Goings

Gordon Lish
Goings

OR Books, 2014

This is the first collection of original stories by Gordon Lish in 16 years. Master of the avant-garde prose, a brilliant editor, Lish remains true to himself in a new book. The collection (quite thin, a little over 130 pages) is titled Goings: In Thirteen Sittings with a meaning. It will be hard to read it in one sitting, despite the small volume. Lish’s prose requires attention, diligence, perseverance. With each cracking of book you make an attempt, one sitting is limited to one (and sometimes even part of) story.

Stories in the book are deliberately autobiographical. For every "I" here we have an explanation in brackets (Gordon) or (Gordo). So it’s reducing the distance between the protagonist and the author.

Even autobiographical element of the stories is nominal. Detail of the past or the present becomes the catalyst to the almost missing plot, and the plot is reduced to verbal gymnastics. Reductio ad absurdum style makes the reader giddy, often causing transient amnesia: it’s hard to remember where a story began.

Avant-garde of the prose always questiones its readability, and Lish here is saved by his sense of humor. In his stylistic flourishes Lish the writer regularly makes fun of himself, Lish the old man.

«"Put it on," she said.

I put it on.

"Come closer," she said.

I did as she said, and before I could defend myself, she knocked my elbow out of the way and hooked her finger - from outside the shirt, from outside - through into the armpit.

And wiggled neck

The finger.

"What's this?" she said.

"What's what?" I said.

"This", she said.

"What?" I said, wondering but not all that assiduously, how she had managed to get her finger into my armpit from the outside.

From ouside the sirt, I mean.

"This slit," she said. She said, "What's this doing here? Not that I want for us to overlook this one on the other side over here. Are these gills? "She said. She said, "Are you actially wearing a shirt with gills?"

Well, it turned out I was.

Holes.»

Thus through the stylistic jungle breaks something totally, humanly simple.

Hopefully, with the next collection Gordon Lish will not wait another 16 years.

Tenth of December

George Saunders
Tenth of December

Bloomsbury, 2013

George Saunders obviously does not like plots. Of the ten stories in the collection, only one has a standard narrative structure with progressive storyline. In all others only a few pages in you star to realize what's going on, plodding through the so-called "mind games." But this is not to say that Saunders’ prose is plotless. Not at all, there is a distinct plot in each story of the collection, although in the case of Saunders it is sometimes impossible to divide his prose into individual components. In his case, the style is a plot, and a plot is the style.

The most straightforward story in Tenth of December is called «Home». In it a war veteran (whether in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever else Americans are still fighting), a young man, returns to his hometown, to his mother. She works in the church, does not pay for her house, causing her and her new boyfriend evicted. The former wife of a soldier ran away from him, apparently, already pregnant, and now remarried to the son of wealthy parents. With her new husband she has a son of the war veteran. His ex-wife does not allow to see the child, the sister is afraid to let her brother into the house, his mother is evicted, and the soldier is quite lost in this life in the civilian world. He becomes aggressive, beats the landlord, almost ignites his mother’s house and wants to beat new husband of his ex-wife up.

The story seems to be sad, but actually it is quite comical, perhaps it is the funniest story in the book. Mother of the protagonist swears in every sentence, but right with self-censorship, in the truest sense beeping her curses. Everyone says "Thank you for your service" to the protagonist, at the wrong time, and in general all behave nervously.

Starting and closing stories of the collection looped book. «Victory Lap» and «Tenth of December» have similar plot and the problem of moral choice. But the action in both of them takes place in fact not so much in "reality", but in the minds of the characters.

«My Chivalric Night» is most similar to previous Saunders’ works. Here, too, people play a certain role in the organization that reminds amusement parks of the stories from Pastoralia times.
Saunders is a superb stylist. Fascinated by the author's own words, the reader may not notice the plot. Most often the characters in his stories are people that unhappy and lonely. They can not communicate normally with the outside world, which is why so much time Saunders spends in the minds of his characters. It is much easier and more pleasant to talk to and live within yourself.
To someone Saunders’ stories may seem bleak, but gloominess should not set off the fact that Saunders is still an optimist. Most often there still is a way out of the abyss, you just need to find it. And also specific humor will cheer you up.

Stories’ main characters here are mostly dreamers. It is interesting to be in their heads, for Saunders and for the reader. Saunders does not oppress his characters, giving them the freedom and opportunity to talk. But sometimes he loses a step. For example, in «Tenth of December» a boy named Rob says that a dying man Eber “looked sort of mental. Like an Auschwitz dude or sad confused grandpa.” But it is too little likelihood that a young boy would choose precisely this comparison to an Auschwitz prisoner. An adult would have thought of that, more likely.

It is worth noting - and someone will put to fault - that Saunders repeats himself in this collection. I do not remember much of his early books, but there is a feeling that part of the story techniques migrated here from the previous books, the style remained the same, of course. You will not find new themes here, but degree of grotesque and fantasy decreased.

Perhaps someone instead of Tenth of December will prefer to reread Pastoralia.

