"Funny, heartbreaking, and unorthodox." "Greetings from Gravipause is so good on so many levels, it is hard to believe it is a first book. Brian Bradford exhibits a precision and a playfulness with language that strike a rare, gratifying balance between wise guy and repenter. Moments throughout this novella tickle and punch at once, and the book itself is part exorcism, part exultation. Welcome to this new church where the guilty can find a good drink and where laughter is an absolution. For those of us who've desired the arrival of a fully-formed voice that's funny, heartbreaking, and unorthodox at once, Brian Bradford is who we've been waiting for."
-BJ Ward, Author of Jackleg Opera
"Whether it's a fully realized, multi-faceted musical composition or a unique universe, or both, in Greetings from Gravipause, Brian Bradford has crafted a whole world, at once familiar and strange, out of language very much his own, and now ours-which is what we ask of art."
-Ellen Akins, author of Home Movie, World Like a Knife, and Hometown Brew
ABOUT THE BOOK
Greetings From Gravipause: The term gravipause is indigenous to cosmology; it identifies that point in physical space where two celestial bodies either lose their gravitational attraction for each other and break apart or collapse into each other. When applied to love relationships it takes on a whole other resonance. Greetings From Gravipause, a parallel narrative, tells the story of a 30-ish Anglo underachiever, self-professed failed bulimic, adjunct instructor of astronomy and his wife of eleven years, a Geisha wannabe with angelic mezzo soprano pipes, this juxtaposed with the story of a young father of two, soon three, on the morning he will leave his wife and children for a woman twelve years his senior. The novella explores the themes of love, and dissolution, stasis and legacy. It's about a father and a son. Husband and wife. Falling together. Or breaking apart. A tragi-comic attempt to take the reader to that place where one comes to realize that the days ahead are as scripted and certain as the days gone by. A place where the ties that bind have become frayed and of little consequence. The postcard reads Greetings From Gravipause.
About the Author: A recipient of the Henfield Transatlantic Review Award for Fiction, Brian Bradford has published work in numerous small press publications including: New Blood and Black Ice (FC2). He has studied fiction at the University of Colorado and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Bradford teaches at Warren County Community College, where he is a full professor and co-director of the Creative Writing Program. When not teaching or writing, you will find him in his laboratory working diligently to create environmentally friendly foot deodorants for our astronauts and Olympic Athletes. Bradford's first novella, Greetings From Gravipause will be released by Jaded Ibis Press in the spring of 2015. He currently resides in New Jersey with his wife Sadako, daughter Erin, two Cavapoo, and an empty birdcage.
