stories

Boys Town by Jim Shepard

November 10, 2010 - 3G1B - 0 Comment

I’ve always come across Jim Shepard’s work, he pops up every other year or so, sometimes I find myself reading his stories, other times I completely miss them. When I miss his collections I feel horrible, but this time around the nice people at Knopf sent me an early copy of his new collection, You Think That’s Bad, which will be published in March of next year. Books are rarely sent to me unsolicited, Harper Perennial and Knopf are the exceptions, I like what they publish, they know what I like to read, and both houses recognize the power of early buzz from the blogsphere.

"Escape" by Deborah Willis

September 9, 2010 - 3G1B - 0 Comment

This story reads like an outtake from a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, or a story I can imagine being told to me in a bar, like the one I sat in while my now dead uncle played black jack with a man whose car had broken down, conveniently for my uncle, right outside the road side casino we were holed up in. They played cards until the man waiting for the tow truck ran out of money.

Things We Didn't See Coming IV – Steven Amsterdam

November 23, 2009 - 3G1B - 2 Comments

You’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to pull one over on the characters in the story Cake Walk, the fourth short story in Things We Didn’t See Coming by Steven Amsterdam. This book is coming to book stores in February of 2009, but if you’ve been following things around here, I’ve been giving a little taste of the each story. It’s important to look at the collection as a whole and each of the individual stories as chiseled pieces of stone, each their own work of art.

JE and JC Tag-Team Dan Chaon

November 19, 2009 - 3G1B - 9 Comments

For most of the first draft, I didn’t know how they were connected. I was just writing forward with each of the three narratives, nervously feeling my way into blank space. A lot of the time during the first draft I was anxious because I thought I might have to throw the book away, and when it started to come together toward the end, I was surprised to discover that a number of the characters weren’t who I thought they were. It’s cool when you can manage to fool yourself.

Alone by Yiyun Li

November 18, 2009 - 3G1B - 0 Comment

Yiylun Li does a slow-onion-peel reveal of Suchen’s life, her marriage, it’s meaning as a failed attempt to run away from the trauma of her childhood. Don’t worry, this story reveals all the background in detail. You can decide if you find that background plausible and convincing. I’m not sure about that. But the technique of revelation, the writing skill, is masterful.