The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10

The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10
Edited by Maxim Jakubowski

Robinson, 2013

Two years ago, I wrote about one of the previous anthologies titled «Best British Crime». Then that anthology had an enormous size and a dozen of excellent short stories (out of forty). In two years, serious conceptual changes have not taken place: the editor Jakubowski again selected the best and not so from the British crime, diluting the big names with lesser known and quite unknown. The quantity of truly best has not increased yet. This anthology has to offer a dozen stories of exceptional quality, five stories that are not bad, but they don’t deserve a higher praise.

Jakubowski, an experienced editor, as no one understands one of the main rules of this kind of collections: you have to start and finish a book with the strongest stories. Miss it with the opening story, and the reader will put the book down for a long time (if not forever). Miss it with closing stories (after a number of very bad ones) , and the book will leave a bad aftertaste. What's good is that the rule here is met. Anthology opens with Lee Child’s «The Bone-Headed League», noirish delightful story, only pretending to be a lightweight joke. Not surprisingly, Child is called the master. It turns out that he is the master of short form as well.

The next portion is worse. After a cheerful start the anthology falls into a swamp of mediocre short stories, some of which deserve to be collected in the collection «Worst British Crime». But closer to the equator the collection becomes more smooth, mediocre stories are replaced by good and sometimes even great, like «Stardust» Phil Lovesey or «The Message» Margaret Murphy, or the bitter story of Peter Turnbull «The Man Who Took Off His Hat to The Driver of the Train».

On the territory of noir in the book several writers walk into, among them Nina Allan, Cath Staincliffe, Christine Poulson and Stella Duffy (please note, it's all ladies). Allan’s story «Wilkolak» is probably the best in this book. It is a grim story of a teenager who wants to be a photographer and begins to follow the man which very much looks like a serial killer murdering children. Allan does not add anything new to the plots about a maniac who kills children, but switches to a psychological game between the boy and the suspect, a photographer himself in the past. For teenager the killer is kind of werewolf, hence the Polish word of the story in the title. With a serial killer plays the heroine of another story, «Laptop» by Cath Staincliffe. The heroine of the story is a professional thief who specializes in laptops, until one day she steals the laptop belonging to a serial killer. If Staincliffe better wrote the diary part of the story, her short story would be even more shocking.

Among men, strong stories here from such masters as Joel Lane, Adrian McKinty, John Harvey and a new name for me Bernie Crosthwaite with yet another story about a serial killer.

Closing the collection are two fantastic stories, but with the criminal element. This is another feature of the anthology. Among my favorite stories - seven one way or another can be attributed to the fantastic genre - stories from Child, Johnston, Lane, Allan, Lovesey, and the final stories by Alison Littlewood and Neil Gaiman. Gaiman here is represented with the story about the death of Mycroft Holmes, and Littlewood with a shocking prison story.

The collection certainly should be cut by half, and then it would show the British crime from the best side. Moreover, that the fair sex seems to write even more darker fiction than men.

The Midnight Promise

Zane Lovitt
The Midnight Promise

Europa Editions, 2013

John Dorn is a lonely private detective who lives in Melbourne. He certainly is a heir to Marlowe and his contemporaries: Dorn lives in his own office, drinks heavy, suffers from being lonely, takes not promising money cases. But Dorn at the same time is our contemporary, not a figure frozen in the past; fedora on his head, the joke on the lip, a gun in his pocket. All the stories in the collection are written in the present tense, and it's just a sign that Dorn is here and now, this is what happens to us. Present tense is a literary device. One story flows into the other, forming a novel in stories, rather than a collection of stories. Each story is a separate case, and all the stories here are in chronological order. With each turn of the page reality is changing for the worse: things are becoming more disturbing and hopeless, and Dorn's life is becoming more and more miserable.

Typically, a private detective is a knight with morality and conscience that prevents his sleep at night. Private eye is the embodiment of a doer, who commits acts to prevent something bad or bringing to justice those who committed this bad. So the stories about private detectives are often written in the past tense: work is done, time for fun. The detective solved a crime, boasted about it, and this boast of a certain kind usually becomes a short story. For John Dorn this is not so. He is also suffering from the pangs of conscience, but he is often non-doer, who refuses, and with his inaction he saves himself and his client. You’d hardly call Dorn a coward (he is against psychopaths and armed private investigators bending the law here), but he can not be called brave, either.

The Midnight Promise offers a ruthless view of modern Australia, about which we know a little, and private investigators from green continent are almost never seen.

Undoubtedly, 99 percent of stories about private detectives are the opposite of noir. The Midnight Promise by Zane Lovitt is just this one percent, the name of the series World Noir is telling the truth. Do not promise what you can not do.

Orientation

Daniel Orozco
Orientation

Faber & Faber, 2011


Less is better - it can be said of the collection of short stories Orientation by Daniel Orozco. Nine short stories, collected under the book cover for the first time, were published in magazines throughout the decade and a half. It happens sometimes that a writer for years publishes his short pieces in magazines and anthologies, these stories are quietly praised, but the author goes unnoticed because there is no book. Orozco has a book now, and at last we can say that we are now able to introduce to ourselves a great writer.

