Two More from Graywolf
I���ve been stupid busy with my other blogs lately (shameless self promotion here), but there are books I will always make time for. Of course, many of these come from Graywolf Press. Weston���s already trumpeted a good number of their fall releases, but there are two more you really shouldn���t miss:
J. Robert Lennon’s SEE YOU IN PARADISE
���������������������� A lot of short stories collections are funny but easy. It���s very simple to get a story out in 10 to 15 pages ��� you set up a scenario, get people to care about the characters and then hit them with the ironic twist. And a lot of the time, that���s enough. Until, that is, you read a short story collection like J. Robert Lennon���s See You in Paradise.
This thing is irony plus. Sure, he follows the basic formula, sets the scene, makes you care, etc. etc., but THEN, the magic happens when Lennon delivers the ironic kicker and the story KEEPS GOING. It���s soo easy to end the joke or the story on the punchline. It���s so much harder to do what Lennon does, to keep people focused after that, to get to the place where the story really makes them laugh and think.
Let���s take my favorite story, ���Zombie Dan,��� for example. It starts with a major medical discovery in which people are now able to pay to bring their loved ones back from the dead in a process called ���revivification.��� A man returns with the rest of his high-school day���s crew to greet their newly revived friend Dan, be supportive during this fragile time in his (second?) life and maybe even help teach him to talk again.
Then the twist comes in: Bringing Dan back from the dead has given him the ability to know things the real Dan shouldn���t know. Suddenly, he knows what people were thinking or doing years ago, events the real living Dan never saw happen, things the real Dan would never know.
Right there ��� so many writers would stop the story in a Goosebumps or ���Tales of the Crypt���-esque kicker, thinking ���It���s a short story, it���s just meant to entertain, right?��� Lennon goes on to use the narrator as a vehicle for philosophical ponderings on the ethics of killing zombies, the ethics of mercy killing and just deep deep shit you���d never touch if not framed first with the tale of this zombie kid. It���s so so funny, but more than that, it���s so so wise.
Eugen Ruge’s IN TIMES OF FADING LIGHT
Probably a better indicator of a good book than that famous Oprah-book-club sticker (does she still run a book club? Probably) is that little cover line mentioning ���Translated from the X language by X.��� That little indicator is almost as fool-proof as the Graywolf logo on the spine. ((I promise once and for all, Graywolf in no way sponsors these posts. We just really really like them)). So, when In Times of Fading Light had both, I knew it was something I had to read.
Told in a non-linear collection of stories, the tale of the Umnitzer family, torn as well as tied together by the rise of fall of East German communism, takes place. To be completely fair ��� I know nothing really about East German communism other than, as I learned in high school history class, it was bad and there was the Berlin Wall and people on the wrong side often had food shortages ��� that���s it. It doesn���t matter ��� this book isn���t about politics (even though members of the family discuss and fight over them), it���s about the heart and strength that unites people, their desire to stay together no matter whatever other allegiances its members chose to have. It���s a powerful read, filled with tragic stories, pain and the truth any family drama is lucky to touch.
