U.R. Bowie DISAMBIGUATIONS: THREE NOVELLAS ON RUSSIAN THEMES U.R. Bowie holds a Ph.D. in Russian literature. The three tales included here are written in English, but make no mistake: they are firmly in the tradition of Russian literature. In fact, the great Nikolai Gogol, with what the critic Mirsky once called "his volcano of imaginative creativeness," blows through all three works, both in body and spirit. The first novella, "Exhumation," features Gogol in the flesh (and then out of it). Beginning with scenes from the writer's life in the nineteenth century, it goes on to describe the...

"Own: The Sad and Like-Wike Weepy Tale of Wittle Elkie Selph" comes out of the tradition of "Huckleberry Finn," "The Catcher in the Rye," and (especially) "A Clockwork Orange." This story of a school shooting in the hills of NE Georgia is narrated by the fifteen-year-old shooter, Elkin (Own) Selph, in a jazzed-up style that mixes together Southern dialect, bizarrely inventive terms, and words from Burgess's "Clockwork Orange." If Own were to sum up his plight as the novel begins, here is what he would say: My name's Elkin (Own) Selph, from Tocotano, GA. I love ole Georgie-what's not to love?...