying. ‘Infinity Gauntlet’ is about an existential crisis for a girl trapped between a outgoing lover, Dan, and a secret new lover, also named Dan. The writing frequently focuses on tiny details she is looking at while procrastinating her delivery of the bad news, and it’s a realistic unreality, with a sense of looming awful duty. But there isn’t as much good character stuff as the early stories, and the same is even more true of ‘Vacation Time’ and ‘Driver License’, both of which retain the style but not the pangs of truth at the heart of the earlier stories. Dig deep in ‘Driver License’ and you’ll find a subtle study of attraction that is interesting, but a little too subtle for the rewards. The final story ‘Rue de Something’ is an atmospheric, slightly anxious journey through the streets of an unnamed French city. Always moving, encountering random objects and people, there are lots of “Rue” and lots of “something”. It’s fluid and fat, like the river the characters ride down, and more thematically broad than anything else in the book. There are more superb, minimal lines, like this, which starts a paragraph and comes out of nowhere: “I breathe and begin walking.” The pace and spirit lift in this story, a nice crescendo to the collection, and the attention to detail in the forecasting keeps the veering strands of narrative together. Outside a museum Michael sees a fountain with babies pissing in it and says: “This means something, I just don’t care what.” This feels apt, as the same could be said of certain moments in these stories. There is risk in writing in a way that’s so hard to pin down. Just as there is in publishing easy to acquire, fun stories – the risk that people don’t take it as seriously as they should. But the rewards are high too, and Orange Juice deserves to be a success for Awesome Machine. In no way is it lightweight fiction. Though it is playful and experimental, it should be taken seriously. Because when it’s good, it’s very good, and bears rereading. So grab a copy, read it, and talk about it. If you do, they might make some more." - Kirsty Logan
Read "You Have a Crush on Kells"
Timothy Willis Sanders, Matt Meets Vik, Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2014.
I have no idea how Timothy Willis Sanders is able to accumulate so many small reflections into such a mesmerizing mass. Matt Meets Vik makes maybe the most stripped-down paragraphs I've ever seen somehow hold a hundred thousand colors, emotions, tones, like if there were a website that made you forget all other websites ever existed, or that you're even still online. Hilarious, moving, insane, real."
--Blake Butler
"As I was reading Matt Meets Vik (and long after I’d finished), I couldn’t get the voice of ‘Matt’ out of my head, like it gave my inner monologue extra-charming-sounding subwoofers. Everything I did felt funnier and more important. There are only a few books that get in my head the way Matt Meets Vik has. This is one of my favorite books. I didn’t want it to end. I can see myself reading this many times.”—Megan Boyle
"Timothy Willis Sanders has replaced the need for food, water, and sleep with his literary genius. Matt Meets Vik > True love, world peace.”—Mira Gonzalez
I haven’t heard enough people talking about Timothy Willis Sanders’s new novel, Matt Meets Vik, either. This novel is amazing. When the term historical novel is used, I seldom think of this century, but that’s exactly what Sanders does in MMV. He’s evoking 2003 down to the most banal details. Take a look at these passages: “Matt said, ‘I’m going to call her soon,’ and pictured himself stuttering into the Nokia 5160. He watched Esme take off her Chuck Taylor Shoe and massage her foot. … he looked at the stars drawn on her Chuck Taylor shoes … He thought, ‘So Goth.'” So good! - Quincy Rhoads
I’ve always admired Timothy Willis Sanders’s ability to walk the line between the commonplace and the fantastic, within the frame of the everyday. So many authors either overwrite or dumb down their characters’ speech until you might as well be watching reality television. Timothy Willis Sanders bucks that trend, as you might have noticed when we published “You Have A Crush On Kells,” a story that somehow parses the bizarre persona of R. Kelly with that of a young man obsessing over a girl he meets while working the ticket window of a movie theater into something somehow unlike any story I’ve read before. How did he make the words: “You remind me of my jeep / I want to ride it” carry actual emotional weight?
Much of Sanders’s power comes from the way he wields unvarnished thought. His narration often meanders between non-sequitur observations that most writers would keep to themselves and clear, declarative impressions of people and places that don’t necessarily contribute to any concrete plot goal, but at the same time provide a unique ambient tone. By way of example, here’s a patently Sanders trio of sentences: ‘Matt parked the Isuzu Trooper. He thought, “My SUV,” and pictured George W. Bush saying, “Terrorism.” He stared at the Isuzu logo on the steering wheel and thought, “One term president. Or everything is over for humanity.”’ For once, I understand. There is something made apparent about existence simply through pairing cultural detritus with emotional tone, the redundancy of having to go on being a person every day surrounded by whatever you are surrounded by, looking for meaning.
