Christopher Merkner (MFA, 2001)
In Christopher Merkner’s midwestern fabulism, an enraged village gaslights unsuspecting vacationers and a young man delays an impending confession, fondling the nostrils of his mother’s pet pig. For these inheritors of tradition, that which binds them most closely — offering stability and identity and comfort — is precisely what sets them back, pulls them down, burdens, limits, and ruins them.