There is not one story here that is a bad one, among the nine of them (which is rare for the author's collection, where there are always a fly in the ointment). Orozco is not a prolific storyteller, though a skilful one. The author writes stories in the first, second and third person, playing out of genres and patterns and buys you over with humanity.

Orozco has his special relationship with humanity. His stories often do not suffer, but abound in this feature, which is usually called detachment. Orozco makes a hero of the story always outsiders. The author keeps his character from a distance, and it would have made the prose cold and inaccessible. But it does not matter how much the author is far from the character is more important how the character is close to the reader.

Orozco with detachment gains the love for the heroes of his stories. Here in «Officers Weep», written in police report style, a couple of officers, a man and a woman, ride all day responding to requests and make records, detain suspects. Orozco experiments with form and with the protocol prose (and it is in itself ridiculously funny) seeks the visible extent of the situation. But when the reports are interrupted with the emotions of officers, these emotions and feelings are at times more powerful than usually, because they are emotions in the restricted area.

«Officer [Shield # 325] approaches vehicle. Her stride longer than her legs can accommodate, she leans too much into each step, coming down hard on her heels, as if trudging through sand. As she returns to Patrol Unit, a lock of her hair - thin and drab, a lusterless, mousy brown - slips down and swings timidly across her left eye, across the left lens of her mirrored wraparounds. Officer tucks errant lock behind ear, secures it in a place with a readjustment of duty cap. Her gestures are brisk and empathic, as if she were quelling a desire to linger in the touch of her own hair. Officer [Shield # 647] observes entire intimate sequence from his position behind wheel of Patrol Unit. Officer enthralled. Officer ascertains the potential encroachment of love, maybe, into his cautious and lonely life. Officer swallows hard.»

Many of the characters in Orozco’s stories do not have names, only nicknames - Baby, the Presidente-in-Exile, Officer # - if not only "he" or "she," but even those that have names could very well be without them. The reality in Orozco’s stories is not really our reality, with seemingly recognizable signs. And the author is attentive to detail. Only in one story Orozco makes a logical error: in «Only Connect» action of the story runs into the future, which for some reason still remains present.

This Daniel Orozco has a right orientation, he should be read.

Fish Bites Cop!

David James Keaton
Fish Bites Cop!

Comet Press, 2013

What the stories by David James Keaton resemble, it is the feeling as if someone shouts something right in your face. And the shouts are not the most pleasant thing. This collection of short stories are hard to read because as a first reaction to the outcry in the face is to step back and look away, though, and you can shout something in return. But just as the reader is essentially a passive person, he can not to answer with the cry.

To not have laid ears, you’d better read Fish Bites Cop! in small portions. Keaton has gathered numerous short stories in his collection, all written over the past few years. All the stories to a more or less degree are against the authorities (and here, in addition to the cops, it is firefighters and paramedics, too), variety of genres collected here is a matter of respect. There is horror, crime, what is called weird fiction, pure realism.

Variety of genres should not confuse you in this: Keaton is experimenting not only with the plots, but mostly with style. If the short stories to cut into individual components and see what can be called a plot, we will not find there anything radically new. Humbled and humiliated student kills his school coaches. Up to his neck into debt because of a woman, a casino dealer is planning to cheat the casino, where he works, for a small amount of money. A gang of degenerates keeps surviving remnant of a small town off the water. If Keaton did not experiment with the delivery of these plots, more than half of included pieces would hardly deserve the reader's attention. But Keaton juggles stylistic devices and has thereby attracts attention to his prose. And when Keaton-fantasist and Keaton-stylist find each other, and then we have unusual, weird, amazing stories, like «Queen Excluder», «Schrödinger's Rat» or «Third Bridesmaid from the Right».

However, the same experiments sometimes harm the stories, even to complete unreadability. Keaton can be turned the wrong way, and a story, which already consists almost entirely of dialogue, becomes a mere chatter about nothing. Keaton also utilizes part of the ideas for several time, so that you can find almost the same monologues in different stories. A number of stories are half-baked in general: these are the rudiments of ideas that need more polish and editing. Bumping into weak stories in the book, you come to the conclusion that it was necessary to filter stories better. Weak stories smeared overall positive impression about the book and the author.

And it is so hard, of course, when someone shouts in the face without stopping.

Quarry/Hit Man

Lawrence Block
Hit Man

Harper Collins, 2009

Max Allan Collins
Quarry

Perfect Crime Books, 2010
(previously published as The Broker)

These two books written with a difference of more than twenty years share a common theme: both are about assassins. The formal difference between them is that Hit Man is a collection of stories linked by one character, and Quarry is a full novel, though quite short one.

Hired killer from the Lawrence Block’s book is named Keller (almost killer), he is about forty, he lives in an apartment in New York, alone (in some stories, he has a dog). Keller gets contracts a woman named Dottie, who serves as a secretary for the old man, who lives in the town of White Hills. Dottie calls Keller, he comes to the old man's house in White Hills, receives the job’s details from the old man acting as a broker, buys a plane ticket and flies to that city, where a future victim lives. While preparing for the job Keller can solve crossword puzzles, visit houses for sale, dreaming, as if he lived in a certain town, or takes part in auctions for philatelists, in general, he just kills time, as does any traveling man when the work itself takes relatively little time.

