Purchase link:

Title Availability

Press kit here.
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Kindle edition
Ingram distribution
Barnes & Noble
Amazon.com

Reviews:

In Memphis newspaper The Commercial Appeal here.
In The Midwest Book Review here.
At The Lit Pub here.

Multimedia:

Listen to Corey read his poem, "1728 Dashes Equal a Gallon," in Anomalous Press: http://www.anomalouspress.org/2/16.mesler.dashes.php


Praise for works by Corey Mesler:
For NOTES TOWARD THE STORY AND OTHER STORIES:

"The world of literature and understanding it has many twists and turns. "Notes Toward the Story & Other Stories" is a collection of short fiction from Corey Mesler as he collects knowledge and wisdom from many sources of the world. With humor and thought woven throughout it all, looking at the world of faith, philosophy, monsters, and when something truly unexpected comes your way and leaves you amazed that it could actually happen. "Notes Toward the Story & Other Stories" is a fine assortment of short works, very much recommended."
—The Midwest Book Review, October 2011

“Here is a collection of mischief and delight. Corey Mesler’s short fictions afford a peek into a parallel universe in which we find ourselves reflected in new and surprising disguises.  At times his writing evokes the subversive surrealism of Flann O’Brien and at others the lyrical dreamscapes of Richard Brautigan, but Mesler is always his own man, with a sharp ear for dialogue and a steady eye on the wobbling orbit of modern life.  Notes Towards the Story may easily become one of your favourite bedside companions. “ 
—Miles Gibson, author of The Sandman, and Hotel Plenti

“Corey Mesler’s stories give shimmer and depth to the most outlandish and most commonplace of experiences. By turns piercingly funny and sneakily heartrending, Notes Toward the Story andOther Stories touches the real corners of life while also showing, with great tenderness, the way we seek to elevate ourselves, our condition, the everydayness of our everyday lives, to a level of epic grandeur. And Mesler shows us how the effort itself—the sincerity of it, the yearning behind it—becomes the grandest thing of all.”
—Megan Abbott, author of Bury Me Deep and The End of Everything

"These otherworldly stories left me haunted not just by their strange happenings but by the longing that suffuses them. A woman who has her shadow dyed , a child who can't resist the allure of the dark space behind a door—Corey Mesler's characters glimpse a mysterious and terrible beauty in the world, and reading these stories I glimpsed it, too." 
—Leah Stewart, author of The Myth of You and Me and Husband and Wife

A remarkably unique collection that both invokes and takes you away from everyday life―part Raymond Carver, part Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Spare, rich, real, surprising, and absolutely wonderful.
―Jennifer Paddock, author of A Secret Word and Point Clear

Very, very readable. James Thurber meets Jorge Borges. The familiar if not slightly dull middle class life falls in. collapses into its mysterious doppel, a hidden other half, and one sees how much was paid to maintain a surface to life, as well as the amusing and frightening gains from entering its real, other possibilities. I hear both Hawthorne and John Cheever in the transition from the matter-of-fact to the wonderfully menacing.
― Gordon Osing, author of Slaughtering the Buddha

FOR TALK: A NOVEL IN DIALOGUE

“Corey Mesler’s Talk is a brilliant tour de force of a novel, witty and wise and zingy with the zeitgeist. This is indeed an auspicious fiction debut.” —Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

“Corey Mesler’s novel-in-dialogue Talk is a smart, funny, harrowing look at the way language at once defines us and fails to sustain us. The conversations that comprise this beguiling work are mercurial, diabolically deceptive, able to change from consolation to confinement at the turn of a phrase—phrases, incidentally, turned as neatly as a key in a lock. With a pitch-perfect symphony of voices recalling the experiments of Nicholson Baker and William Gaddis, Talk is a bittersweet gospel for our time.” —Steve Stern, Jewish Book Award winner for The Wedding Jester

“Not surprisingly, Jim-the middle-aged protagonist of Corey Mesler’s Talk: A Novel in Dialogue—talks and talks. He talks about sex, desire, the movies, his anxieties, parenthood, love and books. Does all this add up, he wonders, to a life? To “the” life he wants to live? Jim’s answer is complex, but the reader’s never is. On each page of this honest, precise and utterly believable book, I wanted to say to both the author and his narrator, ‘Yes, of course. Go on. Go on’.” —Debra Spark, author of The Ghost of Bridgetown

