Like all sane people, I love the idea of beings that subsists on life force, that kiss with a price. It hangs around in the back, all in black, looking for you, just for you. Pretty cool. Yep.
But vampires have become overexposed and boring, stripped of their complexity by trying to perfectly reconcile love and desire with being good, being redeemable, as if that is the main problem with loving the undead.
Here are two short stories that are about vampires, among other things. Both have been swirling around my brain for days.
I Can See Right Through You by Kelly Link on McSweeney's
I am in the midst of Link's new collection, Get in Trouble, now, and this was the first story I read from it. Concerning the movies, young love, obligation and dead nudists, I Can See Right Through You is probably my most recommended story of last year.
Traveling Mercies by Rachael K. Jones, ( I listened to it read by Anaea Lay) on Strange Horizons
This short short story concerns the logistics of being a guest when you never die. I would love to take a peek into the main character's address book.
What are your favorite vampire stories?
Showing posts with label kelly link. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kelly link. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Thursday, February 07, 2013
Best I Read: 2012
Somehow I managed to not write about any of the books that blew me away this year. I would suggest that you get your hands on a copy of each one.
Dora: A Headcase by Lidia Yuknavitch
"Only one thing to do. I puke."
Most people who know me know that my least favorite genre is coming-of-age. I was a teenager once--first times don't fascinate me. Stories about troubled girls are usually so hackneyed and embarrassing that no feeling but disgust rises to the top. So this book by Lidia Yuknavitch seems like the worst thing: a modern retelling of a Freud case study, told in first-person by a teenaged girl named Ida.
The reason that Dora works so well, or at all, is Yuknavitch's excellent grasp of voice. Ida's voice, reclaimed from the big cigar himself, is reimagined as a present-day patios of swears, nicknames and certain hallways of pop culture. It took me a few chapters to trust Yuknavitch and let myself be transported back to a time when anything was possible and nothing seemed worth doing, but the clarity with which she shows Ida's conflict brought me around. There is a respect for the potential power, positive and negative, of teen energy that I rarely see, and the deep knowledge that what looks like rebellion can sometimes simply be self-saving.
In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard
A story about the friendship of girls that not only didn't make me want to hurl, but was wise and sweet in a way that surprised me and filled me with, what was it? Joy.
The book opens with the crisis moment in what must be the must under-compensated babysitting job ever. The first paragraph sets the tone well: "We can't believe that the house is on fire. It's so embarrassing first of all, and so dangerous second of all. Also, we're supposed to be in charge here, so there's a sense of somebody not doing their job."
The glorious descriptions of the ordinary desires (like Nehru shirts and tweed culottes on layaway, a feeling of belonging, kittens) and annoyances (like disappointing drunk dads, teenage sisters and slippery babysitting charges) of the main character enhance the simple story in a very satisfying way. Plus, it was sneaky, funny and sweet.
Silver Sparrow by Tayari Jones
Once a week or so I hit the kitchen at my office job, get some tea and look at the castoff books on the counter. Usually populated by ghostwritten memoirs and diet books, this pile has yielded a few great finds. The best? This book.
Normally I wouldn't pick up a book with a comfy blue cover and an anonymous lady in an ugly dress but the name tickled my memory. Back at my desk I googled Jones and a review on HTML Giant by Roxane Gay came up: "This is another one of those books I want to just drive down the street throwing at people because it feels so necessary." When the mighty Roxane Gay wants to fling something at you, you cup your hands, ready to catch it.
Silver Sparrow is about two girls, fathered by the same man, one secret, one "legitimate." I am not telling you anything you won't find out right away. The first line of this book is "My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist." Despite the fact that the secret that is central to the story being open to the reader from the get go, there was something brisk and thrilling about the plotting that made me fly through it. The story is told through the voices of each sister, and through them, and tales within tales, Jones makes achingly sharp observations about family, the legacy of sexual violence, sacrifice, anger and power. I also like the details of 80's Atlanta that come through in the girls' assessments of one another.
Zazen by Vanessa Veselka
When I think of this book my chest tightens and I remind myself to just breathe, just breathe and be glad that writers like Vanessa Veselka are getting published in my lifetime. It is that good.
Zazen is a punch-in-the-chest kind of book about radical politics, failure, mental illness and, eventually, hope. It conjures up visions of a near future with images from the present, recognizable to anyone who, let's say, ever lived in a communal house or when vegan or demonstrated outside a business, full of righteous anger. Or maybe just lived in a place like Portland or San Francisco after the shine of "alternative living" wore off. This book is for all the fallen true believers out there who still hold a tiny sliver of hope in their hearts, a sliver that never gets to glint in the light and causes more aching than they'd like to admit.
