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Severance
The human head is believed to remain in a state of consciousness for one and one-half minutes after decapitation. In a heightened state of emotion, people speak at the rate of 160 words per minute. Inspired by the intersection of these two seemingly unrelated concepts, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler wrote sixty-two stories, each exactly 240 words in length, capturing the flow of thoughts and feelings that go through a person's mind after their head has been severed. The characters are both real and imaginedMedusa (beheaded by Perseus, 2000 BC), Anne Boleyn (beheaded at the behest of Henry VIII, 1536), a chicken (beheaded for Sunday dinner, Alabama, 1958), and the author (decapitated, on the job, 2008). Told with the intensity of a poet and the wit of a great storyteller, these final thoughts illuminate and crystallize more about the characters' own lives and the worlds they inhabit than many writers manage to convey in full-length biographies or novels. The stories, which have appeared in literary magazines across the country, are a delightful and intriguing creative feat from one of today's most inventive writers.
264 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
15 people are currently reading
854 people want to read
About the author
Robert Olen Butler
86 books453 followers“I’ll never stop believing it: Robert Olen Butler is the best living American writer, period.”
– Jeff Guinn, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Robert Olen Butler has published sixteen novels—The Alleys of Eden, Sun Dogs, Countrymen of Bones, On Distant Ground, Wabash, The Deuce, They Whisper, The Deep Green Sea, Mr. Spaceman, Fair Warning, Hell, A Small Hotel, The Hot Country, The Star of Istanbul, The Empire of Night, Perfume River—and six volumes of short fiction—Tabloid Dreams, Had a Good Time, Severance, Intercourse, Weegee Stories, and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, which won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Butler has published a volume of his lectures on the creative process, From Where You Dream, edited with an introduction by Janet Burroway.
In 2013 he became the seventeenth recipient of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. He also won the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has twice won a National Magazine Award in Fiction and has received two Pushcart Prizes. He has also received both a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His stories have appeared widely in such publications as The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Zoetrope, The Paris Review, Granta, The Hudson Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, and The Sewanee Review. They have been chosen for inclusion in four annual editions of The Best American Short Stories, eight annual editions of New Stories from the South, several other major annual anthologies, and numerous college literature textbooks from such publishers as Simon & Schuster, Norton, Viking, Little Brown & Co., Houghton Mifflin, Oxford University Press, Prentice Hall, and Bedford/St.Martin and most recently in The New Granta Book of the American Short Story, edited by Richard Ford.
His works have been translated into twenty-one languages, including Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Polish, Japanese, Serbian, Farsi, Czech, Estonian, Greek, and most recently Chinese. He was also a charter recipient of the Tu Do Chinh Kien Award given by the Vietnam Veterans of America for “outstanding contributions to American culture by a Vietnam veteran.” Over the past two decades he has lectured in universities, appeared at conferences, and met with writers groups in 17 countries as a literary envoy for the U. S. State Department.
He is a Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor holding the Michael Shaara Chair in Creative Writing at Florida State University. Under the auspices of the FSU website, in the fall of 2001, he did something no other writer has ever done, before or since: he revealed his writing process in full, in real time, in a webcast that observed him in seventeen two-hour sessions write a literary short story from its first inspiration to its final polished form. He also gave a running commentary on his artistic choices and spent a half-hour in each episode answering the emailed questions of his live viewers. The whole series, under the title “Inside Creative Writing” is a very popular on YouTube, with its first two-hour episode passing 125,000 in the spring of 2016.
For more than a decade he was hired to write feature-length screenplays for New Regency, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Disney, Universal Pictures, Baldwin Entertainment Group (for Robert Redford), and two teleplays for HBO. Typical of Hollywood, none of these movies ever made it to the screen.
Reflecting his early training as an actor, he has also recorded the audio books for four of his works—A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Hell, A Small Hotel and Perfume River. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate degree from the State University of New York system. He lives in Florida, with his wife, the poet Kelly Lee Butler.
– Jeff Guinn, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Robert Olen Butler has published sixteen novels—The Alleys of Eden, Sun Dogs, Countrymen of Bones, On Distant Ground, Wabash, The Deuce, They Whisper, The Deep Green Sea, Mr. Spaceman, Fair Warning, Hell, A Small Hotel, The Hot Country, The Star of Istanbul, The Empire of Night, Perfume River—and six volumes of short fiction—Tabloid Dreams, Had a Good Time, Severance, Intercourse, Weegee Stories, and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, which won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Butler has published a volume of his lectures on the creative process, From Where You Dream, edited with an introduction by Janet Burroway.
In 2013 he became the seventeenth recipient of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. He also won the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has twice won a National Magazine Award in Fiction and has received two Pushcart Prizes. He has also received both a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His stories have appeared widely in such publications as The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Zoetrope, The Paris Review, Granta, The Hudson Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, and The Sewanee Review. They have been chosen for inclusion in four annual editions of The Best American Short Stories, eight annual editions of New Stories from the South, several other major annual anthologies, and numerous college literature textbooks from such publishers as Simon & Schuster, Norton, Viking, Little Brown & Co., Houghton Mifflin, Oxford University Press, Prentice Hall, and Bedford/St.Martin and most recently in The New Granta Book of the American Short Story, edited by Richard Ford.
His works have been translated into twenty-one languages, including Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Polish, Japanese, Serbian, Farsi, Czech, Estonian, Greek, and most recently Chinese. He was also a charter recipient of the Tu Do Chinh Kien Award given by the Vietnam Veterans of America for “outstanding contributions to American culture by a Vietnam veteran.” Over the past two decades he has lectured in universities, appeared at conferences, and met with writers groups in 17 countries as a literary envoy for the U. S. State Department.
