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Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, "Found" Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts
by
David Shields (Goodreads Author) ,
Matthew Vollmer (Goodreads Author)
Contemporary short stories enacting giddy, witty revenge on the documents that define and dominate our lives.
In our bureaucratized culture, we're inundated by documents: itineraries, instruction manuals, permit forms, primers, letters of complaint, end-of-year reports, accidentally forwarded email, traffic updates, ad infinitum. David Shields and Matthew Vollmer, both writ...more
In our bureaucratized culture, we're inundated by documents: itineraries, instruction manuals, permit forms, primers, letters of complaint, end-of-year reports, accidentally forwarded email, traffic updates, ad infinitum. David Shields and Matthew Vollmer, both writ...more
Paperback, 368 pages
Published
October 15th 2012
by W. W. Norton & Company
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Highly recommended to anyone who teaches creative writing to undergrads or feels like they're in a rut with their own stuff. So many ideas in here, so many examples of fictional forms other than the conventional story. Cleverness abounds throughout of course but when these work well it's clear that unconventional form restriction inspired the writer in a way that might also excite a reader. Classics in here I've read elsewhere include pieces by Lorrie Moore, Donald Barthleme, George Saunders, St...more
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I rated this book 3.75/5 stars on InsatiableBooksluts.com. A review copy was provided by the publisher.
Review excerpt:
"This anthology caught my eye because of a review I read in the LARB(and by "read," I mostly mean skimmed). The concept of the book revolves around the "fraudulent artifacts" in the title; it reminds me of a cross among blogs like Letters of Note, which contains realartifacts giving us fascinating peeks at people and situations via correspondence, pieces from McSweeney's Internet...more
Review excerpt:
"This anthology caught my eye because of a review I read in the LARB(and by "read," I mostly mean skimmed). The concept of the book revolves around the "fraudulent artifacts" in the title; it reminds me of a cross among blogs like Letters of Note, which contains realartifacts giving us fascinating peeks at people and situations via correspondence, pieces from McSweeney's Internet...more
"Fakes" is an anthology of modern satire. It is exactly what it sounds like, no more or less.
If you are looking for a book that satirizes modern communication such as math story problems, emails, lists (even the book's own introduction and legal information pages), then this is the book for you. I especially recommend this for English classes that are covering satire. Some essays, such as the 1,000-word essay on why silence should be mandatory during fire drills, are perfect for high school or...more
If you are looking for a book that satirizes modern communication such as math story problems, emails, lists (even the book's own introduction and legal information pages), then this is the book for you. I especially recommend this for English classes that are covering satire. Some essays, such as the 1,000-word essay on why silence should be mandatory during fire drills, are perfect for high school or...more
This anthology is powered by a fantastic concept that doesn't always work well in the individual stories it features. These stories, written in decidedly non-literary forms (an exhibition catalog, a letter to the parking bureau, an index to a lost biography, a police blotter, a catalog of font types, etc.), are prefaced by a dynamic introductory essay that posits the exploration of the limits and conventions of these forms as a way of investigating what language makes us think (or not think) and...more
As with most short story collections, some of the stories were great, and others were less compelling than I hoped. I'm lazy and don't feel like reviewing the stories individually, so I'm just going to include a list of the ones I especially enjoyed. (I may return in the future and briefly comment on the stories or something, but I really don't like writing reviews all that much so ehhhhhhhhhhhhh probably not.)
"Disclaimer"
"One Thousand Words on Why You Should Not Talk During a Fire Drill"
"Permis...more
"Disclaimer"
"One Thousand Words on Why You Should Not Talk During a Fire Drill"
"Permis...more
From an interview I did, for the Tottenville Review, with Matthew Volmer:
Matthew Vollmer is the author of two short story collections: the critically lauded Future Missionaries of America, a beautifully crafted sampling of spiritual longing and religious legacies amidst the lives of contemporary Americans, and, still fresh from the presses, Inscriptions for Headstones, an ambitious, poetic, and really quite singular work. There’s nothing else like it in the world. Close on the heels of his lates...more
Matthew Vollmer is the author of two short story collections: the critically lauded Future Missionaries of America, a beautifully crafted sampling of spiritual longing and religious legacies amidst the lives of contemporary Americans, and, still fresh from the presses, Inscriptions for Headstones, an ambitious, poetic, and really quite singular work. There’s nothing else like it in the world. Close on the heels of his lates...more
May 09, 2013
Kaethe
marked it as abandoned
Grrr. This is the only book I brought with me today, for when I finished Red Scarf Girl. Something light and amusing, I thought, for after the downer.