One of the more surprising things about the book was Veselka's use of the sibling relationship to fully develop the main character, Delia, and subtly provide back story without straining the first-person framework. Delia's feelings about her brother and sister are complex and true, and given weight that I rarely see and greatly appreciated.
Fantastic Women: 18 Tales of the Surreal and the Sublime from Tin House edited by Rob Spillman
I picked up this collection on an evening that I promised myself that I would not buy a book. That night, however, I really needed to be transported to another world, any other world. This book, a staff pick at The Spiral Bookcase, is filled with some of the best writers working today, including: Lydia Millet, Kelly Link, Lucy Corin and Samantha Hunt.
Relationships rub the wrong way, Drive-Through-House cookie recipes are tested, skin is shed and children feared in these stories. My favorites get at the strong crypto-currents of emotion behind everyday things like family, work and love. "Drive-Through House" by Julia Slavin is the first that comes to mind. A take on familial obligation, the story captures the dust and exhaust flavor of a dying roadside attraction and the cramped sadness of being afraid to leave a house that has no door. "Snow White, Rose Red" by Lydia Millet, which I read first last year in Kate Berheimer's collection My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me, is a juicy story told from the point of view of a "disappeared" man, a sort of house-breaking hobo, with a slightly sinister unreliability: "I met the girls and instantly liked the girls, Of course I liked the girls." "Americca" by Aimee Bender asks if memories are gifts and answers that growing up is a kind of loss no matter what.
The superb choice of stories in this collection inspired me to purchase two other Tin House collections and seek out the novels they've published. That says it all, I presume?
"Only one thing to do. I puke."
Most people who know me know that my least favorite genre is coming-of-age. I was a teenager once--first times don't fascinate me. Stories about troubled girls are usually so hackneyed and embarrassing that no feeling but disgust rises to the top. So this book by Lidia Yuknavitch seems like the worst thing: a modern retelling of a Freud case study, told in first-person by a teenaged girl named Ida.
The reason that Dora works so well, or at all, is Yuknavitch's excellent grasp of voice. Ida's voice, reclaimed from the big cigar himself, is reimagined as a present-day patios of swears, nicknames and certain hallways of pop culture. It took me a few chapters to trust Yuknavitch and let myself be transported back to a time when anything was possible and nothing seemed worth doing, but the clarity with which she shows Ida's conflict brought me around. There is a respect for the potential power, positive and negative, of teen energy that I rarely see, and the deep knowledge that what looks like rebellion can sometimes simply be self-saving.
A story about the friendship of girls that not only didn't make me want to hurl, but was wise and sweet in a way that surprised me and filled me with, what was it? Joy.
The book opens with the crisis moment in what must be the must under-compensated babysitting job ever. The first paragraph sets the tone well: "We can't believe that the house is on fire. It's so embarrassing first of all, and so dangerous second of all. Also, we're supposed to be in charge here, so there's a sense of somebody not doing their job."
The glorious descriptions of the ordinary desires (like Nehru shirts and tweed culottes on layaway, a feeling of belonging, kittens) and annoyances (like disappointing drunk dads, teenage sisters and slippery babysitting charges) of the main character enhance the simple story in a very satisfying way. Plus, it was sneaky, funny and sweet.
Once a week or so I hit the kitchen at my office job, get some tea and look at the castoff books on the counter. Usually populated by ghostwritten memoirs and diet books, this pile has yielded a few great finds. The best? This book.
Normally I wouldn't pick up a book with a comfy blue cover and an anonymous lady in an ugly dress but the name tickled my memory. Back at my desk I googled Jones and a review on HTML Giant by Roxane Gay came up: "This is another one of those books I want to just drive down the street throwing at people because it feels so necessary." When the mighty Roxane Gay wants to fling something at you, you cup your hands, ready to catch it.
Silver Sparrow is about two girls, fathered by the same man, one secret, one "legitimate." I am not telling you anything you won't find out right away. The first line of this book is "My father, James Witherspoon, is a bigamist." Despite the fact that the secret that is central to the story being open to the reader from the get go, there was something brisk and thrilling about the plotting that made me fly through it. The story is told through the voices of each sister, and through them, and tales within tales, Jones makes achingly sharp observations about family, the legacy of sexual violence, sacrifice, anger and power. I also like the details of 80's Atlanta that come through in the girls' assessments of one another.
When I think of this book my chest tightens and I remind myself to just breathe, just breathe and be glad that writers like Vanessa Veselka are getting published in my lifetime. It is that good.
