The deluge of namechecks is just overwhelming. Ben Whishaw endorsement on the back cover. And inside: Peter Strickland, WillI'm the first review? Wow.
The deluge of namechecks is just overwhelming. Ben Whishaw endorsement on the back cover. And inside: Peter Strickland, William Jones, John Greyson, Shu Lea Cheang, Scott Treleaven, Rosa von Praunheim, Ira Sachs, Kevin Killian... ok I've said enough.
Some of the articles could use footnote updates though. For example, William Jones' piece on Fred Halsted, dated 2010, ends by lamenting how difficult it was to see Halsted's films. This has changed significantly, after the publication of Jones' Halsted Plays Himself. Halsted's three major films are now available to stream: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/halsted
Most of this is at least quite interesting. But when queer academics have to ruminate about "turn[ing] darkness into an opportunity for resistance, protest, and struggle", and the "unintuitive turn to illegibility and darkness", I have to put down the book immediately and go put on my '90s black Ramones/ACTUP-style leather jacket, despite the heat. I suppose I'm just intuitively unintuitive....more
There's obviously a lot here that grab my attention: the multiple unreliable narrators, the murky philosophies and conflicts of the two political factThere's obviously a lot here that grab my attention: the multiple unreliable narrators, the murky philosophies and conflicts of the two political factions, Detroit's urban decay and guerrilla transformations, ambiguous messages and uncanny slippages. I'm enjoying this overall, though I remember Rombes' first novel The Absolution of Roberto Acestes Laing, maybe has a tighter execution and more infectious momentum.
Rombes does a nice job with the voices, with Rachel's ambivalences (view spoiler)[and eventual motherhood (hide spoiler)], Antony's quiet, nervous restraint, and the Colonel's bravura. When we finally get to read the annotated "political novel", it seems more of a pretext for the thriller tropes than anything else. But overall this was pretty entertaining and deserves more attention (I'm the 2nd rating?); Rombes' first novel is maybe even stronger....more
Like Samatar's earlier, excellent collection Tender, this is always complex, nuanced, and thoughtful. Instead of inundating us with clunky world-buildLike Samatar's earlier, excellent collection Tender, this is always complex, nuanced, and thoughtful. Instead of inundating us with clunky world-building details, we're allowed to observe through a few sympathetic but often bewildering characters, and impressionistically infer and absorb the intricate systems and relationships in her dark, troubling world. As in her short fiction, this is packed with ideas and thought-provoking engagements (on incarceration, academia, cultural friction, levels of control...). Much is left unexplained, but the emotional impact is powerful....more
Stevens' characters live in troubling worlds just a few small nudges from our own. They go about their daily activities, engaging in awkward interactiStevens' characters live in troubling worlds just a few small nudges from our own. They go about their daily activities, engaging in awkward interactions with ex's and co-workers, making only occasional references to the larger problems (gentrification, ubiquity of tech, environmental destruction etc).
Her prose is sharp, the humor biting. The text on the cover opens the first story, should be a good indication of whether this is for you. The next two are more hit-and-miss, but "Siberia" ends beautifully:
He listens, waiting for her to catch her breath, finish her sentence, call him back. Obviously they'll learn, and they'll speak whatever she likes, he'll tell her everything she's ever wanted to know in as many languages as he can manage, Schnee and neige, and when the time comes, should it ever come to that, he'll talk her softly into death. The silence stretches on, indifferent as a government --- but you know all about that.
Then the hilarious "Weimar Whore": a troubled woman, two men in her apartment, a psychiatrist, fear of rampant inflation. I'm a Berlin whore of sorts myself and loved all the references.
"Rumpel" opens:
Small towns have always produced dreamers, daydreamers above all. As a child, and even into adulthood, I often imagined myself in crisis situations. Say the nuclear power plant were to go on the fritz, or the particle accelerator, or a fire from the microchip factory to rip through town. I wondered: Would I be the first to respond?
We eventually follow the narrator's pursuit of an unlikely and almost clearly doomed romance. (Through a hole in his wall!) Of course I'm rooting for him, but the loose ends proliferate like Rapunzel's endlessly cascading hair in the video game.
The last few stories are maybe a little uneven. But the writing is a pleasure.