He is a Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor holding the Michael Shaara Chair in Creative Writing at Florida State University. Under the auspices of the FSU website, in the fall of 2001, he did something no other writer has ever done, before or since: he revealed his writing process in full, in real time, in a webcast that observed him in seventeen two-hour sessions write a literary short story from its first inspiration to its final polished form. He also gave a running commentary on his artistic choices and spent a half-hour in each episode answering the emailed questions of his live viewers. The whole series, under the title “Inside Creative Writing” is a very popular on YouTube, with its first two-hour episode passing 125,000 in the spring of 2016.
For more than a decade he was hired to write feature-length screenplays for New Regency, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Disney, Universal Pictures, Baldwin Entertainment Group (for Robert Redford), and two teleplays for HBO. Typical of Hollywood, none of these movies ever made it to the screen.
Reflecting his early training as an actor, he has also recorded the audio books for four of his works—A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Hell, A Small Hotel and Perfume River. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate degree from the State University of New York system. He lives in Florida, with his wife, the poet Kelly Lee Butler.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 130 reviews
May 18, 2015
This book’s dubious achievement is to associate chopping off people’s heads with cuteness. I bet you thought it could not be done. But the author came across two factoids – 1) after decapitation, the human head is believed [by who? by who?] to remain conscious for one and a half minutes; 2) in a heightened state of emotion (such as when you’ve just been executed) people speak at the rate of 160 words a minute. So, therefore, you see, 1 ½ minutes gives us 240 words. So…. stay with me… let’s take 62 people from history who were decapitated and imagine the last 240 words which passed through their rolling-around-in-a-basket brains.
How cute! Oh, and also, what astonishing poor taste! Especially when you get into modern day cases, like victims of 9/11.
Well, it turns out to be more interesting to describe than to actually read. Because all these people, from some poor geezer beheaded by a sabre-toothed tiger circa 40,000 BC up to Vasil Bukhalov, a Bulgarian aid worker beheaded in Iraq in 2004, do exactly the same thing. Or should I say Robert Olen Butler imagines that they do exactly the same thing, which is to speed-think an unpunctuated prose-poem about their life and times which often sounds suspiciously like a free-association what-do-you-think-of-when-I-say-the-word-Robespierre?-type exercise, rendered into fluent non-sequiturs and dolloped up on a single page.
Now I would have thought myself that the thing at the forefront of these 62 people’s minds during the minute after the bloody deed would have been
1) The fact that they are now dead but still able to think (since they do not know about the 1 ½ minutes of consciousness thing)
2) The fact that they can see their own headless body in some cases
3) The painful experience they have just been through (or maybe it wasn’t as bad as they were fearing, who knows)
4) The injustice of their fate
5) Their seething hatred of the person who ordered their head to be chopped off
But no, it’s just the prose poetry. The heads remain inscrutable on the subject of suddenly having no body.
What I learned from this book : sometimes impulse buys in bookshops are really wrong.
May 30, 2021
i love the conceit of this book - it is genius. and the design is glorious, down to the smallest details like endpaper color. that being said, some of these work better than others. but some are truly great - especially when there are unexpected connections. i would be interested to know how much research went into this book, especially with the more contemporary "characters". this is the second book i have read in as many weeks where the author predicts his own death, and that makes me a little queasy, so no more of that please. but, yes a fun read.
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February 25, 2012
My book cover blurb: "The decapitation one is better than the sex one."
I didn't exactly walk away from reading Butler's similarly structured book, Intercourse, with much love in my heart, so I felt like I could go into this one and out the other end with a similar outcome. This was actually the one that caught my attention first and interested me more than the one in which we read the one-page of thought from a person as they get know someone else, Biblically. At the time that I first stumbled upon the fact that Severance existed--probably at least two or three years back--I was really interested in scientific and philosophical debates about The Mind, to be overly concise. So the idea of reading about what the last moments of consciousness would be like as a head severed from its body seemed both novel and weird but also seemed to hold some potential to satisfy the little neuroscience enthusiast I'd become.
I got around to the book much later on and in a period of my life when literary fiction had surpassed my interests in things like cognitive neuroscientific and philosophical investigations into the very nature of consciousness itself. Regardless of any of this, the gimmick held up better here despite the close similarities between it and Intercourse--each story is a page long and each involve famous figures and references to actual historical events.
Maybe what made this one work a little more is that I can imagine thoughts-as-internal-words when one is about the have their head lopped off, or is facing down their very immanent death in any occasion, but as much as Freud was onto something about Sex and Death being intertwined preoccupations, I just don't believe that we experience them the same linguistically. No one thinks the way Butler makes them think during sex, and while straight up realism is not something I curmudgeonly demand from fiction at all, Intercourse just became too ridiculous to take as seriously as the book makes itself seem to want to be taken. I guess the formula just works better with experiencing thoughts about mortality than it does with experiencing one of the most all-but-reptilian-brain-regions-of-the-mind-erasing activities there is: Fucking.
I didn't exactly walk away from reading Butler's similarly structured book, Intercourse, with much love in my heart, so I felt like I could go into this one and out the other end with a similar outcome. This was actually the one that caught my attention first and interested me more than the one in which we read the one-page of thought from a person as they get know someone else, Biblically. At the time that I first stumbled upon the fact that Severance existed--probably at least two or three years back--I was really interested in scientific and philosophical debates about The Mind, to be overly concise. So the idea of reading about what the last moments of consciousness would be like as a head severed from its body seemed both novel and weird but also seemed to hold some potential to satisfy the little neuroscience enthusiast I'd become.
I got around to the book much later on and in a period of my life when literary fiction had surpassed my interests in things like cognitive neuroscientific and philosophical investigations into the very nature of consciousness itself. Regardless of any of this, the gimmick held up better here despite the close similarities between it and Intercourse--each story is a page long and each involve famous figures and references to actual historical events.