Zazen is a punch-in-the-chest kind of book about radical politics, failure, mental illness and, eventually, hope. It conjures up visions of a near future with images from the present, recognizable to anyone who, let's say, ever lived in a communal house or when vegan or demonstrated outside a business, full of righteous anger. Or maybe just lived in a place like Portland or San Francisco after the shine of "alternative living" wore off. This book is for all the fallen true believers out there who still hold a tiny sliver of hope in their hearts, a sliver that never gets to glint in the light and causes more aching than they'd like to admit.
One of the more surprising things about the book was Veselka's use of the sibling relationship to fully develop the main character, Delia, and subtly provide back story without straining the first-person framework. Delia's feelings about her brother and sister are complex and true, and given weight that I rarely see and greatly appreciated.
I picked up this collection on an evening that I promised myself that I would not buy a book. That night, however, I really needed to be transported to another world, any other world. This book, a staff pick at The Spiral Bookcase, is filled with some of the best writers working today, including: Lydia Millet, Kelly Link, Lucy Corin and Samantha Hunt.
Relationships rub the wrong way, Drive-Through-House cookie recipes are tested, skin is shed and children feared in these stories. My favorites get at the strong crypto-currents of emotion behind everyday things like family, work and love. "Drive-Through House" by Julia Slavin is the first that comes to mind. A take on familial obligation, the story captures the dust and exhaust flavor of a dying roadside attraction and the cramped sadness of being afraid to leave a house that has no door. "Snow White, Rose Red" by Lydia Millet, which I read first last year in Kate Berheimer's collection My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me, is a juicy story told from the point of view of a "disappeared" man, a sort of house-breaking hobo, with a slightly sinister unreliability: "I met the girls and instantly liked the girls, Of course I liked the girls." "Americca" by Aimee Bender asks if memories are gifts and answers that growing up is a kind of loss no matter what.
The superb choice of stories in this collection inspired me to purchase two other Tin House collections and seek out the novels they've published. That says it all, I presume?
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
bits and
There are no post office boxes available in my area. What a drag. So, my promise to mini comics makers everywhere remains unfulfilled. Maybe next month.
One excellent thing about going into the office, besides the companionship and free pens, is that sometimes ARCs of books that you wanted make their way into your hands. Yesterday I got a copy of The Rules of Inheritance by Claire Bidwell Smith, which I wrote about here. Can I read this book about dead parents? Not right now, probably, but I am glad to have it for when I am feeling stronger.
I want this book: Stone Animals by Kelly Link, published by Madras Press. It is illustrated by Lilli Carré, Lisa Brown and Ursula K. Le Guin and more. Whoa.
Some school in Florida has assigned 'Finances' by Lydia Davis and now students are searching for answers with google queries like "what are the man and woman trying to do in "finances" by lydia davis about?." Seriously? Do your own homework. Be happy you have a time in your life that you can sit around and think about what stories mean. This will end faster than you think.
I really detest the winter. My everything is cold.
One excellent thing about going into the office, besides the companionship and free pens, is that sometimes ARCs of books that you wanted make their way into your hands. Yesterday I got a copy of The Rules of Inheritance by Claire Bidwell Smith, which I wrote about here. Can I read this book about dead parents? Not right now, probably, but I am glad to have it for when I am feeling stronger.
I want this book: Stone Animals by Kelly Link, published by Madras Press. It is illustrated by Lilli Carré, Lisa Brown and Ursula K. Le Guin and more. Whoa.
Some school in Florida has assigned 'Finances' by Lydia Davis and now students are searching for answers with google queries like "what are the man and woman trying to do in "finances" by lydia davis about?." Seriously? Do your own homework. Be happy you have a time in your life that you can sit around and think about what stories mean. This will end faster than you think.
I really detest the winter. My everything is cold.
Monday, December 07, 2009
Babies are Love
I wanted to take a quick break from writing my (last!!!!!!!!!) paper to let you know about a sale over at my favorite scifantastic publisher, Small Beer Press.But this is not just holiday fun. For each book that you purchase, at least one dollar will go to the hospital that has been keeping Ursula, the awesome daughter of SBP's Kelly Link and Gavin Grant, alive for the past few months. Yes, keeping her alive and ensuring that she grows up healthy once she is out of the dark and scary preemie woods.
Please read more about Ursula, the hospital, another cool fundraiser in Boston and the sale here.
I definitely getting Interfictions 2.
If you are crazy and don't have Mothers & Other Monsters by Maureen F. McHugh you can get the hardcover for $9.95!
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
leftovers from 2007 I
I have returned from England with a rash-covered face and a spring in my step. I n an effort to bring the blog up to this fresh feeling 2008ness here the rest of the short story collection reviews from 2007.