I love Mariana Enriquez's short fiction, and Megan McDowell's translation is as usual flawless. "That Summer in the Dark" ends like this:
... blood and flesh that decorated our building and that the firemen hadn't been able to wash off entirely, nor the rain, because we all know that bloodstains are the hardest things to clean, even once they're impossible to see.
Overall this is an interesting anthology, with some solid if not outstanding contributions. In addition to the Enriquez story, I also like the ones from Tomas Downey and Giovanna Rivero....more
The first two stories share fragmentary narrative approaches. "The Cave" starts with an intense burst of violence and body horror, but kind of drifts The first two stories share fragmentary narrative approaches. "The Cave" starts with an intense burst of violence and body horror, but kind of drifts with the multiple POVs. "Atomito", named after the mascot (?) for a nuclear research plant, also had interesting moments, but I'm not sure they worked that well on the whole for me. Then the more conventional "The Debt", with its troubled family relations and history, fraught journey into rural darkness, and gritty body horror, nice. The menace of the ending is beautifully done:
My aunt waves to him. The old man reaches out to the side; the sun glints off the metal of the shotgun. I hold my breath, and that's when the contractions begin.
"Chaco" is a jaundiced modern folk tale, the narrator's journey punctuated with stabs of random violence:
With the rattling of the truck and the wind buffering the windows, I fell asleep and dreamed I was dying and a boy as beautiful as the sun was waiting for me on the far side of death. I cut out my tongue to give to him and was mute as I handed it over but my heart called him by the name My Savior.
"The Narrow Way" is a tale about coming of age in an oppressive Christian community, with science fiction elements. Some nice writing, charming but not terribly memorable. The title story ends the collection. It's based on the Goiania incident, though the author claims it's a "work of fiction". The main events in the story are pretty close to the events in the wikipedia page, down to the names of characters, so I have to wonder if this is a New Narrative style blurring of the fiction/non-fiction line. The arc is pretty horrific, if not surprising....more
I don't know why this is not on more to-read lists. (I see it's on Sam Moss', but he works at the press.) This came out in 2023, and I only found out I don't know why this is not on more to-read lists. (I see it's on Sam Moss', but he works at the press.) This came out in 2023, and I only found out about it maybe a couple months ago, sigh.
I have to say this is one of the most exhilarating books I've read so far this year. The earlier stories might arguably be called magic realism, but it's the kind of harsh, depressing realism that we're all too familiar with today. The writing is so sharp, the situations are so problematic and without easy resolutions, I feel like I'm constantly grappling with the narratives and hoping for outcomes for the troubled characters that are a bit less bitter. The first story, "Pig", starts with a bang:
Pigs can't skin themselves. My husband says this to my son every morning over cereal. He says it to me also, but when he says it to me it's because he's being a jackass. This is an English word I learned recently from the pigs.
No, it doesn't let up. (Maybe the ending could be a bit less meta, but it works.)
"Me and Mona at the Table" is a tale about abusive relationships. Not the most subtle, but the writing is so cruel. Then "Little Skin Bag", I really can't tell you what this is about. But there's a party with a dj, attended by the titular character and friends with names like Lip, Right Tits (twin of Left Tits, of course), and Gutting Man, whom one does not mess with. And a Boar. And the kind of scratchy, squishy, scream-inducing, skin-crawling physical discomfort that I so rarely come across in fiction these days, my favorite since L.S. Johnson's brilliant "The Pursuit of the Whole is called Love". (From Johnson's Vacui Magia.)
From here the intensity is dialed down a bit. I don't get any references the title of "The Misdeeds of the Root" might be making, so I'm probably missing a lot here. But it's quite a contrast to the earlier stories, a (mostly) quiet, gentle narrative about a lesbian couple trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Some of the writing reminds me a little of Sebald; there's a mention of "rings of Saturn", perhaps an oblique namecheck? The reveal and ending are tricky, but St Hogan pulls it off.
"Pasiphae: an Essay" is mostly a rant on what I'd agree is one of the most egregious injustices in Greek mythology: if Poseidon was mad at Minos, why did he make poor Pasiphae fall in love with the bull? (How about making Minos hide in the hollow cow and get impregnated by the bull instead?) The "essay" is not subtle, but the writing is enjoyable.
