Unlikely to touch off a wave of imitators on these shores but an interesting sampler.
Illuminating collection of current writing from across the pond, as different from its American counterpart as a Paris croissant is from a New York cronut.
To gauge by this collection, universities in most European countries don’t offer a Master of Fine Arts degree. The contributors to this collection hold Ph.D.s in art history, ethnography, literature, philology, philosophy, and often, their publications are divided between fiction and politically engaged essays. The “enfant terrible of Galician literature,” Xurxo Borrazás, for instance, writes “transgressive fiction,” whatever that is, and, lately, “a challenging collection of essays on literature and politics.” The fiction here breaks down somewhat differently, and though the generalization is a loose one, it seems that writers from oppressive zones such as Belarus (“Well, we’re here to express our dissent against the politics of the ruling regime”) are just a wee bit more vocal about social/political matters than those from more forgiving climes—say, Switzerland, from which Christoph Simon turns in a tale reminiscent of fellow Helvetian Friedrich Dürrenmatt in which a presumably transgressive bookseller is ordered to be “put in a coffin...hammered shut with an iron nail, and...thrown into the river.” (Her mule, in addition, is to be turned into sausage.) It would stand to reason that the oppressed would be allegorical and the free representational, but no. In all events, the assembled collection offers a pleasing blend of realism, deconstruction and absurdism that sometimes vie for the dominant mood, as if the spirits of Slavoj Žižek and Samuel Beckett and maybe Georges Perec were fighting for first place. Sometimes all three meet, though, as in Belgian Thierry Horguelin’s meta-policier and Liechtensteiner Jens Dittmar’s alternately dark and goofy view of human relations: “[I]nstead of screwing her, he simply shoved her down the stairs.”
Unlikely to touch off a wave of imitators on these shores but an interesting sampler.Pub Date: Nov. 7, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-56478-898-6
Page Count: 420
Publisher: Dalkey Archive
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Top-flight fantasy collection based on Gaiman's character The Sandman, developed in a series of graphic novels for DC Comics, as reimagined by a strong group of fantasists. Long-lived comics readers will remember fondly the original "Sandman" from the 1930s and '40s, with his fedora, googly-eyed gas mask and gas gun; Frank McConnell discusses this precursor in his preface while hauling in Joyce, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Jung, and Wallace Stevens to dress up Gaiman's stow-parentage. Inventing his own lore for the character, Gaiman (1990's hilariously naughty Good Omens, with Terry Pratchett) wrote 75 installments of The Sandman before closing shop. Awash with watercolors and supersaturated with acid, The Sandman stories are stories about storytelling, celebrations of the outr‚ imagination. The central character of Gaiman's work evolved into a figure variously known as Dream, or Morpheus, or the Shaper, or the Lord of Dreams and Prince of Stories, and his surreal family is called the Endless, composed of seven siblings named Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium. Drawing on Gaiman's inkwell are Clive Barker (frontispiece but no story), Gene Wolfe and Nancy A. Collins, and a number of lesser lights, all in top form. George Alec Effinger invents a long tale inspired by Winsor McCay's classic comic strip "Little Nemo" ("Seven Nights in Slumberland"), while Colin Greenland ("Masquerade and High Water"), Mark Kreighbaum ("The Gate of Gold"), Susanna Clarke ("Stopt-Clock Yard"), and Karen Haber (in the outstanding "A Bone Dry Place," about a suicide crisis center) mainline directly from the ranks of the Endless. Rosettes to all, but especially to John M. Ford's "Chain Home, Low," which ties an onslaught of sleeping sickness to the fate of WW II fighter pilots, and to Will Shetterly's "Splatter," about a fan-convention of serial killers who lead their favorite novelist (famous for his depictions of psychopathic murderers) into the real world of serial-killing. Fancy unleashed on rags of moonlight.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-06-100833-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1996
Although some of the Quinns' problems are resolved, many are not, happily promising a third installment next year.
In a sequel to last year's holiday novel Winter Street, Hilderbrand improves on the first by delving deeper into the emotional lives of the Quinn clan.
A year has elapsed and the events that closed the first novel have developed: thanks to the generous $1 million loan from his first wife, world-renowned newscaster Margaret Quinn, Kelley can keep his Winter Street Inn open, although it's lonelier now that his wife, Mitzi, has left him for George, their one-time holiday Santa. Kelley and Mitzi's son, Bart, is still MIA in Afghanistan, and Mitzi is falling apart; unhappy with George, she spends most days drunk. The lives of Kelley and Margaret's three children are also in crisis. Patrick is now in prison for insider trading, while his wife, Jennifer, tries to hold their family together with the help of illicit prescription pills. Ava seems to have found “the one” with vice principal Scott, if only she could stop thinking about wild Nathaniel. And middle son Kevin has made good with girlfriend Isabelle and their infant, Genevieve. Hopefully he can avoid his first wife, the troubled Norah, who has returned to the island. This year's Winter Stroll, a Nantucket Christmas tradition, coincides with Genevieve's baptism, bringing together all the Quinns and their issues. Also on island for the festivities is Margaret's beau, Drake, a pediatric neurosurgeon and about as perfect as can be, if only Margaret and he could bow out of their schedules and enjoy each other's company. In the ensuing few days, everyone has life-altering decisions to make—even Ava, now that Nathaniel has returned to the island to propose. Only Nantucket itself is left unscathed by the juicy drama. Described in all its magic (after all these years, one hopes Hilderbrand is on the tourist board's payroll), it seems impossible for such turmoil to exist on the charmed island.
Although some of the Quinns' problems are resolved, many are not, happily promising a third installment next year.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-316-26113-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
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