Well, it is light, in the sense that it is printed on really cheap paper, and thus, despite being a thick trade edition, it doesn't weigh much. And then after an introduction that explains how to make fakes (but not why to anthologize them), the very first entry is "Disclaimer" about an abused and murdered woman, which should not be confused with a...more
Well, it is light, in the sense that it is printed on really cheap paper, and thus, despite being a thick trade edition, it doesn't weigh much. And then after an introduction that explains how to make fakes (but not why to anthologize them), the very first entry is "Disclaimer" about an abused and murdered woman, which should not be confused with a...more
Just because a story has a fancy format doesn't make it good. Frankly, a lot of these stories were very slight. However, Laura Jayne Martin's William Carlos William's rip-off is a delight, Daniel Orozco's "Officer's Weep" brilliantly goes from comedy to sinister, there's the beautiful "Dead Sister Handbook" from Kevin Wilson and there's the Ballard classic "The Index" (much anthologised). The story that raises the collection however, is Jonathan Safran Foer's "About the Typefaces not used in thi...more
I won this book in a first-reads giveaway.
This is an anthology of fake texts that take the form of letters, contracts, glossaries, police blotters, etc. Generally, you could call these texts short stories, with the authors playing around with various formats or mediums in which to tell the story. Most of the stories are funny and enjoyable; if you liked Reality Hunger: A Manifesto you'll probably like Fakes.
This is an anthology of fake texts that take the form of letters, contracts, glossaries, police blotters, etc. Generally, you could call these texts short stories, with the authors playing around with various formats or mediums in which to tell the story. Most of the stories are funny and enjoyable; if you liked Reality Hunger: A Manifesto you'll probably like Fakes.
When I finished this collection I was sad. Not because there were no more amazing stories to be read. Not just because each one of these stories exhibited my own talents to be so grossly lacking. SImply because there's a good chance that never, not in the history of publishing nor the thirty or so years I have left to witness, see a collection so closely aimed to my personal tastes. Fantastic.
Disclaimer: I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
I started off really intrigued by the format alone - it's an anthology of fake texts made up of a large variety of mediums, so it reads like a crime novel or something.
As for the writing, some of the stories were good and some meh. "Officer's Weep" was fantastic, as was "About the Typefaces Not Used in This Edition," which I would have read based on the name alone, in all honesty. If you're debating purchasing the book I might suggest looking...more
I started off really intrigued by the format alone - it's an anthology of fake texts made up of a large variety of mediums, so it reads like a crime novel or something.
As for the writing, some of the stories were good and some meh. "Officer's Weep" was fantastic, as was "About the Typefaces Not Used in This Edition," which I would have read based on the name alone, in all honesty. If you're debating purchasing the book I might suggest looking...more
Not a bad read. Don't think that. I enjoyed it, in a very low-key, something-to-do-on-a-weeknight way. And some of the essays are fun. The essay by J.G. Ballard is quite fun. But on the whole...nothing special. And the idea of a collection of "fraudulent artifacts" just isn't thought through. Good amusing essays, but no real concept behind it.
Picked this book up because of the premise; I enjoy reading works where authors play with form. The best works were like the one by Jonathan Safran Foer- creative, unique, intriguing, fanciful. Too many of these stories were dark or bitterly ironic, though. While they would start out tongue-in-cheek and full of hope, they ended in postmodern dreariness, many tales ending in nearly the same way.
The book was OK. I may have expected more of it because of the great title and thus I was a little disappointed when I couldn't find much of what I was looking for. I did find a few surprises and certain artifacts of great interest to me in this book of fakes. But there were more than enough areas of disagreement regarding certain selections made by the editors. I elaborate in greater detail in an article I wrote here:
http://mewlhouse.hubpages.com/hub/My-...
http://mewlhouse.hubpages.com/hub/My-...
Many more good ones than bad ones. The trouble with the notion of an anthology is, of course, the element of surprise...
{Disclaimer: I received this book through Goodreads First Reads.}
Overall, the strangest book I've ever had the misfortune of reading. Maybe it's because of the formatting, but I found various pieces confusing, over-the-top, or just plain awful. There were a few that weren't so bad, but 5 out of 40 is not acceptable.
Overall, the strangest book I've ever had the misfortune of reading. Maybe it's because of the formatting, but I found various pieces confusing, over-the-top, or just plain awful. There were a few that weren't so bad, but 5 out of 40 is not acceptable.
honestly, i just did not get it.
"Fake" versions of things that you find in real life, but each has a hint of a story, a life behind it (ie, it's not just a bunch of funny lists and stuff).
Received as a Goodreads First Reads giveaway. Thank you to Goodreads and the publisher.
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David Shields is the author of fourteen books, including Reality Hunger (Knopf, 2010), which was named one of the best books of 2010 by more than thirty publications. GQ called it "the most provocative, brain-rewiring book of 2010"; the New York Times called it "a mind-bending manifesto." His previous book, The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead (Knopf, 2008), was a New York Times bes...more
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