The title novelette ends the collection with a bizarre and fascinating menage. I hardly knew what's really going on, but it's a dysfunctional car crash that sucks up all my attention. The occult ritual is maybe over-reaching, but eventually all this comes down to earth beautifully:
I understood, in that moment, that I and I alone controlled the serpent. I could make it leave, dance, eat its own tail, feed itself to the hawk circling above.
I reached down, took its length in my hands...
So this is going straight to the top of my 2024 favorites list. Looking forward to more from Carter St Hogan.
(The description says there are 8 stories, but I only see 7. Maybe I have a defective copy.)...more
I was very surprised to see this announced so soon after the wonderful and wacky White Cat, Black Dog: Stories. It's a very different (ahem) animal thI was very surprised to see this announced so soon after the wonderful and wacky White Cat, Black Dog: Stories. It's a very different (ahem) animal though, very frustrating for me overall.
I'm a big Kelly Link fan, and I frankly don't recall another of her stories that's so respectful of YA conventions. Not just the teenaged characters, but also their endless musing on teenager concerns, the chatty scene-setting and exposition, and detailed reiteration of core events and motivations. I'm generally not a fan of such heavily YA-flavored texts, but Link's familiar way with repartee and dark humor kept me going. There are clever ideas, surprising and surprisingly goofy magical events, and nice uncanny moments. Of course I appreciate the diverse cast, and the (view spoiler)[male-male wizard liaisons and sexcapades (hide spoiler)].
There are flourishes of Link's trademark breezy magic realist writing, when she's less hampered by YA practices:
The woman's name was Giselle. Her husband was Malcolm. Malo Mogge had promised to take one of them with her to Zermatt and then on to Mumbai and Britanny. There had been some sort of contest, none of the details of which Thomas had paid much attention to. Both Giselle and Malcolm still had all of their fingers, and nothing was burnt up or broken, so there was nothing he needed to clean up or replace. Giselle had been the winner. Thomas hoped, sincerely, that she would enjoy being a fox.
There are a few impressive set pieces (view spoiler)[Mo's parade of statues, nice (hide spoiler)], but also a lot of "Secret Origins" backstory material that does not clog up Link's stories. Writing like this kept me going (names elided to avoid spoilers):
... YYY looked: the shirt had become a pavilion of dark blue silk. XXX took his arm and drew him off the rock and inside his former shirt. Here was a lacquered platform heaped with blankets and a red ceramic stove with a fire already lit inside. "This seems very... Instagrammable," YYY said. "Imagine the post: Oh my God, you guys, my magical boyfriend ate my ass in this culturally appropriative Orientalist fantasy tent. Afterward we had hot chocolate and some baklava!"
I hate to have strong reservations about a novel that mentions Julius Eastman and Eight Songs for a Mad King! But I thought the final conflict and resolution was really drawn-out and not very surprising. (I'd guessed the "secret" of the powerful missing talisman, and I'm usually terrible at this.) There's a small but crucial detail that's left open (view spoiler)[(doesn't Avelot/Bowie still have Mogge's rib?) (hide spoiler)] so maybe there'll be a sequel....more
My favorite is "The Boy who Grew Up", a riff on Peter Pan. Fascinating play with Barrie's various Peter Pan texts, and the tangled story threads.My favorite is "The Boy who Grew Up", a riff on Peter Pan. Fascinating play with Barrie's various Peter Pan texts, and the tangled story threads....more
I first read Reamy's collection San Diego Lightfoot Sue and Other Stories in the early 80s. I still consider my three favorite Reamy stories among my I first read Reamy's collection San Diego Lightfoot Sue and Other Stories in the early 80s. I still consider my three favorite Reamy stories among my favorite stories of all time. I see comments from unenthusiastic reviewers that they "didn't care for the characters". When I was stuck in a small homophobic college town coming to terms with my sexuality in the '80s, I was certainly fascinated by many of the characters, backdrops and situations. This book contains all of the earlier collection (all stories in the same order), except for Harlan Ellison's intro. I would have appreciated a biographical piece from a different perspective.
Mark Monday says it well from his review of San Diego Lightfoot Sue:
I'm not sure what the sexuality of the author was, but the feel I get is that of a person not just completely at ease with their own sexuality, but open and nonjudgmental of the spectrum of sexuality itself.
isfdb.org lists a few pieces from the 60s. Then come (by publication year at least) "Beyond the Cleft" and "Twilla". They read like earlier pieces to me, with the old-fashioned treatments of dark happenings in rural Americana. I thought "Twilla" was genuinely creepy up to the encounter with (view spoiler)[the Stepford Wives-style simulacra (hide spoiler)], but the big reveals and action-packed finale didn't work for me.