Maybe what made this one work a little more is that I can imagine thoughts-as-internal-words when one is about the have their head lopped off, or is facing down their very immanent death in any occasion, but as much as Freud was onto something about Sex and Death being intertwined preoccupations, I just don't believe that we experience them the same linguistically. No one thinks the way Butler makes them think during sex, and while straight up realism is not something I curmudgeonly demand from fiction at all, Intercourse just became too ridiculous to take as seriously as the book makes itself seem to want to be taken. I guess the formula just works better with experiencing thoughts about mortality than it does with experiencing one of the most all-but-reptilian-brain-regions-of-the-mind-erasing activities there is: Fucking.
August 18, 2017
Imagine that you have about 90 seconds to remain conscious after your head is severed. This book of prose (62 stories, 250 words each) is based on a 19th century French doctor’s opinion that the head remains conscious for 90 seconds after decapitation. And, if it’s true that we speak at a rate of 160 words per minute during heightened states of emotion, then you might have a lot to think about in these last 90 seconds before all the blood drains from your brain. This book requires a slow and thoughtful read about the men and women in history and present day who were beheaded or decapitated. Butler does some exceptional creative writing here if not outright chilling images and emotions. I found the last few lines of most of the stories to be highly dramatic and meaningful, providing real insight to these characters’ lives (Medusa, Paul the apostle, Lady Jane Grey, Sir Walter Raleigh, Thomas More) One especially, “Angry Eyes” an Apache warrior’s last 90 seconds was so impressive I had to put down the book. One thing has left me wondering about this premise of 90 seconds of consciousness claimed by Dr. Dassy D’Estaing (1883). Who is this doctor? I could find nothing online about D’Estaing and this theory or how he came to his conclusion. If anyone here can confirm valid information about D’Estaing, please post. That said, this extraordinary little adventure into the last thoughts of the newly dead has a sense of absurd beauty.
November 18, 2007
Whether or not this is deserved, I associate Chronicle Books with titles like "Photographs of Kitschy 1970s-Era Cartoon Themed Garden Implements" and "Naughty Ilustrated Haiku By Cheesecake Models of the Mid-Fifties." This book is kind of in that vein, except the theme here is decapitation (and there are, thankfully, no pictures).
This here, consistent with my stereotype of Chronicle Books, is a gimmick. The gimmick is the idea that a person remains conscious for a minute and half after being beheaded, and that when people are very emotional, they speak at a rate of 160 words a minute. So this is a chronological series of 240 word stories from the perspectives of figures throughout history, in the minute-and-a-half after their heads have been cut off.
Actually, though, it's good. This guy can write. Also, yes, Jayne Mansfield is in here, and no, Daniel Pearl is (thankfully) not.
Isn't this project sort of in poor taste? Well, so far the author doesn't doesn't seem overly concerned with that question, which might be why this book is able to be good, but also why there is something a bit creepy and distasteful about it. Of course, decapitation is nothing if not creepy and distasteful, so maybe that makes good sense.
I'm going to stop writing now, before I give into the urge to make some really dreadful puns (I actually think I deserve some kind of award for my restraint in this review), but I'll make a final report back later on, when I'm done with it.
------------
Okay, I liked this. Yes, it's a gimmick, but it's a good gimmick, and the book is good too. It's a quick read, and I really enjoyed it. One thing I thought was good was that I had the sense upon reflection that the author had done a fair amount of research for it, but that he didn't try to cram that down my throat by using it all.
I'd like someone else to read this and talk about it with me. One thing I initially didn't like, but then decided I DID like, was how all the heads kind of sound the same, and are thinking about pretty similiar things (dad, sex, etc). That started out feeling like a problem but ultimately seemed perfect, which to me is the mark of a successful book.
This is probably a good stocking stuffer. People get really excited about this book -- it's a "conversation starter" -- and it actually wound up being better than its concept suggested it should be.
This here, consistent with my stereotype of Chronicle Books, is a gimmick. The gimmick is the idea that a person remains conscious for a minute and half after being beheaded, and that when people are very emotional, they speak at a rate of 160 words a minute. So this is a chronological series of 240 word stories from the perspectives of figures throughout history, in the minute-and-a-half after their heads have been cut off.
Actually, though, it's good. This guy can write. Also, yes, Jayne Mansfield is in here, and no, Daniel Pearl is (thankfully) not.
Isn't this project sort of in poor taste? Well, so far the author doesn't doesn't seem overly concerned with that question, which might be why this book is able to be good, but also why there is something a bit creepy and distasteful about it. Of course, decapitation is nothing if not creepy and distasteful, so maybe that makes good sense.
I'm going to stop writing now, before I give into the urge to make some really dreadful puns (I actually think I deserve some kind of award for my restraint in this review), but I'll make a final report back later on, when I'm done with it.
------------
Okay, I liked this. Yes, it's a gimmick, but it's a good gimmick, and the book is good too. It's a quick read, and I really enjoyed it. One thing I thought was good was that I had the sense upon reflection that the author had done a fair amount of research for it, but that he didn't try to cram that down my throat by using it all.
I'd like someone else to read this and talk about it with me. One thing I initially didn't like, but then decided I DID like, was how all the heads kind of sound the same, and are thinking about pretty similiar things (dad, sex, etc). That started out feeling like a problem but ultimately seemed perfect, which to me is the mark of a successful book.
This is probably a good stocking stuffer. People get really excited about this book -- it's a "conversation starter" -- and it actually wound up being better than its concept suggested it should be.
