Tales of Lost Southtown by Erik Bosse forthcoming from FlowerSong Press.

Tales of Lost Southtown is a collection of absurd interconnected stories bordering on the surreal which manage to examine the struggles of gentrification in 21st Century America.

Many people find themselves moving to a new town or neighborhood only to feel they arrived too late—all the fun and exciting possibilities in that region’s history had already come and gone. Such is the opinion of the narrator of Tales of Lost Southtown, a struggling filmmaker who finds himself navigating through a series of unlikely adventures in one of San Antonio’s older and funkier neighborhoods. He learns about the mysterious Elmendorf Beast (a genetic experiment gone awry), a cursed oil painting purchased at a thrift shop, a trilobite fossil the size of a VW, and Alfie Montoya, head of the Alamo Urination Appreciation Society, who is trying to conserve the historical site where a certain rock star relieved himself on the “shrine” of Texas Independence. Although Tales of Lost Southtown is essentially a book about loss as seen through the lens of the gentrification of the older neighborhoods of San Antonio, the author maintains a tone of warm humor and an appreciation of the absurd, allowing this collection of interconnected stories to catch a glimpse of a hopeful future amid a prevailing era of uncertain change.