"Under the Hollywood Sign" appeared just a year after the first two stories; I've revisited it every few years. Reamy seems so comfortable with its diverse urban milieux, from the police station banter and shower hijinks, to the gay bar backroom. The writing is so matter-of-fact and nonjudgmental, a rare thing in the '70s. Its 30 pages are packed with surprising turns, all the way to the quietly horrific ending.
A few less successful stories, then another favorite: "San Diego Lightfoot Sue". Over the years, I've wondered how Reamy came to write it, and (again) how comfortable he seems in all the different environments and situations depicted. (I'm sure on my first encounter with this, like the young protagonist John Lee, I was confused by a lot of the goings-on and witty dialog.) John Lee flees from the rural Americana homelife of Reamy's earlier work, to the urban noir fantastica closer to "Under the Hollywood Sign". Right after John Lee arrives in LA, we're treated to the smooth, hilarious routine with the two queens, and the easy (and often catty) banter among Pearl, Daisy Mae, Sue and their friends. The main characters are beautifully drawn, and Reamy does not condescend to his audience with explanations. Which makes the ending even more devastating.
"The Detweiler Boy" is probably the least rewarding of my favorites on a reread. Its LA noir/mystery arc, complete with wiseass PI narrator (Bert Mallory, is that a noir name or what?) and grumpy secretary, is still pretty entertaining (though perhaps a bit long after the first time). Reamy reuses names from other stories, sometimes for rather different characters: Johnny Peacock (protagonist of San Diego Lightfoot Sue) makes another appearance here, as well as a brief cameo by a Leo Whitaker. (Elsewhere, "Miss Mahan" also appears in more than one story.) The climactic sequence is still powerful, with its proto-sexual imagery.
"Insects in Amber" appeared in print after Detweiler Boy, but reads like a different, much younger writer. Ouch.
There are three pieces here that haven't already appeared in the earlier collection. None is really near the lofty standards of my favorites, though "Potiphee, Petey, and Me" has some interesting play with gender roles through a gay male lens. (At least that's how I was reading it.)
So I'm glad Reamy's work is again widely available, but the 4 stars are mostly for "Under the Hollywood Sign", "San Diego Lightfoot Sue", and "The Detweiler Boy"....more
Readers of Jones' earlier novels know what to expect: interesting art-talk/gossip and artworld hijinks, complex, messy friendships and affairs, lots oReaders of Jones' earlier novels know what to expect: interesting art-talk/gossip and artworld hijinks, complex, messy friendships and affairs, lots of colorful local detail, and of course, fisting. And again it's hard not to conflate the author with the narrator. The latter's failed porn project is obviously a reference to the author's Tearoom.
This is a bit chatty and gossipy, but it captures the queer artist in pre-gentrication urban environments so well. Obviously I enjoy the Berlin section more than I should. Ostkreuz these days is obviously a lot more mellow than 20 years ago, but it's still far from the tourist hotspots (unless they're trying to find their way to Berghain). So another highly entertaining novel, and with the narrator moving to Berlin, perhaps we'll see another sequel chronicling his adventures there....more
I really liked Cheney's first collection Blood: Stories, and have been waiting for this for what, almost seven years? Based on the first story, this iI really liked Cheney's first collection Blood: Stories, and have been waiting for this for what, almost seven years? Based on the first story, this is certainly worth the wait. "After the End of the End of the World" is about (among other things) stories, but it's so rare that meta-fiction says so much about our broken but still beautiful world, and ends up being so charming, thoughtful and sad.
The title story is an entirely different beast. Two of the central characters are illusionists; this kind of narrative lends itself to uncanny, gently nostalgic treatments like (for example) Steven Millhauser's "Eisenheim the Illusionist". Cheney's includes queer encounters, secret lives, and no overtly supernatural components, other than an unexplained vanishing. It's a memorably wistful and stubbornly open-ended piece.
The gay couple dynamics that open "Winnipesauke Darling" are nicely done. A chance encounter leads to a story of sexual exploration and profound regret, culminating in another mysterious disappearance that's somehow magical and unsettling.