Top Top Stories edited by Anne Turyn
I picked up Top Top Stories at Ejay’s Books in Pittsburgh. It was in the Beat section for some reason, perhaps because it was published by City Lights in 1991. From the book jacket, I learned that Top Stories was an experimental fiction journal published by Turyn in the 80s and 90s. In this collection there are a bunch of [my] household names: Jenny Holzer, Kathy Acker, Lynne Tillman, Cookie Mueller and more. Mueller’s piece which features a few short stories to begin to tell how to get rid of pimples (”How To Get Rid of Pimples” [excerpt]) really opened her up to me. I loved the stories, with their quiet wonderful rhythms: “In a suburban house with white shingles and black shutters, Ioona, a woman of forty lived with her mother, a woman of sixty-four.” This sentence maybe isn’t the most enticing, but imagine wave after wave of listing tweaked facts and “circumstances of cures [for acne]” leading up to the regime, a list of actions that now seem mustily extreme in the days of Proactiv. It practically rocked me into a contented stupor, feel-good but not feel-dumb. I now get a feeling of what was so beguiling about her to John Waters and Nan Goldin and everyone else.
The stories also include a few entries that mix text and illustration. Lynne Tillman & Jane Dickson’s piece, “Living With Contradictions,” is a surprisingly affecting story that seems to ask what is settling in romantic love? Dickson’s wet and heavy illustrations take up most of the page and Tillman tells the story in short bursts of a few sentences and it is perfect.
This book has made me curious about finding other work by these authors and learning more about Turyn, which was, perhaps, exactly what it was going for.
The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant
Sigh. As much as I hate to say it, this was a disappointing affair. Even with over thirty poems and stories, the reader doesn’t really get a sense of the weird wonderfulness that Link and Grant wreak by doing what they do, which is cultivating (and publishing) a group of writers with voices that creep into your brain and tug at the loose stuff, scaring and awing you in the process.
The upside is that it reminded me to check out their catalog and make a list to check twice. You should do the same.
Mountains of Madness and other stories by H.P. Lovecraft
The title story was of the utmost creepiness and beauty. Details, details made it perfect and it turns out, the penguins are real. Tantalizing enough for you? The other stories were not as good, though I did enjoy the one that used an elbow as an element of revolting horror.
Top Top Stories edited by Anne Turyn
I picked up Top Top Stories at Ejay’s Books in Pittsburgh. It was in the Beat section for some reason, perhaps because it was published by City Lights in 1991. From the book jacket, I learned that Top Stories was an experimental fiction journal published by Turyn in the 80s and 90s. In this collection there are a bunch of [my] household names: Jenny Holzer, Kathy Acker, Lynne Tillman, Cookie Mueller and more. Mueller’s piece which features a few short stories to begin to tell how to get rid of pimples (”How To Get Rid of Pimples” [excerpt]) really opened her up to me. I loved the stories, with their quiet wonderful rhythms: “In a suburban house with white shingles and black shutters, Ioona, a woman of forty lived with her mother, a woman of sixty-four.” This sentence maybe isn’t the most enticing, but imagine wave after wave of listing tweaked facts and “circumstances of cures [for acne]” leading up to the regime, a list of actions that now seem mustily extreme in the days of Proactiv. It practically rocked me into a contented stupor, feel-good but not feel-dumb. I now get a feeling of what was so beguiling about her to John Waters and Nan Goldin and everyone else.
The stories also include a few entries that mix text and illustration. Lynne Tillman & Jane Dickson’s piece, “Living With Contradictions,” is a surprisingly affecting story that seems to ask what is settling in romantic love? Dickson’s wet and heavy illustrations take up most of the page and Tillman tells the story in short bursts of a few sentences and it is perfect.
This book has made me curious about finding other work by these authors and learning more about Turyn, which was, perhaps, exactly what it was going for.
The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet edited by Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant
Sigh. As much as I hate to say it, this was a disappointing affair. Even with over thirty poems and stories, the reader doesn’t really get a sense of the weird wonderfulness that Link and Grant wreak by doing what they do, which is cultivating (and publishing) a group of writers with voices that creep into your brain and tug at the loose stuff, scaring and awing you in the process.
The upside is that it reminded me to check out their catalog and make a list to check twice. You should do the same.
Mountains of Madness and other stories by H.P. Lovecraft
The title story was of the utmost creepiness and beauty. Details, details made it perfect and it turns out, the penguins are real. Tantalizing enough for you? The other stories were not as good, though I did enjoy the one that used an elbow as an element of revolting horror.
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