Matt Meets Vik, coming out this month from Civil Coping Mechanisms, is Sanders’s first novel, and his fullest realization thus far of the modes of parsing such realities. Essentially the story of a blossoming relationship and the complications between humans inherent therein, again it works in a way no other realistic novel could, mashing up considerations of communication, food, existence, pornography, fast food, drugs, the internet, art, money, and countless other themes all in a voice by turns as even, honest, earnest, and hilarious as a reader could ask for. As always, it’s less about what happens as it is about how it’s told, and to me there’s no one else speaking quite like Tim Sanders. - Blake Butler
An Excerpt from Matt Meets Vik
Matt stared at Lady and Lady blinked her eyes. He ran his finger over her nose. He watched Lady guide his finger over her mouth.
Lady said, “Murr,” and Matt smiled.
Matt watched Vik walk into the bedroom. He looked at her red skin.
Vik said, “Fuck that bitch.”
Matt said, “What did she say?”
Vik said, “She said some shit about being everyone’s maid.”
Matt said, “I told you.”
Vik said, “I don’t care. I help that bitch. We should move out. Fuck this place.”
Matt said, “I help too,” and thought, “On her period.”
Vik said, “All her fat man does is sit around and smoke weed. And make those dumb songs.”
Matt said, “He gives us lots of weed. Are we going to this movie?” and scratched behind Lady’s ears.
Vik said, “Yes, yes. What time does it start?”
Matt read 1:19 p.m. on his Nokia 5160. He looked at Vik and said, “3:30.”
Vik said, “Okay, I’m going to run to the post office. I’ll be back.”
Matt pointed to the Isuzu Trooper keys on the dresser. He thought, “Passion of the Christ. Hurry up so we don’t get shitty seats.” He turned on the TV. He imagined Chantelle throwing a plate at Vik. He thought, “Chantelle is right. No one does shit around here. I don’t do shit. Vik pretends like she does shit but she doesn’t do shit.” He remembered looking at Vik and saying, “You have to promise never to touch it. You have to promise. Never again.” He remembered her saying, “I almost died. Of course. I’m not stupid.” He thought, “I don’t think you’re stupid. Does your father think you’re stupid?” He remembered her saying her father had disappeared when she was young. He pictured a Czech man with a large mustache drinking vodka. He smiled and poked at Lady’s belly. He watched Lady turn over and put her paws in the air.
Matt listened to a woman on TV say, “She’s smart. She doesn’t have to dress all...with all her stuff all hanging out everywhere...” He watched the audience point at the woman’s friend and say, “OOOOO.”
He watched the woman’s friend stand up and make poses in the camera. He thought, “She’s just jealous her friend gets more dudes. No, maybe her friend is attracting the wrong kind of dude.” He listened to the woman’s friend say, “Girl, don’t hate what I got. You know you just want all this,” and watched her move her hands over her body. He sensed pain and saw Lady kneading her claws into him.
Matt said, “Ow. Ow. Ow.”
Lady said, “Mew,” and blinked her eyes.
Matt read 1:42 p.m. on his Nokia 5160. He thought, “She promised she wouldn’t. She said she knew how dangerous it was.”
Matt pictured George Bush and switched to MSNBC. He saw Chris Matthews and thought, “No way we can elect this guy again?” He heard Chris Matthews say, “Swift Boat,” and thought, “Man, just telling lies.” He looked at Lady and thought, “But how do we know those old guys are lying? Why would they just bullshit the whole country like that?” He thought, “Passion” and pictured Mel Gibson pointing to a cross. He remembered sitting in church and drawing X-Men on the church program. He remembered the usher frowned and snatched the program from his hand. He sensed Lady nudging his hand. He looked at Lady and thought, “God, it was so much bullshit. Bullshit everywhere, in church, in government, on TV and in my life. Everywhere. The only thing real is you, Lady.” He ran his finger over Lady’s mouth. He watched her blink at him and fall on the pillow. He cupped his hand and rubbed her stomach. He listened to her purr. He looked at John Kerry on TV and thought, “What is wrong with this guy? What is his deal?” He pictured Droopy’s face and laughed. He thought, “Dean was the one with balls. I don’t know though. He’s too damn mad, I guess,” and pictured Hitler screaming and pumping his fist. He thought, “Folksy Hitler,” and heard the door open.
Vik looked around the room and said, “Okay, let’s go.”
