Author Description

From literary New South yarn to end-of-days dirge, buoyant realism and slapstick satire, the tapestry of style and genre in the 14 collected stories in "Triumph of the Ape" screams with themes of American folly. Written over the first decade of the 21st century, the stories reach back into the past of the author's native South Carolina -- and forward into a grim future where love nonetheless remains humanity's best hope. Todd Dills is also the author of a novel, "Sons of the Rapture" (Featherproof Books 2006), and editor of two collections -- "All Hands On" (2004 and 2011) -- published in conjunction with the literary broadsheet he founded in Chicago in the year 2000, THE2NDHAND. Today, he lives and writes in Nashville, Tenn. Praise for "Triumph of the Ape": "'Triumph' reads, as a whole, like a book might if written by a man who finally, reaching the beach, realizes the bits of wreckage half buried in the sand are everything that mattered, the places of dreams and opportunity. The damn dirty apes win...." --from the Afterword by Spencer Dew, author of "Songs of Insurgency," "Mont Saint Michel and Chartres" "A tremendous collection! 'Triumph of the Ape' outlines the highs and lows of comically self-conscious young men bumming around the free, modern world, armed only with mind, heart and humor. These stories are bursting with warmth and smart lovin'. Reading Todd Dills makes life -- all of it -- feel a little bit kinder." --Patrick Somerville, author of 'This Bright River', 'The Cradle' "'Triumph' is dauntless, daring in its variety of tones and styles, a kind of taunt to the new century and all its ongoing crises. There's the spirited, Southern slant of the Barry-Hannah-esque 'Color of Magic' and 'Confederate Yankee..., ' and elsewhere, the author's ongoing interest in forms, especially the itinerary, shifts toward the collection's centerpiece, an imagining of the development of a underground literary movement around a 'Stupidist Manifesto.' Realism, noir, short sho