Nothing is Strange by Mike Russell

The zone of the strange.

O give me a home where the curious roam
Where the odd and the puzzling play

You are about to enter the remarkable world of Mike Russell's Nothing is Strange, a collection of twenty bizarre snappers where nothing can be anything and strange is as strange as strange can be. Reading these brief tales, I was reluctant to underline any of the passages since I had the distinct impression the British author's deeper levels of meaning were to be found in the blank spaces between the lines.

Moreover, I took my time with the book since reading each tale was like swallowing a delectable Alice in Wonderland pill. Much wiser to read one or two or three tales a day so the images and happenings contained therein are given the needed time to work their magic.

Oh, yes, each time I read the first line of a Mike Russell mind blaster I was opening the door onto a private garden where all varieties of exotic flowers bloom: a fountain of tiny white light erupts from a small hole on the top of a man's head; there's an enormous concrete building in the shape of a sun; a fifteen-year-old with a bald, pointed head gets a tattoo on the middle of his forehead that's the first letter of his nickname; two lovers have sex in a shopping mall to prove their love to the world.

Such is the nature of an absurdist prose miniature where our habitual and conventional world of what passes for normality is abandoned in favor of a morphed logic flowing into the surreal and fantastic. Among the practitioners of this unique form, we have such authors as Russell Edson, Daniil Kharms, Barry Yourgrau, Peter Cherches - and we have Mike Russell.

I encourage you to pick up Nothing is Strange and treat yourself to some serious strangeness. And speaking of strange, I'll let Mike Russell have the last word via a direct quote from his book: " My life appeared strange because it was one way and not another. Only if it had been every possibility at once would it have not appeared strange. And that is what I am now. Every possibility at once. And nothing is strange."


British author Mike Russell, born 1973