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And Go Like This: Stories
And Go Like This collects thirteen stories from a master of all trades.
Reading John Crowley’s stories is to see almost-familiar lives running parallel to our own, secret histories that never quite happened, memories that might be real or might be invented. In the thirteen stories collected here, Crowley sets his imagination free to roam from a 20th century Shakespeare festival to spring break at a future Yale in his Edgar Award winning story “Spring Break”. And in the previously unpublished “Anosognosia” the world brought about by one John C.’s high-school accident may or may not exist.
Reading John Crowley’s stories is to see almost-familiar lives running parallel to our own, secret histories that never quite happened, memories that might be real or might be invented. In the thirteen stories collected here, Crowley sets his imagination free to roam from a 20th century Shakespeare festival to spring break at a future Yale in his Edgar Award winning story “Spring Break”. And in the previously unpublished “Anosognosia” the world brought about by one John C.’s high-school accident may or may not exist.
332 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2019
21 people are currently reading
278 people want to read
About the author
John Crowley
127 books850 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
John Crowley was born in Presque Isle, Maine, in 1942; his father was then an officer in the US Army Air Corps. He grew up in Vermont, northeastern Kentucky and (for the longest stretch) Indiana, where he went to high school and college. He moved to New York City after college to make movies, and did find work in documentary films, an occupation he still pursues. He published his first novel (The Deep) in 1975, and his 15th volume of fiction (Endless Things) in 2007. Since 1993 he has taught creative writing at Yale University. In 1992 he received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
His first published novels were science fiction: The Deep (1975) and Beasts (1976). Engine Summer (1979) was nominated for the 1980 American Book Award; it appears in David Pringle’s 100 Best Science Fiction Novels.
In 1981 came Little, Big, which Ursula Le Guin described as a book that “all by itself calls for a redefinition of fantasy.”
In 1980 Crowley embarked on an ambitious four-volume novel, Ægypt, comprising The Solitudes (originally published as Ægypt), Love & Sleep, Dæmonomania, and Endless Things, published in May 2007. This series and Little, Big were cited when Crowley received the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature.
He is also the recipient of an Ingram Merrill Foundation grant. His recent novels are The Translator, recipient of the Premio Flaianno (Italy), and Lord Byron’s Novel: The Evening Land, which contains an entire imaginary novel by the poet. A novella, The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines, appeared in 2002. A museum-quality 25th anniversary edition of Little, Big, featuring the art of Peter Milton and a critical introduction by Harold Bloom, is in preparation.
Note: The John Crowley who wrote Sans épines, la rose: Tony Blair, un modèle pour l'Europe? is a different author with the same name. (website)
John Crowley was born in Presque Isle, Maine, in 1942; his father was then an officer in the US Army Air Corps. He grew up in Vermont, northeastern Kentucky and (for the longest stretch) Indiana, where he went to high school and college. He moved to New York City after college to make movies, and did find work in documentary films, an occupation he still pursues. He published his first novel (The Deep) in 1975, and his 15th volume of fiction (Endless Things) in 2007. Since 1993 he has taught creative writing at Yale University. In 1992 he received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
His first published novels were science fiction: The Deep (1975) and Beasts (1976). Engine Summer (1979) was nominated for the 1980 American Book Award; it appears in David Pringle’s 100 Best Science Fiction Novels.
In 1981 came Little, Big, which Ursula Le Guin described as a book that “all by itself calls for a redefinition of fantasy.”
In 1980 Crowley embarked on an ambitious four-volume novel, Ægypt, comprising The Solitudes (originally published as Ægypt), Love & Sleep, Dæmonomania, and Endless Things, published in May 2007. This series and Little, Big were cited when Crowley received the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature.
He is also the recipient of an Ingram Merrill Foundation grant. His recent novels are The Translator, recipient of the Premio Flaianno (Italy), and Lord Byron’s Novel: The Evening Land, which contains an entire imaginary novel by the poet. A novella, The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines, appeared in 2002. A museum-quality 25th anniversary edition of Little, Big, featuring the art of Peter Milton and a critical introduction by Harold Bloom, is in preparation.
Note: The John Crowley who wrote Sans épines, la rose: Tony Blair, un modèle pour l'Europe? is a different author with the same name. (website)
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
June 21, 2019
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via a Librarything giveaway. I did a happy dance when I found out I won.
Many of my favorite authors I have discovered due to Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. John Crowley is one of those writers. I first read Little, Big. Eventually, I read his Aegypt sequence. He is one those fantasy writers that people who don’t read much fantasy put in literature because for some reason they think literature isn’t fantasy. (Yeah, I don’t know why they think that either).
