good mail day

Most of the fun of pre-ordering is the surprise!

Shelley Jackson cover art sells me like nothing else—look at that sad mermaid. Look at her. Sorry that the image is a better showcase of the paper it came in. For better images, go here and here.

Shelley Jackson is reading and answering questions at Pratt at noon on Friday.
You'll be there, I assume.

Here is some of my writing about Jackson's work. The short version--I love her.

Last night I finished my issue of Conjunctions 52: Betwixt the Between: Impossible Realism [there is no permalink as far as I can find]. I wrote about it a little here, and wanted to mention that the remainder of the volume was just as satisfying.

I really enjoyed "Flat Daddy" by Shelley Jackson. She took the words from a 2006 edition of The New York Times and created a story about families, rebellion and the search for free expression. At first the gimmick seems ludicrous with sentences like "cheese has holes and so does this page," but Jackson is able to craft a compelling story within the constraint. I really wish she'd write another novel.

"The Familiars" by Micaela Morrisette is a creepy tale about motherhood, growing up and most sinister, seduction. Her ability to slowly ratchet up the tension in the misty, lonely setting while keeping the story grounded is what makes it so good.

Patrick Crerand's "A Man of Vision" is a really twisted tale of fundraising and ancient beasts. That's all I am going to say, except that this one did not turn out like I thought it would.

There were a handful of duds, but any one of these stories would hold up in less stellar company. I can't wait for the next issue.

GAH!

Why oh why do I have to miss Shelley Jackson and Lynn Tillman together in one of my favorite places in NYC?

Since I can't go, you should:
Fiction from Fence Magazine
Monday, March 09, 2009 at 7:00 PM
Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
126 Crosby Street, New York, NY 10012 :: 212-334-3324

Afterwards, you can tell me all about it.

The Melancholy of Anatomy: Stories by Shelley Jackson

Two years ago I read Half Life and loved it. I have been seeking Jackson’s 2002 story collection for a while now and finally, a few weeks ago, the NYPL’s one copy became available. From previous abortive attempts at purchase, I knew that the book was divided into sections mimicking the old medical idea that the bodies’ processes and aspects could be divided into four humors but I guess I wasn’t prepared to feel so lost at the organization of the stories. Maybe I am missing something because I don’t know enough about choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic and sanguine, or maybe I am missing nothing at all. Despite many passages that were pitch perfect, I couldn’t really get into the stories.

One of the perfect lines was this, in the story “Phlegm:”
Men flatter themselves they are original in admiring me. How confused they are when they find out they competition. (There is no desperation like that of a lover who has decided to do you a favor, and finds himself waiting in line.)

I think the reason that “Phlegm” works better than many of the other stories is that the narrator is a full-fledged character, which is rare in this collection. Many of the stories are about people who are in love with, feeding, or somehow harboring body parts disconnected from bodies, and the stories feel like they are more about the inherent problems with a cancer growing in the living room or a love affair with a bundle of glistening nerve fibers than the effect of such a situation on the characters, giving the bulk of the collection a fable-ish feeling. Reading through, even over time, gave me Aesop-fatigue. Nothing stuck but a vague picture of pulsating tumors and wet things in the night. There were bodies, like in Half Life, but no people to go with them.

Luckily, Jackson’s talent for wickedly on point satirical takes on various forms of writing do make an appearance (in this book, back-of-the-comic-book-marketing-speak and tracts get the treatment)—a delight for anyone who was as excited by those sections in Half Life as I was. In “Blood,” a strangely touching story that echoes the stops and starts of any good oral history showcases both the best and worst of her work in this collection. One the one hand, she makes a story about the disappearance of lower-middle class jobs for women (and the gnarly prestige and culture that went with it) in a London-ish place thought-provoking without being pedantic. On the other, the playfulness with words that marks her better writing also yielded this: “Up we went in all directions, like ferrets after a rat, in our swaddling suits, prodding the tiddlers ahead of us if we was in an area with lots of finicking veins to it, because a finger in a dike is one thing, but you can maneuver better if you can fit your whole fist in there.” Easter-eggery fun? Yes, but also kinda cheap.

I am glad I read the collection despite my modest disappointment in the stories overall. When, when, when will she have a new novel?

Half Life by Shelley Jackson

After a heavy fine and a few sharp whacks from the librarian’s belt, I released Half Life back into the New York Public Library system only slightly worn. I did not want to return it, mostly because it demanded another read (even after one and a half), but also so I could scoop some quotes for yall so you could have a little taste of heaven.

Heaven for me is this wildly imagined book about a two-headed lady named Nora and Blanche. They are twins and share everything but their heads. The thing is, Blanche opted out of consciousness a while back and Nora isn’t doing so well, even immersed in the borderline-smotheringly welcoming arms of a re-imagined San Francisco. In Half Life’s world, man created a population of Siamese twins by fiddling with atoms and twins created a constant, unappreciated reminder of hubris.

Jackson uses the twins to show us the baldest depiction of how desire can mangle love. She has Nora’s quest for self-hood (aloneness) mirror the struggle of every lady I know—how can I be truly me? Who am I? How can I get where I want to be? When will all this bullshit end? Nora herself is like a triple-barricaded version of everyone who laughs at the party line, tells the “welcoming arms” to fuck off and yet seeks the very comfort pride parades and twin hags offer others. Yes, twin hags—Jackson takes the rainbow flag and sees a noose in it, but shows us all the imperfections of being out and extremely proud in inventive, hilarious and deeply satisfying ways. Reading her version of a press release for a twin film fest, as well as her other entries from Nora’s festering scrapbook of twin-related media, is like biting into the juiciest poison apple given by the sexiest witch.

And then there is sex. Half Life pulsates with eroticism even as it plunges into deeply disturbing territory. Part of this is that so much of this book has to do with bodies, what they mean, how they shape who we are, how they can limit or free us. (She seems to be comfortable in the body. Besides her skin project, her first collection of short stories, The melancholy of anatomy, is based around the four humors.) Jackson doesn’t shy away from gore (like when she describes the “museum” Nora and Blanche make up with decaying desert animals as children), but she somehow makes event he most disgusting eruption seem necessary and part of a larger thing. She gives us sex that is life defining and urgent and sex that is lonely. In short, she gives us real sex clothed in an alternate-present two-necked sweater.

The bondage of women is present everywhere in this book from Nora trapped in the body of an unwanted twin to a caged girl held in the ceiling of a trailer while a normal life goes on under her. She seems to say that no woman escapes all the traps that this world sets, but even so, this confinement is not natural and it is not good. I like a read that makes me think about gender but doesn’t tell me what to think. And doesn’t bore or insult me. Rare? Yes, but that is another post.

This book is full of things to think about and little pockets to get lost in. Jackson’s whole take on America’s purposeful forgetting of atomic weapon use (with ridiculous, yet familiar methods) could have been a book itself (I see a more twisted and fantastic, and maybe better (!) OPRH).

The end was nice and open unlike a lot of wacky books. Like, “well kids, I’ve had a lot of fun showing you my chops and my craaaaaaazy writerly craaaaaziness, but let’s tie this up.” I hate that, as satisfying as it sometimes is, especially when a book was total crap. Some people might see the end as a bit of a cop out, but you’ll have to read it to be allowed to think that, won’t you?