While each story of the collection is built around a murder, Block devotes relatively little space to very process of "taking away" the victim. Block more interested in how the assassin could spend his time when he is not doing the work. Keller walks his dog, Keller collects stamps, Keller makes acquaintance with a pet sitter, Keller saves grandson of one of the victim from the pool, Keller drink ice tea with Dottie on the veranda. The collection could well be renamed to "Everyday life of a hitman."

«Keller, riding substantially more than a thousand miles, albeit on a plane instead of a horse, was similarly charged with killing a man as yet unmet. And he was drifting into the Old West to do it, first to Denver, then to Casper, Wyoming, and finally to a town called Martingale. That had been reason enough to pick up the book, but was it reason enough to read it? »

Despite his relatively young age, Keller is behaving like a man much older than his years. Outside of work, Keller has a measured and leisurely life. Hit Man is a leisurely read too, where there is much to enjoy.

Quarry from the novel by Max Allan Collins doesn’t have a measured Keller’s life. At the very beginning of the novel the hitman kills a man dressed as a priest at the airport bathroom, after finding in his lining two bags of heroin. Quarry clearly understands his profession: he is an assassin, not muscle. He is supposed to kill their victims, not interrogate them using torture. Quarry hides heroin in the airport safe box, thus giving a lesson to the Broker, a man who gives orders to Quarry.

Quarry is a Vietnam veteran who'd become a drunk, if Broker had not picked him up and teached (so to speak) him how to be a hired killer. Quarry has been five years in the business, but he begins to tire of his work. Quarry is irritated by everything: his shiftless life, Broker that holds Quarry for a fool, and his partner in a new business in a small town. Quarry promises himself out of the game, but first he needs to finish the last job, and this is where things go awry.

«I was spoiled, maybe, from five years of smooth runs, five years of nothing-goes-wrong and then all of a sudden Boyd loses his edge and almost gets me killed last job. Then Broker pulls that half-ass, last-minute airport deal on me, where it's not enough I off the guy, I got to play strong-arm and delivery boy too. By that Broker betrayed the trust I had in him and our working arrangement. »

Quarry is an anti-hero created by Collins and you may find it difficult to empathize with him. But when the hitman is in trouble, the reader goes on his side. Collins’s prose is stinging, exposed wires. Dialogues sometimes seem fake, but Collins buys you over with the pressure and energy, apparently with an influence of Mickey Spillane.

Both books have become classics of the genre.

Million Dollar Baby

F.X. Toole
Million Dollar Baby

Open Road Media ebook, 2012
(originally published in 2000)

Toole was a trainer and cut man, and boxing was his passion and his profession. This book brings together flawlessly written stories about boxing, often interspersed with crime. If we reject all sports comparisons (Toole wins by knockout; Toole’s prose has more power than a right hook; this collection deserves the belt of the champion of all boxing organizations and associations; throw the towel - Toole is the best), you can gather up the hundreds of laudatory statements not related to boxing praising something about that masterful collection of stories. There is not a bad story there, and I have not read it perfect short story collections, where all the stories would be close to ideal, for maybe two years.

The characters in his stories, on whose behalf the story goes, as a rule, are aging men, devoted their lives to boxing. They've seen everything, they know even more about the game (and for professionals boxing is not a game, it’s business), and for them the boxing remains honest sport. Yeas, there are the corrupt players, cunning trainers, greedy promoters, but it is important to be honest, whatever happens around. Moral of many stories lays on the surface, but on the surface and the face of a fighter lays – hit and you get it.

Toole essentially writes production prose: he can for half a story analyze fighting techniques, or training heavyweight, or stop blood on dissection, but you read it and do not feel any fatigue. On the contrary – you feel delight, as if you are initiated into a secret that very few people see. When finished with the mechanics, Toole goes to biology - the fights, and around them mant plots are construdcted. And it should be said that the plots are perfected to the smallest detail.

What is more notable about this collection: most stories are written in first person. The story is told by semi-literate people, and therefore they’re written in the style of a street, as I hear so, I write so (it is possible to say the stories are written in so-called black people talk-style, but the narrator is usually white). Often when such a style device is selected, it's annoying. A writer’s trying to be closer to reality, but in fact he makes it difficult to read. Semiliterate speech does not bring together an author and a character, on the contrary, as if the writer is laughing at retarded character. Toole’s street language is seamlessly woven into the narrative that says only one simple thing: most of the boxers are really uneducated and illiterate people - but they have different skills and dignity.

«Million Dollar Baby» is a first-rate collection. Perhaps the best thing I've read about boxing. And yes, it guaranteed kicks a tear.

League of the Grateful Dead and Other Stories

Day Keene
League of the Greatful Dead and Other Stories

Ramble House, 2010

This is the first collection of short stories by Day Keene, which he wrote for the pulp magazines. In fact, Ramble House plans to publish all the Keene’s stories (three volumes already had been published)!