January 26, 2010
This book has an absolutely lunatic premise. It is said that a decapitated head can remain in a state of consciousness for 90 seconds. In heightened states of emotion or agitation, people can speak at the rate of 160 words per minute. Combine the two and you have the micro stories in this book. Read the rest of the review here: http://ireadoddbooks.com/?p=231
October 22, 2015
I saw this book on a cart outside Books-a-Million years and years ago. I looked through it, thought it was intriguing, and put it back. I have thought of it at various times over the years, and wished I had purchased it. Not only could I not remember the author's name, I also could not remember the title. The only thing I remembered was that each page was 240 words in length and there was no punctuation.
Fast forward to last week, when I just happened upon it online. Kismet!! It was at Half Price Books, and I ordered it immediately. Imagine my delight when it arrived signed by the author!! Of course, it is signed "To Lauren", but that matters not to me.
On with the review. First of all, the premise of this one is magnificent! The last thoughts of a freshly decapitated person (well ... almost all are people). I would have found it interesting to know what the person was thinking about their current situation, but I'll bet it would have all been the same. Kind of a "Well, crap!" trail of thought. Instead, Olen Butler writes their last thoughts as the thing they loved most in life. It may be memories of a father, a lover, or a Messiah. What they would more than likely miss most.
Taking this vantage point not only varies the stories a great deal, it also gives insight into the lives of these people. As much as 240 words can.
I also love the fact that there is no punctuation. I can imagine the rambling thoughts of a dying person being just like this, and stopping in mid-thought, as all of these do.
All-in-all, this is a brilliant little book, and highly recommended.
Fast forward to last week, when I just happened upon it online. Kismet!! It was at Half Price Books, and I ordered it immediately. Imagine my delight when it arrived signed by the author!! Of course, it is signed "To Lauren", but that matters not to me.
On with the review. First of all, the premise of this one is magnificent! The last thoughts of a freshly decapitated person (well ... almost all are people). I would have found it interesting to know what the person was thinking about their current situation, but I'll bet it would have all been the same. Kind of a "Well, crap!" trail of thought. Instead, Olen Butler writes their last thoughts as the thing they loved most in life. It may be memories of a father, a lover, or a Messiah. What they would more than likely miss most.
Taking this vantage point not only varies the stories a great deal, it also gives insight into the lives of these people. As much as 240 words can.
I also love the fact that there is no punctuation. I can imagine the rambling thoughts of a dying person being just like this, and stopping in mid-thought, as all of these do.
All-in-all, this is a brilliant little book, and highly recommended.
April 5, 2009
"After decapitation, the human head is believed to remain in a state of consciousness for one and one-half minutes."
"In a heightened state of emotion, people speak at the rate of 160 words per minute."
Pulitzer Prize-winning Robert Olen Butler has written 62 stories of 240 words in length, each about some decapitated figure (legendary, canonical, historical, zoological). These stories are insightful and ecstatic - I literally could not put this book down. I just sank into a chair and turned from page to page. Poetic crack.
Written with minimal punctuation in stream-of-consciousness, beginning mid-thought and petering out at the last word, Butler has possessed the minds of his characters and does not waste a word: from John the Baptist to Lady Jane Grey, to Marie Antoinette, a chicken beheaded for a Sunday meal, and to my favorite, St. George's dragon ("this body I eat nice body, oozy too I drink this blood nice blood"). Butler's last story imagines his own decapitation "on the job."
I went to bed feeling queasy and also high, feeling my own neck thankfully. So many dangers to one's jugular! Should win a prize.
"In a heightened state of emotion, people speak at the rate of 160 words per minute."
Pulitzer Prize-winning Robert Olen Butler has written 62 stories of 240 words in length, each about some decapitated figure (legendary, canonical, historical, zoological). These stories are insightful and ecstatic - I literally could not put this book down. I just sank into a chair and turned from page to page. Poetic crack.
Written with minimal punctuation in stream-of-consciousness, beginning mid-thought and petering out at the last word, Butler has possessed the minds of his characters and does not waste a word: from John the Baptist to Lady Jane Grey, to Marie Antoinette, a chicken beheaded for a Sunday meal, and to my favorite, St. George's dragon ("this body I eat nice body, oozy too I drink this blood nice blood"). Butler's last story imagines his own decapitation "on the job."
I went to bed feeling queasy and also high, feeling my own neck thankfully. So many dangers to one's jugular! Should win a prize.
September 18, 2013
I had a look at what other people thought of this book & I find it odd that so many people have commented on the theme of this book being a gimmick. I'm a huge fan of short stories & I have found some of my favorite collections are linked stories or are centered around a particular theme. I absolutely agree with the people who've commented that these brief little stories are more akin to poetry than prose. They're so achingly beautiful.
And speaking of beauty, I also appreciated the presentation of the book. While there is much wisdom in the old adage that you can't judge a book by it's cover, with the cost of living being what it is buying books sometimes feels like a bit of a luxury. With that in mind, if I'm going to buy a book I'm doubly pleased when that book is also a beautiful work of art. Not only did I buy this book, I bought a signed copy.
And speaking of beauty, I also appreciated the presentation of the book. While there is much wisdom in the old adage that you can't judge a book by it's cover, with the cost of living being what it is buying books sometimes feels like a bit of a luxury. With that in mind, if I'm going to buy a book I'm doubly pleased when that book is also a beautiful work of art. Not only did I buy this book, I bought a signed copy.
June 24, 2010
In Severance, Robert Olen Butler combines two seemingly unrelated ideas: first, that consciousness lasts for one and a half minutes after decapitation, and second, that people speak at a rate of 160 words per minute when in a heightened state of emotion. Since people are likely pretty emotional once they've been decapitated, Butler figured that their final thoughts would run precisely 240 words -- the length of each of the book's 62 pieces, which seek to "capture the flow of thoughts and feelings that rush through a mind after the head has been severed."
