Lara Stapleton's collection of short stories is a incredible debut that made me eager to see what this new author has in store for the future. Stapleton's prose slowly unveils the truth of the lives of her characters to the reader and, in doing so, provokes any reader to examine his or her own position in the world.

This is one of those reads that erases everything around you and takes you to that part of your brain where you notice the tiniest thing around you and suddenly the details seem almost holy. It's hard to put down, it's hard to come back to your regular life. Stapleton has a knack for exposing and dignifying the tiny crimes we commit as humans stumbling through the void. Her prose makes me want to stop everything and pay attention to the weave. I recommend this book to anyone with a hungry brain and a cobwebby soul.

The following are excerpts from a review I wrote on Lara Stapleton's THE LOWEST BLUE FLAME BEFORE NOTHING (review posted on LocalVibe Internet).

Life will always provide moments of loneliness, self-flaggellating doubts and immense frustrations. But when one is young, fresh out of college and just beginning a career, just starting to live -- like some of Stapleton's characters -- life can become so overwhelming that one simply wishes to hibernate in bed, the covers over one's head. In writing about this coming-of-age time, Stapleton depicts when the heart too often becomes a wound that simply won't heal. . . . Stapleton brings such life to her characters that the reader counts his/her blessings even as (metaphorical) tears may be shed in sympathy. However, it is also Stapleton's craftsmanship as a writer -- her deftness -- that prevents the stories from becoming maudlin. Stapleton offers mood pieces without sinking her coming-of-age stories into triteness. . . . And because THE LOWEST BLUE FLAME BEFORE NOTHING scarred my heart, I hope Stapleton in the future writes about "better moments" as well. The heart can only take so much pull from the gravity of black holes ever-present in the chaos of life.