This volume consists of eight short stories, or even novellettes, judging by the number of words, and they are all excellent. Day Keene was certainly a master. Conventionally, all the stories from the book can be divided into three categories: noir, a mystery with the elements of the supernatural and the old good private eye stuff. Only one story, «Nothing To Worry About», is pure noir and it’s anthologised in «Best American Noir of the Century», edited by Ellroy and Penzler. It's a grim story about a district attorney who wanted to kill his wife, who did not give him a divorce. And this is the shortest story in the collection.

The category of the supernatural mystery also consists of only one story, titled «League of the Grateful Dead». In it mysterious events happen: some people crumble to dust in front of witnesses, and a man says that he is the devil who came down to Earth. Keene masterfully creates growing tension: will the hero of the story have to fight with Satan, or there will be a logical explanation. Another plus to the well-plotted mystery is also the choice of the protagonist. He is a drunkard, a former surgeon who started to drink, after losing his job after a series of unsuccessful operations that led to the deaths of the patients. And if the ex-surgeon had not been picked up by a local reporter, and received from him a roof over his head, the drunkard would have died in the gutter.

In the other six stories case of varying complexity is investigated by private detectives (or trouble-fixer, as in «Marry the Sixth for Murder»). PIs in Keene’s stories are often men who can shoot, but they have brains, too, too long they worked in their lines of bussiness, too often they were into jams. Private detectives there are working in the post-war times, and then they served at the war in Europe. Private eyes are not alone. He usually has a wife or girlfriend, he has links to the police, though police give them a hard time. In some stories, detectives receive a lot of money from a client, in some they work for free, as, for example, in «Fry Away, Kentucky Babe!»:

«... Some man there ... had told her that while I charged enormous fees I was always willing to give a former service man a break and I almost always got results».

The book is full of fist-fights, shootings, self-irony so you will get a lot of fun. I should also mention the sleek Keene’s style - no fat, only muscle and nothing else:

«I lighted a cigarette while I thought it over. It was strictly business with me. Private eyes are dime a dozen along The Sunset Strip and I couldn't keep meat on the table if it wasn't for the annual retainer Consolidated pays me to pry their bad girls and boys out of the minor jams that might affect their box- office value. But this wasn't a minor jam ».

I hope that I’ll continue my knowing of Keene’s fiction very soon.

The Third Bear

Jeff VanderMeer

The Third Bear


Tachyon Publications, 2010

This collection of short stories (one original, other 13 were published in one form or another in magazines and anthologies) by Jeff VanderMeer can confound all those who believe that the format of the short story had died. After reading «The Third Bear», it becomes clear to anyone that the story is alive and is not going to die for a few hundred years more at least.

«The Third Bear» is a shooting gallery for the reader. The book is populated by huge numbers of animals and the creatures that pretend to be animals, and when the eye-gun hits the target, then as a gift you take a story about an animal.

In «The Third Bear», which after the first page seems the standard fantasy, but then turns into something more sophisticated and unconventional, a kind of monster that people call for the convenience The Third Bear, attackes the village of Grommin, abducting people and devouring them. The Third Bear, of course, is not a bear, and got his nickname because of the consonance with Theeber. The village already is in a mess, but the monster eats strong men, placing the existence of the entire community at risk. Head of the village at any price has to stop the dangerous animal. You can’t find in the story typical clashes between conan-villager and man-eating bear; powerful wizards; king defender, guarding his citizens. Vandermeer does not give the answer where the bear came from and for what purpose. Author does not give an answer to the question, what kind of world is this, as well. This well may be the Earth in feudal times, this may be another planet, another world. And is it so important when you stay cut off from the world, with your village in front of the forest with the most terrible creature, which you ever saw?

VanderMeer leaves unanswered the appearance of the speaking rabbit in the story «The Quickening». Parents of 12-year old Rachel died in a car accident, and now she lives in a house with his aunt Etta. One day a stranger near the pond gives the girl a rabbit and says his name is Sensio. Sensio soon begins to talk to the girl and tells her that he is not a rabbit. The Aunt Etta, having learnt about the abilities of the beast, at first gives him royal honors, and then decides to make money. To some people the fabula of «The Quickening» may seem unoriginal: how many times we've read about talking animals? But Sensio is anything, but not an animal. This is a story (not without a bit of black humor) about the blackness of the soul and tyranny, about the narrow-mindedness and breadth of meanness. «The Quickening» could be written by Updike or Carver, if they came up with the story of a girl, her despot aunt and a creature in the guise of a rabbit.

«My manager was extremely thin, made of plastic, with paper covering the plastic» - so begins «The Situation», very weird office farce. Conspiracy is building up against the protagonist, his Manager every day asks whether he loves her, colleagues mutate. The expression "office plankton" should be understood literally. Very weird.

Each story in this collection is not what it seems. «Fixing Hanover» is more than steampunk. «Errata» is more than a postmodern story on how to write a story. «Shark God Versus Octopus God» is more than a story based on a myth. «The Surgeon's Tale» is more than the retelling of "Frankenstein."

Vandermeer has everything that a good storyteller should have: he is original, he knows how to build a structure of a story, and he can change style depending on the story. Read this book, or you will be eaten by the bear.