Yeah, I know, sounds like a stupid gimmick that you'd want to throw across the room after a couple of entries. But Butler moves each one of these pieces -- which are really prose poems, although they're billed as short stories -- way beyond the gimmicky. Some of his subjects are fictional (Medusa; the dragon slain by Saint George; Mud, a man decapitated by a saber-toothed tiger); some are historical (Robespierre, Marie Antoinette, Thomas More); and some contemporary (Jayne Mansfield, Nicole Brown Simpson), but all are eloquent. And surprisingly, although many of them are sad, none of these pieces is morbid, as they focus on life rather than death. The entries can be difficult to read (Mary Queen of Scots moved me to tears, believe it or not), but just as many are beautiful, with dreamlike images blending effortlessly from one to the next even within the short wordspan Butler has allotted himself.
The book won't quite make you want to decapitate yourself to test Butler's theory and see whether you can be as eloquent as his subjects, but damn near. (And Butler decapitates himself at the end of the book anyway, so it's been done already and you needn't bother.)
Yeah, I know, sounds like a stupid gimmick that you'd want to throw across the room after a couple of entries. But Butler moves each one of these pieces -- which are really prose poems, although they're billed as short stories -- way beyond the gimmicky. Some of his subjects are fictional (Medusa; the dragon slain by Saint George; Mud, a man decapitated by a saber-toothed tiger); some are historical (Robespierre, Marie Antoinette, Thomas More); and some contemporary (Jayne Mansfield, Nicole Brown Simpson), but all are eloquent. And surprisingly, although many of them are sad, none of these pieces is morbid, as they focus on life rather than death. The entries can be difficult to read (Mary Queen of Scots moved me to tears, believe it or not), but just as many are beautiful, with dreamlike images blending effortlessly from one to the next even within the short wordspan Butler has allotted himself.
The book won't quite make you want to decapitate yourself to test Butler's theory and see whether you can be as eloquent as his subjects, but damn near. (And Butler decapitates himself at the end of the book anyway, so it's been done already and you needn't bother.)
June 22, 2007
Severance combines two theories: that consciousness is retained after decapitation for 90 seconds, and that, in heightened emotional states, people speak 160 words per minute. The book is sixty-two stories, at exactly 240 words each, from the heads of decapitated people: kings, queens, farmers, girls, businessmen, jihadists, authors, and mythological women, men and animals. It’s a fantastic book in its originality, its concept and, yeah, its execution.
I can’t remember the last book of poetry I read, and though Severance is labeled a book of stories, I have a hard time believing this is anything but the suggestive, dewy dream-state that a good set of poems can capture. What has surprised me most is how small scenes or visions from the stories float in and out of memory throughout the day, and how Butler connects history, sex and war across time in common and uncommon lives. Whether or not you enjoy poetry, this well worth reading out loud.
I can’t remember the last book of poetry I read, and though Severance is labeled a book of stories, I have a hard time believing this is anything but the suggestive, dewy dream-state that a good set of poems can capture. What has surprised me most is how small scenes or visions from the stories float in and out of memory throughout the day, and how Butler connects history, sex and war across time in common and uncommon lives. Whether or not you enjoy poetry, this well worth reading out loud.
July 11, 2021
[rating = A]
One of my: Best Books of the Year (for 2021)
This was wonderful. The unique style in itself was enough to capture my eye, my attention. These 62 short stories, each 240 words, are inventive and creative. And also very sexual, it may be noted; their only downside. Told by a person who was decapitated, each story is a glimpse into their thoughts before death.
My favorite is the one about the Lady of the Lake. The way Butler constructs the metaphor about where Excalibur came from is brilliant. Other shorts that link together (Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette) are also notable and add another layer that makes them stand out. Medusa is also very interesting. But see for yourself. Though I think there could have been more foreign examples (though one might consider that cultural appropriation, oddly enough) and fewer pre-1900, I think Butler has given a wonderful example of being poetic in the prose form.
I read this in a day, and have been inspired to write my own!
One of my: Best Books of the Year (for 2021)
This was wonderful. The unique style in itself was enough to capture my eye, my attention. These 62 short stories, each 240 words, are inventive and creative. And also very sexual, it may be noted; their only downside. Told by a person who was decapitated, each story is a glimpse into their thoughts before death.
My favorite is the one about the Lady of the Lake. The way Butler constructs the metaphor about where Excalibur came from is brilliant. Other shorts that link together (Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette) are also notable and add another layer that makes them stand out. Medusa is also very interesting. But see for yourself. Though I think there could have been more foreign examples (though one might consider that cultural appropriation, oddly enough) and fewer pre-1900, I think Butler has given a wonderful example of being poetic in the prose form.
I read this in a day, and have been inspired to write my own!
April 11, 2025
Wait so….this concept is actually SO interesting. Why was it carried out so terribly. Beheading is not poetic😭I’d rather jsut read these people’s actual stories than what this dude thought they were thinking. Love the idea but badly executed (hahaha puny)
Side note I find it concerning how many people were beheaded by elevator crashes and their own family.
Side note I find it concerning how many people were beheaded by elevator crashes and their own family.