I of course love the title of "Killing Fairies". I can certainly relate to the frustrations of chasing after some talented, charismatic, and elusive guy in college. Melissa's Asperger-y monologues are hilarious. Turns out this is more than a little autobiographical, according to this. No fairy destruction in my love life though.
"Mass" is a literary quest, one of my favorite tropes. The narrator's journey (familiar to Lovecraft fans!) takes him from bibliographical research and a dark historical event (a mass shooting), to the backwoods of New Hampshire to visit a recluse. I was half-expecting some black mass (with goat, perhaps), but the only reference I noticed was a (supposed) quote from theoretical physics: "a tachyonic field of imaginary mass". (According to Wikipedia, "imaginary mass" means the system becomes unstable.) No tentacled creatures, just thoughtful conversations about (perhaps) ideas, escape from and into such, and navigating queer lives in the margins. I love this ending, as usual no resolutions:
The rain continued to fall. All I could do to stay alive was to try to keep moving forward no matter how little the car might move, no matter how deafening the torrent attacked, no matter the floods beneath the wheels, and to hope that somewhere the rain would stop, day would erase the night, the quiet would return, and I could step outside.
The opening of "At the Edge of the Forest" wastes no time introducing us to the main characters and events:
Throughout the day after the funeral, while puttering around the shop, Bryan caught himself thinking of Julia, her memory like a glint at the edge of his sight. He remembered their constant conversations, her insatiable curiosity, her devotion to both him and Cameron, an odd couple she had herself created through a combination of insight and force of will.
Cheney is so skilled with deft sketches of the troubled gay men and their friends; I also love his ear for voice and dialog. The dark, often dreamlike proceedings are infused with a quiet melancholy. There are small slippages that might be supernatural, or just unreliable perceptions and memory, all the more unsettling and memorable.
"A Suicide Gun" is an uncomfortable read, as we follow the protagonist's obsession (a collection of guns used in suicides? whew), sexual exploration, and gradual slide into insanity. Then "The Ballad of Jimmy and Myra" is another take on troubled lives. A very funny one. My favorite of the last section is "A Liberation", with the protagonist going about his life in a matter-of-fact way, despite looming disaster (shades of our climate change crisis). Then his dog's discovery nudges things in a darker direction.
There are a number of great quotes from the interview with Jeff Vandermeer I linked to earlier. For example,
...my fondness for ambiguity is democratic: the truth of stories like “After the End of the End of the World,” “The Last Vanishing Man,” “Mass,” and others is left to readers to decide for themselves.
And:
I think I am drawn to writing short stories because they offer, and I might argue at their best require, space between the lines for readers to find their way. Through the thicket of sadness and whimsy. Though in my case whimsy is perhaps most often just another word for nightmare.
Funny, in the "Readers Also Enjoyed" section, the top book is Kelly Link's new collection. These two books are easily my favorites of 2023 so far....more
From the blurb (which is somewhat different on the back cover of the paperback), this really sounded like a book I would love. The first section has mFrom the blurb (which is somewhat different on the back cover of the paperback), this really sounded like a book I would love. The first section has mostly first person (auto-fiction?) narratives, about rebellious youth in post-Soviet Russia. The folksy, gossipy pieces are very similar, and it was hard for me to stay engaged. The plain prose is ok, but occasionally there would be a purple flourish.
I skipped ahead to "The Amateur Porn Studio of Trisha Stryutsky". In the middle of descriptions of pornographers preying on unfortunate women, there was this flourish that lost me:
And the sheep became wolves, and love became hatred. And Vavila took as a nest the riches of her; and as one gathers the eggs that are left, gathered he all her earth; and there was none that moved a wing, or opened a mouth, or peeped.
I'm enjoying this on cold, rainy winter nights, often soaking in a hot bath. Would I enjoy something so chatty and gossipy on a hot summer night? MaybI'm enjoying this on cold, rainy winter nights, often soaking in a hot bath. Would I enjoy something so chatty and gossipy on a hot summer night? Maybe not....more
There's a lot of elegant and charming writing here. But I find it a bit too slippery, even for my tastes.There's a lot of elegant and charming writing here. But I find it a bit too slippery, even for my tastes....more
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