Ganges #1

Kevin Huizenga
Ganges #1

Fantagraphics/Coconino, 2006

Glenn Ganges - the protagonist of the first volume of the series «Ganges» - is a dreamer, an eccentric, a loving husband, but first and foremost a restless man. Meaningless details do not give rest to him, he makes a mountain out of a molehill, and his fantasies replace the reality. Five stories under one cover are the five pieces of a day in the life of Ganges. These fragments were not worth any attention to, if their hero was someone else, not Glenn Ganges. Ganges goes to the library. Ganges returns home. Ganges sits next to his wife while she works at the computer. Ganges goes to sleep. Ganges is asleep.



But Huizenga splash with something each of these individual stories (although the book is done in only three colors: black, white and shades of green). On the way to the library Ganges moves in time. Then he sees the cyclist, throwing trash on the road, and moves ahead in the future of the cyclist. Then he argues with his wife because of the song. Then he goes to bed and thinks what love is. Ganges himself steps into the background, replacing himself by his own imagination. And all those themes and issues that Ganges raises in conversations with his wife or, more commonly, with himself, how serious they wouldn’t be, you can’t take them seriously. Last, night, part of the book, when Ganges and his wife go to sleep, is the most sophisticated in terms of art. There is no division between the panels, Ganges’ ideas are moving and moving, not letting him fall asleep, and the darkness are enveloping here, but not sleepy.



I’d like to meet this Ganges.

Dr. Seuss & Co. Go To War

Andre Schiffrin
Dr. Seuss & Co. Go To War: The World War II Editorials Cartoons of America’s Leading Comic Artists

The New Press, 2011

The sequel to the collection of Dr. Seuss «Dr. Seuss Goes To War». What is interesting is that this collection of The World War II caricatures and cartoons, so this is the fact that it contains not only cartoons by Dr. Seuss, which became known mainly through his children books, but by also other artists of that time, who published the cartoons in newspapers and magazines.
Cartoon is a type of art that should immediately cause a smile (and even better laugh), but at the same time cause embarrassment. This is a sign of good cartoons. Ironically, the works of the doctor Seuss are not impressive. Whether they are too parochial, understandable only to the Americans, and even then not to all, or graphics are clumsy, but the fact is that the drawings of Dr. Seuss do not raise either smile or embarrassment. Despite the extensive commentary by Andre Schiffrin to each section of the book, explaining the situation in the U.S. in the late 30's and early 40's and the government's attitude to U.S. military operations in Europe and the Pacific ocean, these comments are still no substitute for knowledge of the inner and foreign U.S. policy in wartime.

Nevertheless, the book is a success, thanks to the work of other artists of the forties. Cartoons drawn by Saul Steinberg, Melville Bernstein, Al Hirschfeld, John Groth, Eric Godal are far wittier and more inventive visually, than the pictures by Dr. Seuss. These cartoons highlight the inner life of States and the war with Nazi Germany. They are simply easier to understand for Europeans, and even without commentary. Caricature is the same joke, and if you begin to explain the effect is lost. Especially there is worth mentioning the work of Saul Steinberg. He is a true master. In the book he is represented by single cartoons and short comics. He draws in a number of pictures Hitler so fun that you laugh to tears. He has a very simple drawing style, but he feels a joke on a subconscious level. Every one of Steinberg's cartoons are fun.

The book covers the period from 1941 to 1945-th, and there makes fun of everything, from Stalin to Japanese kamikazes. «Dr. Seuss & Co. Go To War» is an excellent tutorial on the history, and most importantly - very funny one.

Popgun Vol. 4

Popgun Vol. 4
Ed. by D.J. Kirkbride, Anthony Wu, Adam P. Knave

Image Comics, 2010

How to define the compilers of this anthology, «Popgun» is a mixtape. Completely different styles, different stories, different characters. If we continue to compare the book with music, something there sounds out of tune, something is too loud, somewhere there is nice vocals (art), but the music (the plot) is so-so. 500-plus pages of colors and you can’t like all of that.

To start, there is too much escapism in the book. People from our world are faced with another world, and the parallel world, however beautiful or dangerous it was, is always better than our world. Sci-fi here is in all its forms, from fantasy to neocyberpunk mystery. And if art is most often very good, the stories are always too flighty, with no internal logic. Almost always there is interesting complication of the plot, but not a solution. However, a number of works in «Popgun» proved to be equally successful in terms of art and in terms of plot.



A realistic story of Stephanie Ramirez «Thinking Out Cloud» reads like a YA fantasy. In the «Agent Orange» by Darren Rawlings robot private detective exposes dishonest businessman, knocks-out a few robots and saves the world from an ancient curse. «Family Reunion» by David Brenion and Joe Flood tells about what happened to the heroes of cartoons and books after they lost their former glory. Authors create a funny satire on Superhero stamps. «The Eye» by Jeremy Tinder starts as a typical story about a private eye with a big eye instead of a head, but later the story turns into something bigger (and with large portions of the black humor). «Rusted: Faded Signal» by Nick Tapalansky and Alex Eckman-Lawn attracts the attention first of all with a wonderful art, you get the impression as if you read the yellowed parchment. The story unfolds in a desert, where, after some catastrophe, a girl tries to find a radio tower to get the help. Completely insane is «Sasquatch» by Nick Edwards. Children go into the woods for a picnic, and one of the boys, bespectacled Nigel, becomes so teased that he runs away to the river, looking for solitude, but instead meets sasquatch. They become friends, and here you can begin to laugh. Hilarious story.



