DESCENT in FIVE (motions)

Tobey Hiller's new stories are both timely and timeless in the tales they tell in soaring, lyrical language. Descent in Five (motions) leads us on a journey that encompasses dreams, myths, and meditative states, and which sometimes borders on nightmare, but never leaves us stranded. Repeating motifs of pursuit and escape by one's wit link many of the tales and add to their mythic quality. That is, mythlike with delicious twists. In an early story, a woman employs magic to elude an abusive spouse, although ultimately crediting herself, and in the last, the entrapped moon reaches a compromise with her kidnapper that results in the phases of the moon. There are sweet touches, such as a story (recipe included) of a couple frying potato chips at midnight, and terrifying moments, perhaps the most being when a menacing figure from the real world pursues a woman into her dreams. This retelling of Persephone's story concludes with a twist to the third-person narrative that illustrates how deftly Hiller blurs the lines between fiction and reality: "how many seeds have we eaten? Is there a door?" Hiller is a fabulist whose creativity blooms wildly "in the trembling gap between stories and lies."

- Mary McLaughlin Slechta, author of Mulberry Street Stories