This collection of short fiction includes stories that have, for the most part, been already published, and if it has a theme, it is about the power reading and the story. In some ways, it reminds me of Dinesen’s Anecdotes of Destiny, another collection of stories about stories.
The collection opens with “The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines” which starts as a story about a theatre intern and morphs into something far more powerful. But honesty, you are most likely going to want to read it for the scene where Beatrice (of Much Ado) confronts pirates. The story makes use not only of a book about the heroines, but also about the authorship debate.
It is followed by a very short story, “In the Tom Mix Museum”. While the shortest one in the collection, it is also a master class in how a story does not have to be long to be powerful and to say much.
The title story, “And Go Like This”, takes the rather interesting idea of NYC’s rooms and overpopulation. The ending sequence is just beautifully rendered. It is followed by “Spring Break” which quite frankly is disturbing on so many levels – but not in a bad read type of way. It has to do with how learning and reading have changed since the rise of the internet – in particular websites like Twitter or Facebook. It isn’t so much fake news that is being looked at but the lack of reading critically and in depth – and important aspect of storytelling.
It is followed by “The Million Monkeys of M Borel” which is a wonderful story about how we read and why the device or format we use is important. It too is one of those stories with a particularly beautiful ending. If you are a reader, this is the type of story that will speak to your story. A somewhat similar point pops in the interlinked stories that make up “Mount Auburn Street”.
“Conversation Hearts” is perhaps the story that most directly confronts storytelling. Not only because the story is about a family where the woman is an author but because Crowley makes use of tropes that populate movies but twists them.
Strangely, I found the last two stories the least interesting. They are not bad. “Flint and Mirror” has Dee in it and “Anosognosia” is a neat story about creation and reality. This is also true of “This is Our Town”.
But the overwhelming theme of the stories is that of love for stories. It makes this collection a thumping good read (to borrow a phrase) for any reader.
Many of my favorite authors I have discovered due to Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. John Crowley is one of those writers. I first read Little, Big. Eventually, I read his Aegypt sequence. He is one those fantasy writers that people who don’t read much fantasy put in literature because for some reason they think literature isn’t fantasy. (Yeah, I don’t know why they think that either).
This collection of short fiction includes stories that have, for the most part, been already published, and if it has a theme, it is about the power reading and the story. In some ways, it reminds me of Dinesen’s Anecdotes of Destiny, another collection of stories about stories.
The collection opens with “The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines” which starts as a story about a theatre intern and morphs into something far more powerful. But honesty, you are most likely going to want to read it for the scene where Beatrice (of Much Ado) confronts pirates. The story makes use not only of a book about the heroines, but also about the authorship debate.
It is followed by a very short story, “In the Tom Mix Museum”. While the shortest one in the collection, it is also a master class in how a story does not have to be long to be powerful and to say much.
The title story, “And Go Like This”, takes the rather interesting idea of NYC’s rooms and overpopulation. The ending sequence is just beautifully rendered. It is followed by “Spring Break” which quite frankly is disturbing on so many levels – but not in a bad read type of way. It has to do with how learning and reading have changed since the rise of the internet – in particular websites like Twitter or Facebook. It isn’t so much fake news that is being looked at but the lack of reading critically and in depth – and important aspect of storytelling.
It is followed by “The Million Monkeys of M Borel” which is a wonderful story about how we read and why the device or format we use is important. It too is one of those stories with a particularly beautiful ending. If you are a reader, this is the type of story that will speak to your story. A somewhat similar point pops in the interlinked stories that make up “Mount Auburn Street”.
“Conversation Hearts” is perhaps the story that most directly confronts storytelling. Not only because the story is about a family where the woman is an author but because Crowley makes use of tropes that populate movies but twists them.
Strangely, I found the last two stories the least interesting. They are not bad. “Flint and Mirror” has Dee in it and “Anosognosia” is a neat story about creation and reality. This is also true of “This is Our Town”.
But the overwhelming theme of the stories is that of love for stories. It makes this collection a thumping good read (to borrow a phrase) for any reader.
December 29, 2019
It is a John Crowley book so it is amazing, though I will say this book is a bit of a cheat. Excepting one, "Anosognosia", all of these stories have been published elsewhere, though possibly not in quite easy-to-find places. Since I am a devout Crowley fan, the final tale, heretofore unpublished, is the only one I had not read. It has many of the hallmarks of Crowley's prose but feels rather wooden. Unfair, you say? Probably. Maybe Crowley writes so well his work now seems pedestrian and so-so, when it exceeds what many authors would ever be able to do. I will always seek out what he writes, and really hope he is at work on another novel (though I not so secretly hope it is better than "Ka: Dar Oakley in the Ruin of Ymr"...).