June 9, 2008
I’ve said this before, but Robert Olen Butler is my favorite writer; I think he’s one of the most gifted writers around in terms of technical prose; and I think no one does stream of consciousness better than him. All that said, his last novel was terrible (Fair Warning), and the novel before that was mediocre (Mr. Spaceman). It’s clear now that he has decided to stick to his strengths – this work is another creative writing exercise for his talents. The premise behind Severance is the combination of two random factoids: after decapitation, a human head retains consciousness for a minute and a half; and people speak 160 words a minute when agitated. Severance is a collection of 62 “stories”, each 240 words long that are the imagined thoughts of people that have lost their heads. The clear strength of this book is that Olen Butler gets to show off his flair for stream of consciousness, and that’s evident in how many different voices he captures throughout the book. From Medusa to Marie Antoinette to a random slave in 1855 to a guerilla leader during the Vietnam War, each character’s narrative sounds unique and each narrative captures the individual’s spirit well. The flow of the prose in many of these pieces is amazing. But three weaknesses derail this collection. First, a few of the pieces aren’t very good. For example, Sir Walter Raleigh’s piece describes his remembering sex with Queen Elizabeth and recalling her saying “oh sir you have found the city of gold at last” – that’s awful; another piece is written from the perspective of a chicken that ends with it crossing the road (ugh). Second, Olen Butler is limited to people (mostly famous) who’ve been decapitated – so there’s a slew of folks from the French Revolution, too many of Henry VIII’s wives, and a few random people (like a court jester from 1494). The collection of folks that are interesting is uneven. Lastly, the majority of the thoughts running through these heads don’t seem to me to be their last thoughts, but rather streams of thought from random periods of their lives (unless Olen Butler is saying that’s what most people think about when they die – random moments). My guess is that he liked the idea of 240-word stories, but wanted to focus his streams of thoughts whenever in their lives he wanted to. I don’t like his not sticking to his contrived structure. I like the creative premise, and I like his stream of consciousness, but this doesn’t work beyond being a creative writing exercise for someone far too talented for this. For Robert Olen Butler fans only.
July 22, 2015
This is probably the most creative concept for a book I’ve ever seen. Supposedly, a head remains conscious for 90 seconds after decapitation. The author takes historical figures, animals, and mythological creatures who were decapitated and writes 240-word prose-poems about what goes through their minds in the 90 seconds after they lose their heads.
First, I have to say that I love the design of this book. The pages are really thick, and the colors, fonts, and layout are unusual. Whoever designed it did an amazing job. It’s definitely an eye-catching piece of artwork.
The stories didn’t have as much decapitation as I expected. Many of the severed heads focus on points in their lives before the actual decapitation, so most of the stories are tasteful. None of them are particularly gory or graphic.
If you don’t like poetry, you probably won’t like this book. The stories are written stream-of-consciousness style with minimal punctuation and explanation. They feel more like poems than short stories. Luckily, I like poetry, so I found these prose-poems fascinating and weird. I was going to read a few of them before bed one night, and I ended up finishing most of the book.
Since the stories are so short, I can’t summarize them without spoilers, so I’ll give you the titles of my favorites.
“Dragon (beast, beheaded by Saint George, 301)”
“Ah Balam (Mayan ballplayer, beheaded by custom as captain of losing team, 803)”
“Pierre-Francois Lacenaire (criminal and memoirist, guillotined for murder, 1836)”
“Ta Chin (Chinese wife, beheaded by her husband, 1838)”
“Charles H. Stuart (Texas farmer, beheaded by his two teenage daughters, 1904)”
“Chicken (Americauna pullet, beheaded in Alabama for Sunday dinner, 1958)”
My only criticism of this collection is that the stories start to feel very repetitive. I would have liked more variation in the way that they are written. There are 62 of them in the book, and they all start to blur together by the end.
I think I would have appreciated the collection more if I had more knowledge of history and mythology, but overall, I really enjoyed these strange little prose-poems.
First, I have to say that I love the design of this book. The pages are really thick, and the colors, fonts, and layout are unusual. Whoever designed it did an amazing job. It’s definitely an eye-catching piece of artwork.
The stories didn’t have as much decapitation as I expected. Many of the severed heads focus on points in their lives before the actual decapitation, so most of the stories are tasteful. None of them are particularly gory or graphic.
If you don’t like poetry, you probably won’t like this book. The stories are written stream-of-consciousness style with minimal punctuation and explanation. They feel more like poems than short stories. Luckily, I like poetry, so I found these prose-poems fascinating and weird. I was going to read a few of them before bed one night, and I ended up finishing most of the book.
Since the stories are so short, I can’t summarize them without spoilers, so I’ll give you the titles of my favorites.
“Dragon (beast, beheaded by Saint George, 301)”
“Ah Balam (Mayan ballplayer, beheaded by custom as captain of losing team, 803)”
“Pierre-Francois Lacenaire (criminal and memoirist, guillotined for murder, 1836)”
“Ta Chin (Chinese wife, beheaded by her husband, 1838)”
“Charles H. Stuart (Texas farmer, beheaded by his two teenage daughters, 1904)”
“Chicken (Americauna pullet, beheaded in Alabama for Sunday dinner, 1958)”
My only criticism of this collection is that the stories start to feel very repetitive. I would have liked more variation in the way that they are written. There are 62 of them in the book, and they all start to blur together by the end.
I think I would have appreciated the collection more if I had more knowledge of history and mythology, but overall, I really enjoyed these strange little prose-poems.
May 5, 2008
This is an incredibly interesting collection of short-short stories based around the idea of what would someone say in the minute-and-a-half of "consciousness" that a head is supposed to retain after beheading. Sounds kind of gruesome, but it's not a horrific collection by any means. Assuming that a person in a heightened state can utter 160 words per minute and applying that to the 1.5 minutes of consciousness, the author tells stories that are all exactly 240 words in length of characters, both real and imagined, who have been beheaded in one way or another throughout history. We have the usual suspects of Anne Boleyn, Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI and so on, but also Medusa, a chicken, and the author himself. For a look at a precise command of the English language can do, this is an excellent collection. Even for someone like me, who is not a big fan at all of stream of consciousness, this is a really good collection.