One of the few realistic graphic stories here is «Hamburgers for One» by Frank Stockton, it is also one of the best in the book. Plump clumsy young man takes out the trash, feeds rat with a candy and goes to fast food cafe. In there his attention is attracted by a pretty brunette cashier. Stockton is unhurried, attentive to details; sometimes the artist achieves photographic autenticity in panels.

We should also mention a number of single-page strips by Erik Larsen «Reggie the Veggie». First and foremost this is a very clever and funny comics, as comic strip about a legless cripple can be funny.

Graphically «Popgun» is an almost ideal anthology, bright, bold, diverse, but it lacks good storytelling.

Vicki Hendricks kindle stories

Vicki Hendricks
Dangerous Sex: Two Stories
Tender Fruit

Self-published e-book, 2011

No one writes neonoir like Vicki Hendricks. Her collection «Florida Gothic Stories» was almost perfect, with one drawback: it has included not all the stories written by the author. A few stories from the anthologies remained uncollected. These stories have since not been republished, but now you can buy them in versions for the Kindle. Three stories, which became the subject of this brief review, are unlikely to be attributed to neonoir, they fit the definition by Hendricks herself – violent erotica.

If the author's noir stories also had enough sex and violence, but the focus was on violence, in the erotic stories the emphasis shifts toward sex. In the strongest story of the three «Tender Fruit» Ronnie is a typical loser, and troubles chase him at every step. If Ronnie’s friend, Don, is ok with the girls, then Ronnie is always a fool. Perpetual loser also wants not just sex, but also a great love. Ronnie does not know how his quest for a unique and desirable one will end. The story is not so much erotic, but there are a tense atmosphere, the inimitable voice of the author, the doomed hero of noir.

The other two stories, «Be Very Afraid» and «Penile Infraction», are less successful, primarily because of the not so strong plot. «Be Very Afraid» is stylistically very rich, but can not stand the seriousness of intent. The story can be read only as a parody of a pornomovie. «Penile Infraction» is a satirical sketch of a strong - by character and by body - woman with a penis.

These stories are not for everyone’s taste, but if you're a fan of Vicki Hendricks, you must read it.

8 Pounds

Chris F. Holm
8 Pounds

Self-published e-book, 2010

Chris F. Holm’s self-published collection includes eight stories, most of which has a solid weight, making the book, despite its name, much heavier than eight pounds. Holm writes in different genres: horror, modern neonoir, so-called "dark fiction." The word "dark" is suited the best to describe the entire collection of short stories.

Theme of childhood is very close to the author, and two story, opening and closing, are built on this theme. In the «Seven Days of Rain» in town for several days it rains non-stop, washing away everything in its path - including the secrets of the past. The protagonist of the story Eddie and his friends, when they were kids, played together, when their friend Timmy had an accident. The boys hid the body so that no one has found it. But the terrible flood washes away the remains of a body of the boy. One of his friends invites Eddie to go to the police and tell about what happened. But the secret of childhood days is even grimmer.

In the closing story «The World Behind» adult narrator at hot night can not sleep and remembers what happened to him twenty years ago, when he was a boy. His past keeps secret. The neighborhood boys teased him and mocked him. The boy began to seek refuge in the woods, where he meets a strange man who helps the boy to change his life forever.

«The Toll Collectors» tells the story of Ray McDaniel, the man of violence. For the first time in a fight in a bar, McDaniel felt a passion for violence and later went to work for bad people doing dirty jobs. For the cruelty they paid him good money. But here's the killer flees, hoping to start life over again, but go from himself is not easy, and the past catch up with McDaniel in the most unexpected way.
The best in the collection are the story with the title “8 Pounds”. It's brutal, exploding story about two best friends - and better to write no more about this story, so not to spoil the great fun.

In addition to excellent stories an advantage can be attributed, and it’s the price: it is not 8 pounds, it’s much much less.

Collected Fictions by Gordon Lish

Gordon Lish
Collected Fictions

OR Books, 2010

The collection by Gordon Lish «Collected Fictions» includes 106 pieces of his prose. This is exactly fictions, prose pieces, which can not be called short stories, as well as diary entries, blog posts. You can still pick up a comparison: anecdotes. Collection of anecdotes, as ridiculous it may sound.

Despite the complexity (and sometimes transcendent) Lish’ fictions are the very oral stories, excerpts from life that can be called anecdotes. It may be objected that people do not talk like Lish writes, so his stories can not belong to the oral genre, transferred to paper. People probably do not talk like that, but Lish, better known as an editor, not a writer, does.

