A Video Review of The Desert Places by Amber Sparks, Robert Kloss, and illustrated by Matt Kish (published by Curbside Splendor Publishing). Review by Angela Xu and Peter Tieryas Liu. Music by Joseph Michael Owens.
Heroes and villains are absent even though the textual provocations are epic. The prose is lyrically bestial, crimes of harmonic diction by Amber Sparks and Robert Kloss channeled into elegiac carnage. Matt Kish’s illustrations are the disturbingly visceral guts that bind the book together, a chaotic nightmare of floating organs, deathly spheres, and skinless personas haunted by the skeletal visage of cruelty. They’re not for the meek of heart, but serve as a stark reminder of the butchery people have been inflicting on each other since, well, forever.
