Keith Rosson is equally at home writing about the trials and tribulations found in everyday life as he is the bizarre and uncanny. His characters range from a once-beloved painter fallen on hard times to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse on a team-building retreat; one of the things that makes his work so compelling is that he finds the same empathy for both. I spoke with Rosson on the occasion of the release of his new collection, Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons, about his distinctive approach to fiction.
Small and Quiet and Brave
I’m pulled from a fitful sleep as the three-year old makes what we call her “guinea pig noises,” quiet squeals that grow in volume as she thrashes in her blankets; my wife and I are used to it by now. She is ghostly on the baby monitor, my daughter – it still stuns me a little to write that word – her eyes a flashing and brilliant white in the horror-movie glare of the camera. I know she’s not really awake, but rather stuck somewhere in that half-lit place between sleeping and waking. At its height, she awoke five or six times a night; we’re now down to once a week or so.