“Talk is original and evocative. Mesler has a sharp ear not only for how we say things, but, more importantly, for what the words really mean. A unique reading experience.” —John Grisham

“Corey Mesler’s novel Talk is a terrific read, a real pleasure for book lovers and lovers of contemporary fiction. Written entirely in witty, sometimes dour dialogue, Talk cycles through the details of a bookseller’s personal life, a life that looks just about like everyone else’s—melancholy and affection, temptation and redemption, love and death in equal measures. Talk is a marvelous look at the contemporary culture, riddled with lovely asides and its fair share of jokes, almost every one of which is as affectionate and engaging as a joke can be. And you’ll be surprised how sexy a book made out of dialogue can be. It’s a wonderful, funny, touching story. Buy it and read it and you’ll be glad you did.” —Frederick Barthelme, author of Moon Deluxe

“Corey Mesler is not afraid to tackle the big issues of contemporary life in this provocative and engaging novel—a talking cure for our times, though nothing is resolved, really, as in life. A refreshingly realistic, intelligent and sexy novel.” —Lee Smith, author of Oral History

“So few writers can achieve good dialogue and Mesler hits every note on key. I always knew exactly who was speaking…and he kept such tension among a remarkable set of characters.” —Cary Holladay, author of Mercury    

“I so loved Talk—it is new and unique, hot and immediate—I could not put it down…one of the best books of the year, and I have touted it as such to my friends and fellow writers.” —Suzanne Kingsbury, author of The Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me

FOR WE ARE BILLION-YEAR-OLD CARBON:

“It’s a beautiful, quirky, spooky, rhythmic, hilarious and sneakily moving piece of work.” —M. Allen Cunningham, author of The Green Age of Asher Witherow

“Save your hard-earned money for that Pop Culture 101 class at the local college and invest in Corey Mesler's We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon. This kaleidoscopic narrative offers up an unforgettable voice that will stick in your head long afterward. Imagine The Crying of Lot 49, mixed with Richard Farina, mixed with early Rolling Stone magazine pieces. Think about the playful word play of poet and playwright Tristan Tzara. Mesler's work here is like taking a hit of acid without experiencing the possible longterm aftereffects. Well, maybe..." —George Singleton, author of Novel

“Corey Mesler’s exuberant, spaced-out love letter to the 1960s—and to his hometown of Memphis—gives renewed meaning to the phrase, “Far out!” Invoking the ghosts of Richard Farina, William Kotzwinkle, Richard Brautigan (who appears!), and Thomas Pynchon at his most whimsically stoned, We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon, with its cut-and-paste assemblage of poems, stories, and memoirs, deftly captures both the innocent charm and the dark menace of the period. “ —Marshall Boswell, author of Alternative Atlanta

"If this was music, it'd be a slippery, jazzy 'Green Onions' with a sitar break played by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, using the edge of his dictionary for a pick." —Marshall Chapman, author of Sweet Little Rock and Roller

"How about a feast?  Really, the language of W e Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon is a regular smorgasbord of tastes and styles, and while all the echoes from the 60s (Brautigan, Kotzwinkle, Vonnegut—you know the litany) are fairly conspicuous, I keep thinking of Ondaatje in his early books where he combines narrative with lyrics and documentary material.  This book is very different in tone from his but similar in daring. " —Steve Stern, author of The Angel of Forgetfulness 

“By illustrating through Jim’s struggles how dialogues with the self, others, and the world may be the only way of grasping meaning in our lives, Mesler says that it is and isn’t all just talk.” —Ralph Clare, in The Review of Contemporary Fiction

“What a smooth, bright, sophisticated piece of work—and how gutsy, too—all that damned fool stuff like furniture that everybody else fusses with that you ignore.”                —David Markson, author of This is Not a Novel and Springer’s Progress      

FOR FOLLOWING RICHARD BRAUTIGAN:

“One always wonders, "What if?" What if Richard Brautigan had taken his own advice and not gone joy riding in the beautiful car called death. What if he had lived, and kept writing, long into the age where flowing digits replaced the winsome flowers. Brautigan, maven of the San Francisco countercultural zeitgeist, would have surely continued to write his spare themes of love, death, and how we are haunted by both. Surely also, he would have embraced the Internet, publishing his episodic narratives in blogs, chats, and other social networking spaces, holding us all in anticipation, waiting for the next installment. His poetic prose would have shimmered on our screens like cathedrals made from the crystal bones of birds. Alas, Richard, we hardly knew ye . . . But wait, here's Corey Mesler, broken hearted, adrift between the living and the dead, lost, and like so many others, he finds a connection with Brautigan, a lampost on a foggy street, always, magically, lighting the way to the next corner, and beyond. Mesler's novel, Following Richard Brautigan, answers the "what if" regarding novels Brautigan might have written. Uniquely individual in style and voice, yet resonating with the tone and whimsy of Brautigan, Mesler's novel is a paen of the highest order, not to mention a travelogue of his own inner journey. Brautigan is there, every step of the way, often directing the eccentric life adventures meant to throw off the allure of death, even though he is but a ghost himself, a spirit with a mission in death as he was in life. If you know and appreciate Brautigan, read this book. Give it to your friends. Turn them on to both Brautigan and Mesler, who has surely taken up the torch left burning in the hallway of Brautigan's dark seaside house, and gone exploring the upstairs rooms.” —John Barber, Archivist and Curator Brautigan Bibliography and Archive, and author of Richard Brautigan: Essays on the Writings and Life

“Corey Mesler has summoned up all the sad lost innocence and wry humor of the best of Brautigan. It’s a wistful, haunting novel that makes you laugh out loud, too." —Thomas Dyja, author of Meet John Trow and The Moon in Our Hands

"I am mightily impressed as always with your amazingly graceful combination of whimsy and heartbreak. Following Richard Brautigan is pretty wonderful—a real warm blanket of a narrative.  And what I like is that the blanket is infested with lice and cholera and bloodticks and stinging nettles and death, etc, but it still warms, which is a bit of a magical trick.  I know how it's done though—with language, language that always amuses and surprises and lends drama to the least event.  It's also a language whose suppleness admits the impossible, which is of course the best trick of all.“ — Steve Stern , author of the Jewish Book Award winning The Wedding Jester and The Frozen Rabbi

“If you love Richard Brautigan you'll have fun reading Corey Mesler's fictional tribute, Following Richard Brautigan. I’m going trout fishing today for short stories about water.” —Alice Hoffman, author of Seventh Heaven and The River King

for LISTEN: 29 SHORT CONVERSATIONS

“A virtuoso performance! Realism, monster stories, sex stories, love stories, ghost stories, myths and legends, comedy both understated and openly absurdist: in a literary atmosphere that fetishizes blandness and sameness, such a broad range of ambition and accomplishment is a brave and astonishing act. Pure fun from beginning to end.” —Pinckney Benedict, author of Dogs of God

“It is interesting to note that deep in the etymological guts of the word ‘conversation’ we find the early definition, “the act of living with.” Corey Mesler’s page-turning collection offers readers conversation: here is a deeply engaging mode which delights the intelligence while also registering on the nervous system of its readers – a combination that will wake you right up. These pieces also return us to the essence of the gift of conversation itself: that we might learn to live with it – the mysteries and gaps that haunt the human experience. Reading this book, I am reminded of how much I want to live with it – how the conversation is all. This is an exciting new work from a writer who knows how to position himself in order to truly listen and mercifully invites his readers to do the same.” —Selah Saterstrom, author of The Meat and Spirit Plan

“M: It's funny, very funny with bits of lithe nakedness, yet ineffable at times—dazzles of washed silver. Birdsong from a cage of ribs. It's voices from the pivot, the still point of a seesaw between up-light and down-dark, which is all he knows.

Y: Funny, that. Grief-worthy...” —Marly Youmans, author of The Wolf Pit and Catherwood

“What continues to astonish me is the way you've found such original containers for your own very distinctive voice.” —Steve Stern

“I didn’t really miss the usual authorial voice, because Mesler’s stories ARE stories, not just experiments. They are engaging and surprising. They range from interviews to “Subject: Email Eros,” an epistolary story about rekindling a lost love, told as a series of emails, as well as more experimental pieces reminiscent of Samuel Beckett’s prose…. The short story is a much ignored though thoroughly American form. It’s nice to see Mesler lending his talents to help re-invigorate it.” —C. L. Bledsoe, in Ghoti