«My wife says, «Look at you. Just look at you. How can you look like that? Why don’t you take a good look at yourself? Look at me, don’t you have any idea of what you look like? What do you think people are going to think when they look at you? Tell me, how can you go around looking like that? Do you know what you look like? You couldn’t conceivably know what you look like. Who would believe anyone who look like this? I cannot believe what you look like. It is hard for me to grasp it, a man who go around looking like what you look like. What is the matter with you, don’t you know what you look like? You probably don’t have the first idea of what you look like. You act like you are completely oblivious to what you look like. Don’t you realize people are looking at you? Have you no conception of the fact that there are people who are looking at you? Why are you so utterly unaware of the fact that you cannot go around looking like whatever you happen to feel like looking like? Take a look at yourself. Just go ahead and just take just one good look at yourself.»»

Approximately the prose of such saturation fills this book. Lish does not give words to relax, and not just words - the whole proposals. Lish in his monologues looks like a sort of carefree old man, at times even seems silly, immersed in the everyday stuff. But this is a sham, because the author is working with a word, scrolls language through a meat grinder, and there is no question about any relaxation.
There is no relaxation for the reader as well. To read Lisha is like to comb a corn: an unpleasant, sometimes painful, but sometimes what a pleasure.

The beauty of this book is not on the surface, but it is worth reading all 600 pages to dig up this beauty.

(Books published by OR Books are not sold in stores and are available exclusively through the publisher’s website.)

Florida Gothic Stories

Vicki Hendricks
Florida Gothic Stories

Kitsune Books, 2010

Nowhere on the cover of this book states that it is a collection of noir short stories, so Vicki Hendricks is called the queen of modern noir. And rightly so, that it is not specified. Vicki Hendricks is not queen of noir, she is queen of neonoir: Now, when the term "noir" clings to all the books and movies, where there is murder, it had already lost its original meaning and actually depreciated. Period of film noir was - and passed. On his shift neonoir came, so it's fair to replace queen of noir to queen of neonoir.

And it's really the royal collection. Typically author’s collections and anthologies are vulnerable because in them one half is good stories, the other one is bad stories. And I think I first saw the author's collection, where there is no bad story. That is, in general, not one at all. All the 11 stories collected here are damn good (some of them reprints, there are a couple of originals).

All three words in the title of the book could not better describe what the full collection is. Florida in stories exists on an equal terms with the heroes of stories, becoming a full participant in the events. Crocodiles, tornadoes, beaches, ocean, luxury homes, monkeys - Florida is rich in exotics. Not all stories are realistic, and in general, noir has never been a separate genre, and often contained in itself the elements of different genres, from science fiction to melodrama. In «Stormy, Mon Amour» heroine, tired of the bad boyfriend, gets bonded with a dolphin and becomes pregnant by him, and later hopes to escape with a dolphin. A loser and a married man, Gregory Waxman is left by his wife and gets cold-blooded mistress - an iguana, in the «Cold-Blooded Lovers». Too intelligent and sexually preoccupied chimpanzee named Big Man takes the former master into the sex slavery, in «Must Bite!».

But above all - Hendricks can tell a good story. Catchy, original (the elements of the old film noir are the same, but the new scenery of the old stories so refreshes a story that you forget about the original), tough and brutal. Heroes of the stories in this book are most often women. They can be cunning, deadly dangerous, resourceful, independent, but they all at heart want to be affectionate and want to have a little wealth, if only in their lives was a man. However, the men these women often choose are not ideal: spoiled, rude, cruel, power, recognizing a woman not as fully human being, but merely a sex toy. In «Gators» wife plans to frame her own husband for killing the husband of his sister:

«It was a goddamned one-armed alligator put me over the line. After that I was looking for trouble».

In «Must Bite!» as a means of revenge it’s chosen a giant ape, for a meal ready to devour the man. In «The Big O» to get rid of the boyfriend a woman against the backdrop of an approaching tornado pits boyfriend with a local drug-dealer.
Finals of stories are often instructive: If you use illegal methods to fix your life, life most likely will use a forbidden method in relation to you, too.

Incredibly good book.

Beginners

Raymond Carver
Beginners

Vintage, 2010

«Beginners» is a collection of short stories by Raymond Carver, which was released in its original form, as it is conceived by the author. Earlier this book was known as «What We Talk About When We Talk About Love» and was a collection of the same stories, but in the editing of Gordon Lish, who is credited as a discoverer of Carver as a writer. In the book there are some notes which briefly give the basic differences in the stories between the versions of Carver and Lish. Such comparisons with a limited amount of space in the book do not give a complete picture: to compare the original version and edition of Lish is only possible if you have before yourself the full versions of stories. So to say what version is "better" is difficult; moreover, both have remained in the literary memory. And that's a matter of academics, to compare and comment. The reader, of course, will simply enjoy reading.

And there is a lot of enjoyable stuff here. Carver is a phenomenal storyteller, often not even at the level of plot, not on a level as something happens or has happened, probably on a level as something never happened. Carver primarily is a storyteller on the level of feelings and emotions (again - not shown feelings and emotions), and the story serves as a sort of escalator.

Beginners, this is all the characters of Carver’s stories. They are not new to life, these people are already with life experience, but they are all beginners to the level of feelings. And in those stories that the author tells, his characters as if for the first time are experiencing real feelings. And often from such an emotional shock - resulting, in general, for the first time - they are lost, not knowing how to go on.

First-class writer, first-class collection.