So Different Now

In 2008, the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography was proud to kick off its new publishing program with the release of Ben Tanzer's Repetition Patterns, dark stories about childhood and twentysomething repercussions all set in a small town in upstate New York similar to the one where Tanzer grew up; and now CCLaP is equally proud to release part two of this story cycle, entitled So Different Now. Set in the same town where Repetition Patterns takes place, and sometimes featuring even the same characters from the first book, these stories instead mostly concern themselves with the issues facing these people as they enter middle-age, taking Tanzer's astute use of popular culture and his fondness for black plotlines to deliver a stunning meditation on aging, maturing, and the struggle to do the "right thing" in the face of sometimes not understanding what that even is. Sure to both delight and horrify in equal measures, these interconnected short pieces (nearly all of them originally published in various literary magazines in the three years leading up to this collection) easily have the capacity of getting under your skin in a deep and profound way, and you are guaranteed to remember their exquisite language and ambiguous morality for a long time to come. Download it for free at [cclapcenter.com/different].