Detachment
Alex MacConochie

"She taught him

How to pull apart a pomegranate  
Underwater, movements as abrupt

And sharp as her opinions"

"Stumbling over the first two poems, he wants to
old-vinyl his way to perfection, 
plant-cracklings from every groove-shade of his soul." 

Historical Fiction and the Mythic Revolution
An Interview with Cameron MacKenzie

"The book tries to understand revolution, but what drives the novel is a filtering of revolutionary actions through the context of myth and the role played by storytelling in the creation of those myths. I became fascinated by the myriad depictions of Villa in the historical record, how he was and remains a remarkably contested figure, and how the outlines of that figure have been determined by stories that seem to channel the desires of a culture and a society through a singular man. Pancho Villa is a mythic character, and I try in the book to convey the manner by which that boy became that myth.""