Perhaps this is the way of things with fiction anthologies: lots of skill and nothing to rock the boat. It doesn’t...
Twenty pieces of the year’s crop of short fiction that never fail to deliver what is expected but rarely take us anywhere but the expected.
The O. Henry series works thus: the editor, Dark this year, collects what is presumably some of the best fiction in the land and then a panel of three respected writers vote for their favorites. The winners are ranked one, two, and three, and each jury member writes an introduction for one of them. This time, a trio of heavy-hitters, Dave Eggers, Joyce Carol Oates, and Colson Whitehead, are on board. Oates’s winner, “The Ceiling,” by Kevin Brockmeier, is a real corker about a town where a giant burnished thing—simply called “the object”—has appeared in the sky and is inexorably bearing down upon those who dwell there. Eggers and Whitehead fare less successfully with, respectively, a strong-starting fizzler about a gay musician reuniting with his ultra-Christian family in Texas (“Scordatura,” by Mark Ray Lewis) and a manufactured piece of Minnesota drama (“The Butcher’s Wife,” by Louise Erdrich). The inspiration for last year’s film Memento is included here—“Memento Mori,” by Jonathan Nolan—and it’s a good thing, too, as this is a collection that desperately needs a shot of twisty and inventive pulp. Despite how much solid and talented writing is on display, from Richard Ford’s serene “Charity” to David Foster Wallace’s chatty “Good Old Neon,” there is also a serious lack of much that’s terribly exciting or new. Passion? Experimentation? Good taste and the artfully constructed sentence rule here, and putting a trio of big names at the front of the book can’t change that reality.
Perhaps this is the way of things with fiction anthologies: lots of skill and nothing to rock the boat. It doesn’t necessarily mean that one wouldn’t enjoy reading the collection; it’s just that there’s little to make the reading of it a necessity. (For comparison’s sake, see Miller, below.)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2002
ISBN: 0-385-72162-5
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Anchor
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
An extremely powerful story of a young Southern Negro, from his late high school days through three years of college to his life in Harlem.
His early training prepared him for a life of humility before white men, but through injustices- large and small, he came to realize that he was an "invisible man". People saw in him only a reflection of their preconceived ideas of what he was, denied his individuality, and ultimately did not see him at all. This theme, which has implications far beyond the obvious racial parallel, is skillfully handled. The incidents of the story are wholly absorbing. The boy's dismissal from college because of an innocent mistake, his shocked reaction to the anonymity of the North and to Harlem, his nightmare experiences on a one-day job in a paint factory and in the hospital, his lightning success as the Harlem leader of a communistic organization known as the Brotherhood, his involvement in black versus white and black versus black clashes and his disillusion and understanding of his invisibility- all climax naturally in scenes of violence and riot, followed by a retreat which is both literal and figurative. Parts of this experience may have been told before, but never with such freshness, intensity and power.
This is Ellison's first novel, but he has complete control of his story and his style. Watch it.
Pub Date: April 7, 1952
ISBN: 0679732764
Page Count: 616
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1952
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Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.
A very funny novel about the survivor of a childhood trauma.
At 29, Eleanor Oliphant has built an utterly solitary life that almost works. During the week, she toils in an office—don’t inquire further; in almost eight years no one has—and from Friday to Monday she makes the time go by with pizza and booze. Enlivening this spare existence is a constant inner monologue that is cranky, hilarious, deadpan, and irresistible. Eleanor Oliphant has something to say about everything. Riding the train, she comments on the automated announcements: “I wondered at whom these pearls of wisdom were aimed; some passing extraterrestrial, perhaps, or a yak herder from Ulan Bator who had trekked across the steppes, sailed the North Sea, and found himself on the Glasgow-Edinburgh service with literally no prior experience of mechanized transport to call upon.” Eleanor herself might as well be from Ulan Bator—she’s never had a manicure or a haircut, worn high heels, had anyone visit her apartment, or even had a friend. After a mysterious event in her childhood that left half her face badly scarred, she was raised in foster care, spent her college years in an abusive relationship, and is now, as the title states, perfectly fine. Her extreme social awkwardness has made her the butt of nasty jokes among her colleagues, which don’t seem to bother her much, though one notices she is stockpiling painkillers and becoming increasingly obsessed with an unrealistic crush on a local musician. Eleanor’s life begins to change when Raymond, a goofy guy from the IT department, takes her for a potential friend, not a freak of nature. As if he were luring a feral animal from its hiding place with a bit of cheese, he gradually brings Eleanor out of her shell. Then it turns out that shell was serving a purpose.
Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2068-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
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