Matt looked at Vik’s frown. He saw sweat on her forehead. He looked around the room and said, “Okay,” and kissed Lady’s head.
*
Matt walked across the parking lot. He looked at the Isuzu Trooper and thought, “Just watched a dude get beaten and murdered for two hours.” He looked at Vik and saw her walking and staring at the ground.Matt said, “Did you like it?”
Vik said, “No.”
Matt said, “It was just a dude getting beat for two hours. And then he’s murdered.” He pictured Mel Gibson slamming his shoulder against a file cabinet in the movie Lethal Weapon. He remembered his mom laughing when Danny Glover said, “I’m too old for this shit.” He thought, “I’m too old to believe in God. He’s a myth…like us,” and looked at Vik. He walked closer to Vik and tripped on a rock.
Matt said, “Whoops,” and smiled at Vik. He saw her look away. He looked at the Isuzu Trooper and took out his keys. He unlocked her door and watched her get into the Isuzu Trooper. He walked to his door and thought, “She’s not saying anything.”
Matt said, “Should we eat?” and put the key in the ignition.
Vik said, “Not hungry.”
Matt thought, “Distant, okay” and looked at her jaw line. He turned the key and said, “You sure.”
Vik said, “Yes. I said I’m not. I’m not.”
Matt thought, “Damn, okay?” and saw rain on the windshield. He thought, “Jesus gets beat and murdered. Now she’s pissed off. The weather sucks. I didn’t do anything.”
Matt said, “Are you okay?” and remembered her saying, “Stop asking me if I’m ok.”
Vik said, “Yeah.”
Matt pictured the ocean and palm trees waving in Cozumel. He remembered the man with the yellow bucket and thought, “Okay. Well, I’m hungry.” He looked at Vik and saw sweat on her forehead.
*
Matt licked ice cream off his spoon and sensed pain in his tooth. He looked at three mannequins wearing shirts that read Dave’s Ice Cream.Vik said, “I’m excited. I really like those apartments.”
Matt said, “Me too.” He looked at tiny holes on a vein running along Vik’s wrist. He thought, “Motherfucker. Motherfucker.”
Vik said, “I think Lady will like it. It’s not too small,” and put ice cream in her mouth.
Matt said, “Yeah,” and thought, “Motherfucker. What am I doing?” He looked at the tiny holes.
Matt looked out to the street. He saw a girl in running shorts walking a Corgi puppy. He watched the Corgi’s legs and tail. He looked at the Corgi’s face and saw the Corgi look back at the girl. He looked at the girl’s running shorts and thought, “She’s never had to deal with heroin ever.”
Matt pointed at Vik’s wrist and said, “What is that?” He saw Vik look at her wrist and sensed heat in his body.
Vik said, “From that night.”
Matt said, “Really?”
Vik said, “Yes, I swear. They’re from that night.”
Matt said, “I don’t want to get a place with you if you’re going to keep doing that shit. I don’t. I won’t,” and thought, “No.”
Vik said, “It’s not,” and smiled.
Matt said, “Okay,” and looked away. He thought, “I don’t know how long ago it was really. Maybe it takes long to heal. I don’t know.”
Matt whipped his ice cream with his spoon. He stared at the Oreo chunks in the ice cream. He sensed pain in his teeth and heard his stomach grumble. He put ice cream on his spoon and his spoon in his mouth.
Vik said, “You think Lady will like the place?”
Matt said, “I think so. I can build her a little post with carpet for scratching.” He looked at Vik’s eyes and thought, “I can’t build things.”
Matt said, “I can’t build things. But I’m going to try.”
Matt pictured Lucas and Eric coming over and helping him build. He pictured a cardboard tube and carpet. He pictured an orange Home Depot shopping cart.
Matt said, “I’m going to miss the weed.”
Vik said, “Me too,” and licked her spoon.
Matt said, “We need to think about bills.”
Vik said, “Already called. You have to set up the electricity. I can’t.”
Matt said, “Okay.”
Vik said, “My ex-husband fucked up my credit.”
Matt said, “Internet? I probably won’t have the money to buy a computer.”
Vik said, “You should email Steve. His friend sells laptops for cheap.”
Matt said, “Yeah? I can look at porn,” and laughed. He watched Vik look away and spoon ice cream into her mouth.
Matt said, “Just kidding.”
Vik said, “No you’re not,” and looked at the street.
Matt said, “No. We just need the internet.”
Matt heard a horn and saw the girl with the Corgi wave at a Honda Civic. He watched the Corgi sniff the air. He looked at his ice cream.
chapter 7 of Matt Meets Vik
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