What We Know So Far by Robert Scotellaro

What We Know So Far Reviews

• 
  Nancy Stohlman

  Robert Scotellaro’s new collection of micros, What We Know So Far, which is the Blue Light Press' book winner for 2015, showcases the micro story in all its glory. But first let’s talk micros: The micro is to flash fiction what the sprint is to the one mile run—all stops pulled out, usually landing in the under 250 range, with all the punch of regular flash fiction but half the fat. And for anyone who has tried their hand at flash, as a reader or writer, they quickly discover that smaller is not easier, in fact the weight of what is unsaid must be even denser.
  
  Now enter Scotellaro, who demonstrates that the more we understand our stories, the less we have to explain them.
  
  Reading these stories I’m reminded of a Mark Rothko retrospective I once saw. Often the journey of maturity as an artist is a journey of learning what to leave out. Rothko’s complex surrealism eventually matures into single or double colored canvases; Picasso’s realistic drawings mature into simple thick lines and shapes—and writers such as Robert Scotellero learn to say more with less, no longer needing the extra foliage. His work takes the leap into true maturity, mastering the silences, zooming in on the subtle moment at hand and letting that one drop of water tell the story of the entire world.
  
• 
  Meg Tuite

  Scotellaro rocks micro-flash like no other! In this collection he masters the art of a story in less than 250 words. 65 stories in 65 pages that create the ALL of great stories! Each sentence is a heartbeat, necessary and exquisite: a story titled "Preach"
  "The preacher had one good eye and two prosthetic limbs. Dressed sharp enough to cut through an apple. That good eye swimming around in its socket like a shark sniffing out sin. You never got that he missed the parts he left behind, and nobody ever slept through one of his sermons. When he laid hands on you, even the fake one, it was said the devil hightailed it out of there, with no thought of a return trip.
  Preach lived with his sister in a small house two blocks from the church. When she died, he took to drink. But that one eye of his, bloodshot and whiskey-glazed, never stopped banging around in there like it still meant business, and the devil had better not get any bright ideas to the contrary."
  
  Get a copy! Read all of his work! Unforgettable!
• 
  Jeffrey Miller

  Poetry in Motion
  
  One of the things I enjoy most about reading flash or short fiction (as well as writing it) is the brevity and richness of the language and the ability to capture not so much a moment in time (flash fiction writers abhor any reference to their writing as a vignette) but a mood, a feeling, an epiphany of motion and emotion.
  
  Some writers make it look so easy. Some writers, such as Robert Scotellaro in his collection, What We Know So Far, have redefined the genre with their literary stylings. Scotellaro is a master at his craft and the stories in the collection are a testament to that fact. He captures the human spirit in all its glory, sadness, grief, and irony as he takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride of emotions.
  
  There are some absolute gems in this collection such as “Skyline” the story of a steelworker’s demise in his living room instead of falling off some skyscraper or the gritty and evocative “The Specialist” about a GI visiting a prostitute, who is both a “specialist” and a victim, during the Vietnam War.
  
  For those of us who enjoy flash fiction, we should all be grateful for authors like Scotellaro who continually reinvent the genre and take it to new literary heights.
  
  Jeffrey Miller, The Panama Affair
  
• 
  Ray Nessly

  On sale now—for only $6.65!—is Robert Scotellaro's 2015 collection of micro fiction, "What We Know So Far". Scotellaro strips away all but the essential, resulting in stories that on average are only about one-half page in length but have all the ingredients needed to amaze, beguile, and charm. "Hand Shadows," one of the shortest stories in this collection, gives you an idea as to what's in store: "My old knuckles ache, piled one atop the other: the tightly structured goose I try to animate; too long past any chance of wizardry. A smeared and feckless shadow on the wall. The same with each that follows—wing-beats and flapping jaws and squeaky cartoon talk without a laugh or twinkle from my daughter. A cycle of magic and its opposite playing out. Impossible to know when the change occurred. When the turkey or the silly duck became a hand—the shadow of a hand and nothing more." Such artful brevity invites rereads, and will make you hunger for more from this talented author (in which case may I suggest also, Scotellaro's 2012 flash fiction collection, "Measuring the Distance".)