Books
When Even the Bones Have Thinned
When Even the Bones Have Thinned is a collection of stories populated by characters across a spectrum of American life: young lovers meet beside a river in a pandemic, Boston taxi drivers throw bottles into the ocean, old men receive mysterious letters, and sons try to honor their father’s dying wishes. Aging, death, and loss permeate the book, though the tales are often lightened by dark humor, the surreal, and the idiosyncratic nature of existence. The first of these stories was written in 2004, while the most recent was written in 2022.
Scheduled for publication in 2025 with Hidden River Press out of Philadelphia.
Praise for WHEN EVEN THE BONES HAVE THINNED
These stories are shot through with a hard sort of beauty, a willingness to love through the certainty of loss. From the first story, a single night of a father holding his stillborn son, to the final story, a son accepting what little he remembers of his long-dead mother, When Even the Bones Have Thinned offers an intimate, unpitying portrait of our humanity, living in full-flared observation of all of life’s beauty, even while accepting the grief. McConnell is a first-class writer.
--Elisabeth Sharp McKetta, author of She Never Told Me About the Ocean
Victor’s McConnell’s powerful short story collection, When Even the Bones Have Thinned, renders its vividly complicated characters—grieving sons and fathers, fragile caretakers and war veterans—with clear-eyed wisdom and, even more impressive, a big-hearted compassion that never once dips into sentimentality. This is a beautiful book, full of tender human beings.
--Matt Burgess, author of Dogfight, A Love Story and Uncle Janice
Victor McConnell’s unique way of storytelling makes you feel at home with an old friend and at the same time sits you up straight as if an elder is speaking to you from a lifetime of wisdom.
--Ben Kweller, acclaimed singer/songwriter (most recent album: Cover the Mirrors)
Victor McConnell gets deep inside his characters, who are almost universally caught in moments of grief or crisis. In these stories we are invited to see the world through their singular points of view, in scenes precisely rendered and shaded by loss. Somehow, as his characters negotiate life’s hard failures, each one gestures to what keeps them going, whether it be hope, memory, or a hard won fealty to life itself.
--Cynthia Huntington, 2004 Poet Laureate of New Hampshire and author of Heavenly Bodies, a finalist for the National Book Award
Think of yourself standing on the side of a narrow, desert road in the middle of a black moonless night. The light of a lone motorcycle appears on the horizon followed by the sound of the engine as the machine races toward you, passes by, then vanishes in the distance. You are left with a memory of the haunting music of the doppler effect of the engine sound. That was the feeling that came over me after reading Victor McConnell's short story collection, When Even the Bones Have Thinned. Moments in life can define, disguise, or destroy you. We all feel those moments, but they often pass by so stealthily that we neither acknowledge nor understand them. McConnell has a special genius for hacking into such moments to give them meaning, in these beautiful and exhilarating stories.
--Ernest Hebert, author of The Darby Chronicles, Mad Boys, The Old American, and The Contrarian Voice: And Other Poems
