All art is built on what came before, which is why genuine originality is so rare. Occasionally however someone comes along whose creative vision produces work that breaks with the familiar and takes us in new and startling directions. Jesus Hardwell is such an artist. His debut collection of short fiction, Easy Living, veers gleefully off the beaten path and revels in its defiance of narrative conventions. These are bleak, uncompromising stories of gritty, hopeless, hardscrabble lives told in urgent, off-kilter prose that occasionally challenges the reader to locate the meaning at its core. Much of the writing has the pithy, staccato rhythm of poetry: sentences are short and declarative, the tale complete in a few pages. Hardwell’s characters are more often than not alone, their lives having spiraled out of control a long time ago. These are people feeding off the bottom of what life has to offer. Maybe they have made poor choices; maybe they are just unlucky. Whatever the case, Hardwell spares them nothing, offers no solace, no opportunity for redemption. But odd as it may seem, there is grim, deadpan humour in abundance to be found in these peculiar stories because Hardwell’s characters have accepted their fate and are not expecting an upswing in their fortunes anytime soon. Hundreds of new works of fiction appear every year, but it is rare and exciting to discover a talent as fresh and bold as this one. Jesus Hardwell is a writer to watch and Easy Living is a volume that poses great challenges but offers greater rewards. ( )