Year of the Buffalo
Ernie and his brother, Scott, have never seen eye-to-eye—literally or figuratively. Scott’s a mountain of a man; Ernie’s a meek computer analyst with a shambles of a marriage, who never, ever answers the phone when his brother calls.
That all changes when Scott is introduced as the face of Go West!, a video game featuring his old wrestling persona, Mr. Bison. Now among the nouveau riche, Scott invites Ernie to come live with him and his pregnant wife, Holly, a teacher and aspiring diarist, on their new farm—complete with a living, breathing buffalo, Billy.
When the video-game producers call on Scott to help sell Go West!, Holly orchestrates an American road trip that sends the brothers eastward and into the less-traveled depths of their hearts and memories. What ensues is an episodic tale that examines themes of grief, sibling rivalry, ambition, and the repercussions of toxic masculinity as it follows the Isaacson brothers’ fumbling attempts to reestablish their childhood relationship—or what they wish that relationship had been.
In perfect tune with the complexities of modern communication and with a wry sense of humor, Aaron Burch’s epic debut novel, Year of the Buffalo, explores our stories—the ones we tell ourselves, the ones we tell each other, and the ones we might never tell at all.
“Year of the Buffalo is a brilliant testimony to how good Aaron Burch is, a perfect realization of what makes his writing so special. It manages that balance of tenderness and violence, finding beauty in the most unexpected places. At the heart of the novel, Burch looks closely at the nature of time, the way it pulls us backwards, then strands us in a present that we can’t quite understand, and then makes us a little afraid to imagine what kind of future awaits. But Burch knows how to control time, to make it tell the kind of story that matters, and this is a novel that, no lie, makes you want to be alive.”
— Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here
“From his nonchalantly spectacular premise (involving estranged brothers, grief, professional wrestling, a video game, and a buffalo!), Aaron Burch launches a poignant, past-haunted journey novel that takes the Isaacson boys both farther from and closer to an idea of home. On the road, punches are thrown and taken, masks are ditched and donned, and stories are swapped and stitched together. This is a novel of substance by a large-hearted writer, and it’s an auspicious start for American Buffalo Books.”
— Chris Bachelder, author of The Throwback Special
“In Year of the Buffalo, Aaron Burch brings his considerable talents to bear in subtle and heart-stringing scenes that tell the kind of story that lingers long after last call, of the catch and release of late-night nostalgia and the love and distance between brothers.”
— Amelia Gray, author of Gutshot
“Two brothers in a too-fancy rented SUV, driving towards Michigan and away from, what? Their past? Their avatars and alter egos? Their pet bison? All of the above? Year of the Buffalo by Aaron Burch is a poignant, searching tale of brotherhood and the personas we employ, both within the ring and without. It’s a book about memory and the past refreshingly devoid of easy nostalgia. It’s a book for anyone who’d pick Talking Heads as their walk-up song. It’s a book you should read.”
— Danny Caine, author of How to Resist Amazon and Why
“Year of the Buffalo excavates the complexity of sibling relationships among grown-up people with such a light hand— depths are probed, but told with an inviting immediacy; I felt myself leaning gladly into all these characters as they unpeeled and revealed on their roadtrip, metaphorical and real.”
— Aimee Bender, author of The Butterfly Lampshade
Stephen King’s The Body
A collection of four novellas, Different Seasons includes some of Stephen King’s most enduring and well-known works, including “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,” which was made into the film The Shawshank Redemption, and “The Body,” which was made into the movie Stand by Me.
For this entry in the Bookmarked series, Aaron Burch touchingly reveals how “The Body” (and Stand By Me)—and their themes of nostalgia, coming of age, friendship and loss—have been important companions on his journey towards becoming a writer, as well as a husband and a friend.
Backswing
Throughout Aaron Burch’s debut full-length collection of fiction nearly everyone is seeking some kind of perfection. Despite their attempts falling short, going stray, or sometimes not even making it off the ground, they keep swinging—at latent nightmares and glaring domestic lives, at severed limbs and redemptive baptisms, at the awe of what has been taken and the bewilderment over what remains. Nevertheless, in these stories ranging from the magical to realism, from Biblical allegory to everyday relationships, the characters of Backswing, faithful that forward motion will someday strike, keep driving toward grace.
"Reading Backswing, you find yourself laughing, no–waying, reaching out to give bro–hugs and clappy high–fives to an author you swear must be standing beside you, so present is his voice. Burch is the bard of the American dude."
—Adam Levin, author of The Instructions and Hot Pink
"Aaron Burch’s Backswing is a terrific debut, fast, funny, at times fantastical, a diverse, deft collection of stories about becoming a man and other unsolvable mysteries."
—Jess Walter, author of We Live in Water and Beautiful Ruins
"In his new collection, Aaron Burch’s achievement isn’t only in the masterful storytelling, it’s how through each character’s yearning and loneliness he succeeds in making us readers feel less alone. Even in the surreal, the creepy, the sad, the lusting, we recognize ourselves. Backswing is full of characters trying to find themselves, journeys you’ll feel privileged to join."
—Lindsay Hunter, author of Daddy’s and Don’t Kiss Me
"At the driving range of American fiction, Aaron Burch crushes his stories deep into the haunted night. Backswing is brave and odd and very human."
—Sam Lipsyte, author of The Subject Steve and The Fun Parts
Backswing is out of print. Message me (email, twitter, instagram, send me a text, whatever) and I’ll send you an ebook.
How to Predict the Weather
Ranging from lyrical commands to surreal narratives, Aaron Burch's short fictions swirl with whimsy, meditation, sadness, and hope; blur the line between real and imagined; and focus on loss of lovers, of family members, and even of one's self.
"Made of small parts, each its own story of breaking down and/or rebuilding, the book coheres in the way fragments of dreams arrange themselves in the waking hours to make the kind of sense that transcends the neat paraphrase of self-help and talk show vernacular. In other words, it does what literature should do: inform, entertain, unsettle."
—Christopher Kennedy, author of Encouragement for a Man Falling to His Death
"I really enjoyed what seemed like semi-voyeuristic snapshots of a life. Kinda reminded me of putting the pieces together after a long night of drinking. The descriptions are all dripping wet and gritty. The themes in How to Predict brought me back to one of my favorite album titles, Unbroken’s Life. Love. Regret."
—Dave Verellen, vocalist of Botch and Narrows
"...takes the tangible concrete instructions of folding paper, finding shapes in clouds, making connections with those around us, and turns them into weapons, uses them to impale us, makes a father a spearhead and launches it through our sternums. Burch is somehow lovingly violent with words."
—JA Tyler, The Chapbook Review
"These secret instructions, these rustic observations and tiny tales, are deceptively quiet. They steal in with a few cool words and then explode with creativity and light."
—Deb Olin Unferth, author of Vacation