Highly recommended for fans of great short stories and brilliant storycraft. Crowley is a master.
Highly recommended for fans of great short stories and brilliant storycraft. Crowley is a master.
October 25, 2020
Will review at www.fantasyliterature.com.
November 17, 2019
The best stories here, "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines," "Mount Auburn Street," "Anosognosia," are almost novella length, and they are grand indeed. Crowley is one of our most gifted imaginers.
Read
July 29, 2022It is impossible to rate a collection of short stories and novellas, especially this one, as I had already read some of them ("The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines", and "Conversation Hearts").
What I can say, however, is that John Crowley is at his best when he writes about the wonder of everyday life, the small -- no, no, huge, in fact -- miracles of being alive, and the potentialities of the banal, though they rarely assert themselves or are seized by us.
Two stories stand out: "Mount Auburn Street" and "Anosognosia", both clearly autobiographical in some respect, both about lives lived and lives imagined. They're small gems.
And, of course, there is "Flint and Mirror", the short story of which John Crowley saw its potential and that he transformed into a full novel. It is tantalizing. A strange mix of fantasy, though real or imagined, we cannot know, and of the magic-in-everyday. It is presented as linked with the masterful AEgypt trilogy.
I'm reading the novel now...
What I can say, however, is that John Crowley is at his best when he writes about the wonder of everyday life, the small -- no, no, huge, in fact -- miracles of being alive, and the potentialities of the banal, though they rarely assert themselves or are seized by us.
Two stories stand out: "Mount Auburn Street" and "Anosognosia", both clearly autobiographical in some respect, both about lives lived and lives imagined. They're small gems.
And, of course, there is "Flint and Mirror", the short story of which John Crowley saw its potential and that he transformed into a full novel. It is tantalizing. A strange mix of fantasy, though real or imagined, we cannot know, and of the magic-in-everyday. It is presented as linked with the masterful AEgypt trilogy.
I'm reading the novel now...
November 16, 2019
A new collection of stories by one of my favorite writers: it's Christmas ! Crowley manage to write erudite tales around intellectual subjects (Shakespeare) and has evolved into his own niche of the fantastic -- although he's a literary writer, shining outside any field. Simply order this book. Take my word for it.
November 1, 2022
I don't like most short stories but I very much liked these. Hovering around the inside edges of genres, not a clunker in the bunch.
August 23, 2019
I enjoyed most of these short stories, though I found that I had the same problem with them as I do with the other John Crowley works I've read: they're hard to get into. For each story there was a period of effort before the narrative began to pay off for me. The language doesn't flow for me very well, so I end up guarding against skimming.
It's worth the effort, though - I liked these stories just fine, on the whole. I am happy I read them, though I am not missing them now that they're done.
Full disclosure: I received this book through the Early Reviewers program at LibraryThing.com.
It's worth the effort, though - I liked these stories just fine, on the whole. I am happy I read them, though I am not missing them now that they're done.
Full disclosure: I received this book through the Early Reviewers program at LibraryThing.com.
November 24, 2020
I am unfamiliar with John Crowley, so these stories feel like exploring a new country whose landscape can be rewarding, difficult — and exceedingly strange.
The first story, "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines," set largely in a 1950s Indiana theater camp, is a flat-out masterpiece. This is Alice Munro territory, with virtuoso storytelling that reveals new layers of meaning as the tale loops forward and back in time. Shakespeare's elusive spirit — and the puzzle to his identity — hovers over the proceedings. This is the kind of story where you hit a moment of revelation and immediately turn back, realizing that the meaning of the story that preceded that moment has shifted.
Why, for example, is the memory of an uneventful summer's day at a lake so ominous? "I see that beach still … only darkened, as though seen through dark glasses or with sunblind eyes. Soundless. Dreadful." We soon learn why, and why that day shapes the subsequent lives of the two principal characters.
Several of the stories, told in a variety of voices, are skilled literary exercises, but lack the emotional depth of "Shakespeare's Heroines." "Spring Break," a nifty horror story set in a future Yale University library, packs a punch, but faces stiff competition in the haunted library genre. Among them: the erudite speculations of Borge's "The Library of Babel" or Carlos Ruiz Zafón's Cemetery of Forgotten Books in Spirit of the Wind.
Crowley is often categorized as a genre writer of literary fantasy, but few of these stories contain overt elements of fantasy. The three linked stories of "Mount Auburn Street," for instance, are a long unblinking look at aging and mortality. Memory loss is the focus of the first story. The second story revolves around failing sexual energy — and a detailed account of Viagra's impact on a marriage. The quiet acceptance of death concludes the triad. There may be a epiphany hidden here, but it is a quiet and submerged one.