July 21, 2014
This didn't come together like I hoped deep down it would, and I can really only blame myself. The reviews, which I scanned beforehand, are full of people just like me. People who found out that this book is filled with stories of beheaded people throughout history, each story the exact length of what they believe a human head could think in those moments after being separated from the body. It's a great idea. Really intriguing. But like so many other readers here, I felt like it didn't work on paper like it worked in my imagination. There are so many of them, and the length is so short, that it felt a bit choppy. Rather than being a reading experience, it ended up being an intellectual exercise. Which is fine, for what it's worth.
I will say that Butler's research must have been fascinating. So many beheadings! Everything from political beheadings to car accidents to elevator drops to suicides to crimes of passion. So many ways to lose your head.
I will say that Butler's research must have been fascinating. So many beheadings! Everything from political beheadings to car accidents to elevator drops to suicides to crimes of passion. So many ways to lose your head.
February 11, 2011
Most reviews refer to this series as "gimmicky," but upon reading I feel the exact opposite. The theme of this book is the final thoughts upon being decapitated/beheaded/hed kut off. The gimmick would be if Butler used the occasion to bring about some sort of macabre second-by-second first hand account of a head rolling off the gallows. This...it is not. It is rather poetic, and geared more towards the author's perception of the situation, whether real or imagined, and what could have been the last thoughts of the victim. It is literally a snap shot of a snippet of a thought going through a person's mind, and you are never really sure that the narrator is privy to the fact that they are devoid of their body. Not what I expected when reading the synopsis on the dust jacket in the library (I was hoping for gore/macabre), but I was pleasantly surprised with the effort to create a moment.
April 26, 2008
A post-modern post-mortem -- 240 word entries of severed heads last thoughts. It sounds tremendously morbid, but it is a fascinating window into the intimacy of thought made more vivid through the use of truncation. We read a few of these short pieces while reading The Tale of Two Cities and the students I teach were hooked. They what-if and questioned one after another and the tantalizing realization of never knowing the rest of their life or tale was hammered into them in a way I could not have made in another way. This is a tremendous venue for short reflections and they will drive you crazy with the abrupt endings, but this small wunderkammer of humanity and those last thoughts as revealing slides under our reader's microscope do force us to decode and interact as witnesses. Powerful in parts, but uneven as the cuts that were made.
December 17, 2012
When this works, it works very well. When it doesn't, it is still a good read. It is a gimmick that only sometimes works, to be honest. Too often the recollections, though beautifully rendered in a mostly punctuation-less run-on, are merely accounts of how the person got to where they were, leading up to the moment of beheading. It doesn't shine, it doesn't illuminate, it doesn't philosophize or ruminate or make wonder: it renders. Butler is a wonderfully talented writer and has exploited the gimmick in the past to great ends, but here he struggles mostly in vain.
Which isn't to say that it is a failure. There are some truly beautiful moments and perhaps a half dozen of these flashfiction pieces is executed nearly flawlessly and, again, what doesn't work is always at least interesting and well written.
Which isn't to say that it is a failure. There are some truly beautiful moments and perhaps a half dozen of these flashfiction pieces is executed nearly flawlessly and, again, what doesn't work is always at least interesting and well written.
August 16, 2011
Robert Olen Butler was one of my professors at Florida State University and I have always enjoyed reading his work. This little book is unique and worthy of a read. Butler tells the tale of what goes through the mind of a person between the moment thier head is severed to death. He tells the reader that the head remains conscious for one and a half minutes after severance and that in a hightened state of emotion, we speak at the rate of 160 words per minute. From there, he tells a 240-word story of what might have passed through the dying minds of some everyday people, as well as historical figures such as Medusa, Lady Jane Grey, etc. It is quite enjoyable, though a bit macabre.
December 20, 2022
I am probably a bit biased when it comes to this book. My mom was a student of the author at university, and she introduced me to this book very early on with enthusiasm, so I came to it with enthusiasm. That said, I love the very concept of this book. It's extremely creative and I found myself flying through the book to see who was the next subject and what would happen to them next. It's macabre and a bit comedic, but also an interesting meditation on the things you might think in those last moments as synapses fire rapidly and die out. I greatly enjoyed this, but it's probably not a book every single person will have a great time with.
August 22, 2008
A book of vignettes, each 240 words long, consisting of the thoughts that pass through the minds of characters both historical and imaginary in the minute and a half left of life after they are beheaded. The concept seems gimmicky, and it is, a little—but it’s also, beautifully, beautifully done. I’m a sucker for stream-of-consciousness when it’s done well, and Butler is marvelous at it. He captures voice after voice, experience after experience, emotion after emotion: humanity, in all its beauty, tragedy, and variety. I was quite moved.
May not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I loved it.
May not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I loved it.
September 17, 2013
This is a pretty cool concept - people's brains work for 1.5 minutes or so after they're beheaded and in a heightened state can talk 90 words per minute so all the stories are 120 words. (Not sure of exact numbers).
Not many of the stories really did it for me. They are all pretty similar, almost identical in style and voice. I liked the ones with figures I knew the history of (like Marie Antoinette) but others were vague and didn't mean much to me.
Not many of the stories really did it for me. They are all pretty similar, almost identical in style and voice. I liked the ones with figures I knew the history of (like Marie Antoinette) but others were vague and didn't mean much to me.
October 21, 2008
interesting idea- little vignettes of the final thoughts of people who were decapitated, from the time the blade removed the head until the neurons ceased firing.
I just couldn't stop thinking that if someone were really decapitated, his last thoughts would be "holy shit, I am still having thoughts!" and that's about it.
