Jennifer Love Hewitt Times Infinity
by
Kevin Fanning (Goodreads Author)
15 stories exploring the myth and secret history of one of the most important actresses of our generation.
chapbook, 36 pages
Published
February 14th 2010
by Cold God Press
(first published 2010)
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I wish that many years ago when the internet was fresh and new someone would have had the foresight to tell me to keep a spreadsheet of meetings and partings, so that come 2010 I would know exactly how this arrived in my mailbox. I know that Heather Anne was introduced to me by this guy Brandon I used to know, and that Abigail came from Heather Anne. I know that Joe is Jennie's fiance, but where the heck did I come across Jennie like, four or five blogs ago? And then there are Jason and Scott an...more
I've been a fan of Kevin Fanning's writing since the early 2000s, when I stumbled across his website through a chain of links that is too hard to recreate at 8-10 years on. I've always found his writing to be engaging and more than a little magical, and this book is no exception. I'm having a hard time finding the right words to describe why I couldn't put it down, or how moved I found myself, so I'll leave it at this: read this book.
I really, really, really urge you to buy a copy of this book. First of all, it’s gorgeous, and second of all, it’s gorgeous. One thing I really admire about Kevin is his mythmaking abilities, and this is not a small thing for a writer. It is easy to focus small and stay pretty, but these are fearless short stories with real ambition and dramatic scope. He writes so unpretentiously, and he dramatizes celebrity and technology in such unexpectedly beautiful ways. This book is worth a thousand milli...more
A long-lasting rule of writing is "write what you know." Assuming that's what my internet acquaintance Kevin Fanning has done, the things he knows include: mythology; the nature of dreams; light coding; superheroes (see: mythology); what it means to be quiet; how we understand (construct? Receive?) celebrity; the internet.
And lots of other things, but JLHTI mainly addressed the above. Kevin's style is really understatedly beautiful; his writing is spare and clean without being sparse, and feels...more
And lots of other things, but JLHTI mainly addressed the above. Kevin's style is really understatedly beautiful; his writing is spare and clean without being sparse, and feels...more
What did I learn from this book?
1) Jennifer Love Hewitt may just be - oddly, nouveau-kitschly, and inspiringly - in turn the perfect Everyman, the perfect Fairytale Queen, the perfect Creation Myth, the perfect Grotesque.
2) Writing is an exploration of both places you have never visited before, and places you go to every day - places that are so obvious to you that most people wouldn't think to include them in a story, and yet that's exactly where they may work best.
3) This guy is consistent a...more
1) Jennifer Love Hewitt may just be - oddly, nouveau-kitschly, and inspiringly - in turn the perfect Everyman, the perfect Fairytale Queen, the perfect Creation Myth, the perfect Grotesque.
2) Writing is an exploration of both places you have never visited before, and places you go to every day - places that are so obvious to you that most people wouldn't think to include them in a story, and yet that's exactly where they may work best.
3) This guy is consistent a...more
Kevin Fanning is a friend – full disclosure – but I can't think of any writer who writes the web as well. The stories in this chapbook capture the web's depth as a vessel for fantasies and dreams, and the flexibility of postmodern identity that spills offline into everything we do these days. All aspects of culture from high to low, from art to everyday, get swirled together in these stories blending styles from fantasy and science fiction to more straightforward literary pieces. Through it all...more
Okay, so this is just good. Good good, like old fashioned couldn’t-stop-reading good. How on earth would you explain it to someone? Bizarro-world fan fiction? No, way more than that. Internet-age mythology? Much closer, but more than that too. “So it’s about Jennifer Love Hewitt?” Well, yes. I mean, no... not about her about her. But yes.
You’ll just have to see for yourself. So good.
You’ll just have to see for yourself. So good.
I wish I could give this six stars, because it's far and away the best thing that Kevin Fanning has ever done. It makes me want to give it to everyone I know, and a few that I don't (As I was reading it, I kept thinking how Joss Whedon would love it).
I'm trying to think of ways to describe it, and the best I can come up with is: Mythic. Totally amazing and mythic.
I'm trying to think of ways to describe it, and the best I can come up with is: Mythic. Totally amazing and mythic.
A fast, funny, extremely well written collection of flash length stories around the character of Jennifer Love Hewitt. Fanning has a strange and interesting mind, to be sure, but the stories aren't just quirky, they live and breathe and make you feel. Some of the sentences and paragraphs are downright gorgeous, like this one:
"But there are those who say that Jennifer Love Hewitt was the cloud that came across the moon, obscuring Syla's location from the archers as the tide swept her boat to sea...more
"But there are those who say that Jennifer Love Hewitt was the cloud that came across the moon, obscuring Syla's location from the archers as the tide swept her boat to sea...more
I really liked the concept, and a few of the stories were good, but overall it was too much fluff, not enough substance. That is, too much "wouldn't it be funny if JLH were a secret computer programmer and/or invented the internet???" and not enough emotional oomph.
P.S. I feel like the first reviewer on here who isn't friends with this Kevin Fanning guy.
P.S. I feel like the first reviewer on here who isn't friends with this Kevin Fanning guy.
A book that can make me smile so many times when the rest of my life is not all that great deserves a lot more than 5 stars. The smiles were due to humor, yes, but even more due to the sheer genius of the stories. I'm almost afraid to order any more of Kevin's books because I love this one so.
Thanks, Ashley, for the heads-up.
Thanks, Ashley, for the heads-up.
May 26, 2013
Nathan
marked it as to-read
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