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Emporium: Stories
by
Adam Johnson
The "remarkable" (The New Yorker) debut story collection by the author of The Orphan Master's Son, winner of the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction
An ATF raid, a moonshot gone wrong, a busload of female cancer victims determined to live life to the fullest—these are the compelling terrains Adam Johnson explores in his electrifying debut collection. A lovesick teenage Cajun gi...more
An ATF raid, a moonshot gone wrong, a busload of female cancer victims determined to live life to the fullest—these are the compelling terrains Adam Johnson explores in his electrifying debut collection. A lovesick teenage Cajun gi...more
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
March 25th 2003
by Penguin Books
(first published 2002)
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The characters in Emporium, Adam Johnson's first book of stories, have a "newer, more optimistic vocabulary for violence." This is what Lt. Kim tells Tim, the teen police sniper, he will achieve through positive visualization during his kills in the lead story "Teen Sniper."
Tim and most of the other absurd, almost nightmare humans that people Johnson's collection could be hard-partying nephews of Crash author J.G. Ballard's more claustrophobic visions of the human race. Or, considering that most...more
Tim and most of the other absurd, almost nightmare humans that people Johnson's collection could be hard-partying nephews of Crash author J.G. Ballard's more claustrophobic visions of the human race. Or, considering that most...more
Though at first glance the nine stories of Emporium, a collection by Adam Johnson, seem to be as different from each other as a zoo full of animals in Phoenix is from a satellite base in who-knows-where Canada, the same thread winds throughout each one. I can’t quite place my finger on it, but it has something to do with this line from my favorite story of the entire collection, "Cliff Gods of Acapulco": “There’s the boxy loop of youth, a decade that leaves your ears ringing with television and...more
October 2009
There is a sense of decay throughout Adam Johnson's stories, of an unraveling. Things will, eventually, fall apart; the center won't hold for long. A teen sniper for the LAPD deals with near-daily holdups and hostage situations in a juiced-up Silicon Valley, while getting girl advice from a bomb-sniffing robot. A bulletproof vest salesman loses business to the big box megastore. Canadian scientists fail to invent a death ray and struggle to land a man on the moon, a family prepares f...more
There is a sense of decay throughout Adam Johnson's stories, of an unraveling. Things will, eventually, fall apart; the center won't hold for long. A teen sniper for the LAPD deals with near-daily holdups and hostage situations in a juiced-up Silicon Valley, while getting girl advice from a bomb-sniffing robot. A bulletproof vest salesman loses business to the big box megastore. Canadian scientists fail to invent a death ray and struggle to land a man on the moon, a family prepares f...more
This is a widely hyped collection of stories, and mostly deservedly so. I think there are two, maybe three genuinely great pieces in here. There's not a single bad one, but some of them feel a little too over-workshopped and purposely quirky. This came out eight years ago. I need to check out if this guy has put out anything since.
"The Canadanaut" was such an amazing story that it alone makes this collection worth reading. I wasn't as keen on the rest of them, but certainly the stories display deeply researched subjects and careful thought. Most are plotless however, so you have to be ok with the idea of plotless stories. Writing style reminded me quite a bit of Wells Towers.
wonderful stories. I remember them all well years after reading.
There are four seamless and wildly inventive tales that illustrate excellent story-telling. This book is also a wonderful classroom text for College Reading Development. Students have consistently responded positively to reading those four stories, and many in-depth and thought provoking class discussions have been spurred by: "Teen Sniper," "Your Own Backyard," "Trauma Plate" and "The Jughead of Berlin." Highly recommended read for studying and appreciating the craft of fiction and to spark rea...more
he's awesome
This was not my favorite collection of short stories, but there were a couple that stuck with me. Cliff Gods of Acapulco and The Canadanaut were my favorite.
Johnson is quite a talented young writer, mining the vein between Kurt Vonnegut and a juvenile version of Raymond Carver. His use of metaphor verges on magical realism at times and distracts from the morality plays at hand--which also evoke Palahniuk--but this is a small quibble in a collection that is mostly very satisfying.
Aug 04, 2012
Caleb Ross
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
signed,
fiction-short-stories-single-author
Click the image below to watch the video review
A bit too madcap for it's own good sometimes - certainly falls prey to the modern obsession with idiosyncratic detail (teenage sniper, Canadian Scientists working on a Death Ray, etc.) but at it's best it transcends all it's overly whacked out details. The endings are especially good.
This book struck me as a bad impression of the contemporary Ironic Male Short Story Writer. Even the diction seemed loosely formed and without a certain urgency I look for in short stories.
This book is nine kinds of awesome. Could have used a better title, but hey The Great Gatsby had a crappy title and that didn't stop people from reading it. So read this, the boxy loop of youth.
Great collection by a writer who leaps into popular fiction while dragging a toe in literary fiction. A few eye rolls here and there, but then I tend to be a little cynical.
This collection of short stories was extremely witty. The characters are great, well rounded, and real. Each character is put in unusual, hilarious circumstances.
Haunting, terrifying, incredibly human and gorgeous stories. Possibly the most solid start-to-finish collection of short stories I've ever read.
An eclectic collection of stories that are as clever as they are affecting. Johnson seems like a talent to watch.
Jan 26, 2008
martha
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone who loves a good short story
Recommended to martha by:
jason
tight book of short stories, not a weak one in it.
This tiny collection of short stories might turn you on.
Johnson is a very skilled writer, but these stories are pretty opaque. I loved The Orphan Master's Son, but I think Johnson was still figuring out with this earlier work how to be subtle effectively. In Orphan Master's, he's mastered how to be subtle and clear at the same time.
This book has probably four excellent stories in it, which is pretty average for collections. The ones that are good here, though, are really, really good.
This book has probably four excellent stories in it, which is pretty average for collections. The ones that are good here, though, are really, really good.
May 24, 2013
Mary-Beth
marked it as to-read
May 24, 2013
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Jess
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May 18, 2013
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May 14, 2013
Katie
marked it as to-read
May 13, 2013
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Adam Johnson was born in South Dakota and raised in Arizona. He earned a BA in Journalism from Arizona State University in 1992; a MFA from the writing program at McNeese State University, in 1996; and a PhD in English from Florida State University in 2000. Johnson is currently a San Francisco writer and associate professor in creative writing at Stanford University.
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“I'm a Cancer, you know," I tell her. "So it's hard for me to talk. And I have all these weird dreams, not the ones with the Sony Girls - ha-ha - but mostly where I mow the lawn. Sometimes I just wash the car, like Gupta! But there's this voice in my head, and Lt. Kim thinks that once we get it to go away, I'll stop worrying that the good things in life are destined to fail, like you and me. But I'm up in this satellite dish, and I'm thinking: what if this is the voice that still believes things can be okay, that believes in good and warns me from bad? It wants to protect me, just like the United Nations.”
—
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