The View From the Seventh Layer: Book summary and reviews of The View From the Seventh Layer by Kevin Brockmeier

The View From the Seventh Layer Summary

Peering into the often unnoticed corners of life, Kevin Brockmeier has been consistently praised for the originality of his vision, the boundlessness of his imagination and the command of his craft. Once again, in this new collection of fiction, Brockmeier shows us a fantastical world that is intimately familiar but somehow distant and beautiful. From the touching title story, where a young, antisocial woman imagines her escape into the sky with an apparition only she can see, to the haunting story of a pastor tempted by something less than divine, Brockmeier moves effortlessly from the extraordinary to the everyday, while challenging us to see the world anew. Stunning, elegant, profound, and playful, The View from the Seventh Layer cements Kevin Brockmeier's place as one of the most creative and compassionate writers of his generation.

First published by Pantheon in 2008.

The View From the Seventh Layer Reviews

"At their best...the tales show Brockmeier's mastery of the tricky intersection between fantasy and realism." - Publishers Weekly

"Each carefully crafted tale filters insightful observations about life through a seductive screen of magical realism and alternates whimsy and wisdom." - Booklist

"The comparisons to Italo Calvino are certainly valid...and yet Brockmeier's tales feel distinctly contemporary." - Library Journal

"Gossamer inventiveness: the work of a consummate stylist whose chosen limits are the source of his quirky fiction's truest strengths." - Kirkus

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Kevin Brockmeier Author Biography

Kevin Brockmeier is the author of the novels The Brief History of the Dead, The Truth About Celia, The Illumination (2011), and the children's novels City of Names and Grooves: A Kind of Mystery, and the story collections Things That Fall from the Sky and The View from the Seventh Layer. His work has been translated into fifteen languages, and he has published his stories in such venues as The New Yorker, The Georgia Review, McSweeney's, Zoetrope, The Oxford American, The Best American Short Stories, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and New Stories from the South. He has received the Borders Original Voices Award, three O. Henry Awards (one, a first prize), the PEN USA...

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