Praise for When the Night Breathes Electric
“Max Talley is both satirist and fantasist. His stories are kaleidoscopic in their variety. He’s a literary acrobat with a wondrous bag of tricks. Give yourself over to a rising star in the short story form.”
Monte Schulz – Metropolis, Naughty
“The short story form has been written off by many as much ado about nothing. Max Talley’s When the Night Breathes Electric should serve as the perfect rejoinder to this criticism, as every story collected here is as substantive as it is entertaining. These are short stories written right.”
Gar Anthony Haywood – In Things Unseen, Cemetery Road
About the Book
Max Talley’s, When The Night Breathes Electric, features eighteen stories that range from the fantastical to crime fiction to haunted fables to science fiction. Tales of living couches and disembodied hands haunting medicine cabinets, to a future where technology-damaged people have territorial disputes with synthetic humans. From noir crime where the evildoers are not aware they are the criminals, to humorous takes on a has-been musician trying to strike it rich by selling a rockstar’s million-dollar guitar, and a woman dating someone to gain access to their water filter. Talley also provides psychological horror in a European village that gives visitors everything they desire, but at a steep price. These scenarios are inhabited by characters trying to navigate through a weird and often dangerous world. When The Night Breathes Electric collects Talley’s best genre fiction from 2015 to the present.
Max Talley returns with his signature brand of acerbic wit, taking on everything from fraught middle-aged relationships to beloved water filters(or both at the same time!). There is no one today writing about “reality” quite like this–and you’re going to want to be sure you get a reality check from Talley before you lose all sense of perspective on how fucked things are…while still laughing to keep from crying.”
-Genna Rivieccio
Editor-in-Chief of The Opiate
Author Biography
Max Talley was born in New York City and lives in Santa Barbara. His writing has appeared inliterary journals, including Vol.1 Brooklyn, Atticus Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, Litro, and The Saturday Evening Post. He won the2021 best fiction contest in Jerry Jazz Musician for “Celestial Vagabonds,” later nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Talley’s first novel, Yesterday We Forget Tomorrow, was published in 2014, his curated anthology, Delirium Corridor, appeared in 2020, and his short story collection, My Secret Place, was published in 2022 by MainStreet Rag Books. www.maxdevoetalley.com