Vox Populi
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Joshua Michael Stewart: The Book of Love
The love my partner and I share is a book we’ve read many times. The pages yellowed. Spine broken. No dog ears, but plenty of bat wings. There’s a coffee ring on the cover, and the phone number to a defunct laundromat scribbled below the final paragraph on the last page. It’s a story most would find dull. Critics have pointed out its lack of narrative arc. We picked it up years ago at a used bookstore for half-price. She ripped out the page revealing the murderer, so we’d always keep guessing, and to distinguish our copy from all the others, I drew a mustache and devil horns on the author’s photo with a red pen.
Copyright 2024 Joshua Michael Stewart. Originally published in Freshwater Literary Journal, 2023.
Joshua Michael Stewart is the author of Break Every String, The Bastard Children of Dharma Bums, and Love Something. He lives in Ware, Massachusetts.
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Love this narrative Joshua. (Carla Schwartz)
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Yes!
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Thank you.
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Wonderful! So glad to make Joshua’s acquaintance.
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Yes, I’ve been following his work for a while now. Lots of imagination and a good sense of the music of language.
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Thank you, John.
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