"Finished LISTEN this morning. Great work. Lots of fun — and angst. Loved all the Chin-Chin stories (especially the crucifixion and pearly gates snafu) and the blind date story — Barbara and Chuck Said We'd Like Each Other — funny, funny and tight. Real verisimilitude. Spring Ahead, Fall Behind was powerful; AdMan absurd and on point (having had brushes with that industry) and, perhaps my favorite, Plot to Kidnap Stonehenge. Laughed out loud." —Neil White, author of In the Sanctuary of Outcasts 

“Corey is a poet, and his gift is apparent in this diverse collection of lyrical prose, erotic email exchanges, gritty conversations between x-lovers, and interactions that dip into forbidden realms between therapist and hypnotized client. He includes exchanges between the ghosts of musicians past and unorthodox interviews with living artists. Corey captures words fresh from the lips of everyday people and stirs them together with his own dark roux for a spicy hot literary gumbo.” —Susan Cushman, Pen and Palette

for THE BALLAD OF THE TWO TOM MORES

“Fast-paced and funny, ripe with literary references, wry snappy humor and surprising turns of phrase, Corey Mesler’s The Ballad of The Two Tom Mores pulls the reader inexorably along.  In the fictional town of Queneau, Arkansas, where people are named Ham, West Acres and Violin, and teenage vixens roam the streets; there exists a salaciously sexy labyrinth of characters that even Faulkner would have been proud to create.   Mesler’s humorous ballad ends with a surprising twist.  You will emerge slightly tweaked- and better for it.” —Suzanne Kingsbury, author of The Summer Fletcher Greel Loved Me

“Corey Mesler’s writing is scary, funny, smart, and deeply twisted. There’s nobody else like him.” — Tom Piazza, author of City of Refuge, and Why New Orleans Matters

"A turgid bratwurst of a story slathered in bawdy humor...? A confederacy of Arkansas dunces..?Ah hell, this strange, hilarious novel needs a new vocabulary to describe it, half yarn, half romp, half acid trip, it's a yawp combined with a Tarzan yell...? Ah double hell. Just read this book." —Tom Franklin, author of Hell-at-the-Breech

"The Ballad of the Two Tom Mores is a riot from start to finish. Witty, ribald, sometimes profound and sometimes ridiculous, it will frequently make you laugh out loud and sometimes lead you to scratch your head in contemplation. It is an unvarnished, unapologetic glimpse of small-town Southern life, as raw and sexually charged as something out of Erskine Caldwell. At the same time, though, it is a story that is always told with a grin and a wink by a narrator who

is chuckling from beginning to end. With patience and confidence, Corey Mesler manages to pull off a lovely double feat, writing a novel that is both a steamy Southern sex-and-violence page-turner and a gentle mockery of the genre." —Greg Downs, author of Flannery O'Connor Award Winner Spit Baths

“A wondrously southern sex romp teeming with greatly memorable characters, insights and comedy, with all of this wrapped in an entertaining tale of egos, lust, and the hilarity of a rumor-filled small town. Ham Acres, who is both the mayor and sheriff, is a delightful character to follow. I could read about Ham all damn day. The romping affairs and sexploits that pace the book are highly amusing and fun to read; I don't think I've ever encountered that much on-getting without the need of a towel. What I mean to say is: Bravo.

Mesler invigorates The Ballad of the Two Tom Mores with a good peppering of wit, lines that can vault from raunch to soulful introspection quite quickly and expertly. These moments, never lacking, allude to far more than the simple balance of a character, they give the characters a sense of mental reality that is a pleasure to read. A wondrous little book from an excellent author. I'd highly recommend it.” —Ray Succre, author of Amphisbaena

“A new face always shakes up small town America. "The Ballad of the Two Tom Mores" tells the story of Tom More and another man called Tom More who walks into his life. When the men of Queneau, Tom's town, start dropping dead, Tom's story gets weirder and brings him much to find out and wonder. "The Ballad of the Two Tom Mores" is a choice and very highly recommended read for general fiction readers seeking something with a country tint.” —Midwest Book Review

For SOME IDENTITY PROBLEMS:

“No one writes about males like Mesler does; males and females, males and writing, males and their relationships with their children and God and even themselves. Mesler just knows dudes, and…Mesler knows Mesler and his writing is all the better for it.” —Ben Tanzer, author of Most Likely You Go Your Way and I Go Mine