I just couldn't stop thinking that if someone were really decapitated, his last thoughts would be "holy shit, I am still having thoughts!" and that's about it.
December 9, 2012
Overall, I think I liked the idea of short stories consisting of severed heads' hypothetical final thoughts better than the execution (heh, execution). While the concept is one of the most original I've ever encountered, I wasn't especially impressed by Butler's writing. Some of the stories were touching, beautiful, or darkly funny, but most felt uninspired.
October 30, 2008
I really enjoyed the concept behind this piece of work but the execution (no pun intended) became repeatative and somewhat boring. Definately not a book to sit down and read cover to cover. Read one or two and let it rest on the night stand for a day or two.
March 14, 2022
Undoubtedly beautiful and thoughtful -- but I feel that the conceit at the heart of it is a bit of a cheat.
For me, the ones that work best, and seem most honest, are the individuals who are decapitated accidentally and unexpectedly: the stone age man decapitated by a sabre-tooth tiger, two individuals killed in elevator accidents, another one killed in an accident on the Staten Island Ferry, the actress Jayne Mansfield, her head severed in an automobile accident. Each one of those feels like natural streams of thought, interrupted, like minds trying to cope with and rationalize the unimaginable, unexpected horror. They work, I think.
The majority of the ... what? vignettes? prose poems? ... are, however, individuals who have been executed and, to be honest, however beautifully written and lyrical the stream of thoughts are, I don't buy it. The pieces don't feel like continuations of what the individual would have been thinking at the moment of their execution. I would imagine something very different for the individuals who knew that they were facing the axe-man (or, in the case of Anne Boleyn, swordsman), or guillotine. And for those who were killed by murder or mob violence, I would imagine something like nononononononoOUCHnononoWhat just happened?nononon ....
The most successful of these, for me, is Mary Queen of Scots, whose execution was a notorious and horrific bungle: Butler captures the horror of that, and the little touches, like Mary's lap dog, which was discovered cowering under her skirts, after her death.
No question that this is beautifully written, and interesting (and a beautiful book -- Butler's publishers have done him proud) -- I'm just a little dubious that he's really achieved what he was after.
For me, the ones that work best, and seem most honest, are the individuals who are decapitated accidentally and unexpectedly: the stone age man decapitated by a sabre-tooth tiger, two individuals killed in elevator accidents, another one killed in an accident on the Staten Island Ferry, the actress Jayne Mansfield, her head severed in an automobile accident. Each one of those feels like natural streams of thought, interrupted, like minds trying to cope with and rationalize the unimaginable, unexpected horror. They work, I think.
The majority of the ... what? vignettes? prose poems? ... are, however, individuals who have been executed and, to be honest, however beautifully written and lyrical the stream of thoughts are, I don't buy it. The pieces don't feel like continuations of what the individual would have been thinking at the moment of their execution. I would imagine something very different for the individuals who knew that they were facing the axe-man (or, in the case of Anne Boleyn, swordsman), or guillotine. And for those who were killed by murder or mob violence, I would imagine something like nononononononoOUCHnononoWhat just happened?nononon ....
The most successful of these, for me, is Mary Queen of Scots, whose execution was a notorious and horrific bungle: Butler captures the horror of that, and the little touches, like Mary's lap dog, which was discovered cowering under her skirts, after her death.
No question that this is beautifully written, and interesting (and a beautiful book -- Butler's publishers have done him proud) -- I'm just a little dubious that he's really achieved what he was after.
October 19, 2025
I read this unique collection of fragments when it was first published. The premise was so intriguing that I knew I had to read it.
Butler takes a couple of interesting factoids, that the human head remains conscious for 90 seconds after decapitation and that in a heightened state (like getting decapitated?) we speak at a rate of 160 words a minute. Butler imagines the last 240 words that flash through various decapitated heads throughout history, both fictionalized (a dragon, a chicken) and the famously known (Marie Antoinette, Jayne Mansfield). There are 61 fragments in all, and they read like poetry.
Each one starts with a word, often a random word, that first startling thought, maybe, and within those next 239 words, the reader is often left saddened by an accidental death (a young boy who fell into a subway tunnel and his last thoughts are about seeing Babe Ruth play) or horrified (a Chinese geisha who is beheaded by a jealous husband, her final thought rips through the reader like a samurai sword).
I can see myself reading this collection every so often (it can easily be consumed in a day, no more than two) and relishing Butler's masterful economy of words.
Butler takes a couple of interesting factoids, that the human head remains conscious for 90 seconds after decapitation and that in a heightened state (like getting decapitated?) we speak at a rate of 160 words a minute. Butler imagines the last 240 words that flash through various decapitated heads throughout history, both fictionalized (a dragon, a chicken) and the famously known (Marie Antoinette, Jayne Mansfield). There are 61 fragments in all, and they read like poetry.
Each one starts with a word, often a random word, that first startling thought, maybe, and within those next 239 words, the reader is often left saddened by an accidental death (a young boy who fell into a subway tunnel and his last thoughts are about seeing Babe Ruth play) or horrified (a Chinese geisha who is beheaded by a jealous husband, her final thought rips through the reader like a samurai sword).
I can see myself reading this collection every so often (it can easily be consumed in a day, no more than two) and relishing Butler's masterful economy of words.
April 20, 2022
A collection of ultra-short not quite stories, about what goes thru someone's mind during the last minute and a half after their head has been cut off. Each story is 240 words long, as Butler surmises that we would talk at 160 words a minute when under stress, and I think you'd have a little stress after getting your head chopped off. Starting off with imagined people/creatures, like Medusa, St. George's Dragon and the Lady in the Lake, to all the British Kings and Queens, to the French Revolution to the victims of the fundamentalist in modern day Middle East, plus many others intermingled. A very interesting read
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