The final story, "Anosognosia," is a challenge. (Yes, I had to look the word up too.) In one sense, the premise is a simple fictional idea: the prospect of going back in time and living an alternative life. But Crowley chooses to tell it in the same looping complex manner as "Shakespeare's Heroines."
After a head injury as a teenager, John C.'s life and personality are subtly altered. Fast forward and John is a discontented single LA screenwriter who tells his therapist that he has the ability to shift realities and live an alternate life as a married novelist in New England. The therapist naturally tries to explain that he is suffering from an unacknowledged psychological condition. John C. rejects any such possibility for his plight, and insists that his dilemma is essentially a literary one: choosing either life is an unsatisfactory end to the story. There is no apparent third alternative.
John C is a cool customer, so we may not empathize too deeply with his emotional pain. But Crowley weaves quiet but seductive philosophical conundrums that linger long after we have finished the story, still pondering John C.'s ultimate fate.
The first story, "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines," set largely in a 1950s Indiana theater camp, is a flat-out masterpiece. This is Alice Munro territory, with virtuoso storytelling that reveals new layers of meaning as the tale loops forward and back in time. Shakespeare's elusive spirit — and the puzzle to his identity — hovers over the proceedings. This is the kind of story where you hit a moment of revelation and immediately turn back, realizing that the meaning of the story that preceded that moment has shifted.
Why, for example, is the memory of an uneventful summer's day at a lake so ominous? "I see that beach still … only darkened, as though seen through dark glasses or with sunblind eyes. Soundless. Dreadful." We soon learn why, and why that day shapes the subsequent lives of the two principal characters.
Several of the stories, told in a variety of voices, are skilled literary exercises, but lack the emotional depth of "Shakespeare's Heroines." "Spring Break," a nifty horror story set in a future Yale University library, packs a punch, but faces stiff competition in the haunted library genre. Among them: the erudite speculations of Borge's "The Library of Babel" or Carlos Ruiz Zafón's Cemetery of Forgotten Books in Spirit of the Wind.
Crowley is often categorized as a genre writer of literary fantasy, but few of these stories contain overt elements of fantasy. The three linked stories of "Mount Auburn Street," for instance, are a long unblinking look at aging and mortality. Memory loss is the focus of the first story. The second story revolves around failing sexual energy — and a detailed account of Viagra's impact on a marriage. The quiet acceptance of death concludes the triad. There may be a epiphany hidden here, but it is a quiet and submerged one.
The final story, "Anosognosia," is a challenge. (Yes, I had to look the word up too.) In one sense, the premise is a simple fictional idea: the prospect of going back in time and living an alternative life. But Crowley chooses to tell it in the same looping complex manner as "Shakespeare's Heroines."
After a head injury as a teenager, John C.'s life and personality are subtly altered. Fast forward and John is a discontented single LA screenwriter who tells his therapist that he has the ability to shift realities and live an alternate life as a married novelist in New England. The therapist naturally tries to explain that he is suffering from an unacknowledged psychological condition. John C. rejects any such possibility for his plight, and insists that his dilemma is essentially a literary one: choosing either life is an unsatisfactory end to the story. There is no apparent third alternative.
John C is a cool customer, so we may not empathize too deeply with his emotional pain. But Crowley weaves quiet but seductive philosophical conundrums that linger long after we have finished the story, still pondering John C.'s ultimate fate.
April 4, 2020
It pains me to only leave 3 stars for this, as Crowley is an excellent writer, sometimes an astonishing writer, and such facility with language is always in short supply. That he chooses to marry it to the fantastic has been, overall, a gift, but with great power comes great responsibility, and I’m not sure he’s been reminded of that lately.
This got better as it went along for me. The best stories were the ones that seemed to draw from personal experience, so that even when he’s wielding his vast knowledge of the Elizabethan period for “Flint and Mirror” it is in following the main character’s life, from wondering boyhood into a strategizing, diplomatic middle age, that the story finds its strength. The very last tale, “Anosognosia,” was perhaps the strongest of them all, as it married what felt like deeply personal experience to an actual, concrete dilemma that the reader could identify with.
As I was reading this, I thought too about craft meta-issues, for lack of a better phrase: of what happens when you don’t stay in your own lane; of the way literary fiction persists in the open ending, its obstinate refusal to put a period on any tale. “Spring Break” was the one story I DNF, in part because the language felt like a bad rehash of A Clockwork Orange, but mostly because I no longer want to spend my time reading an elderly New England professor’s take on gender and sexuality. At a time when binary gender is undergoing a radical re-examination, often with violent consequences, I don’t want my kindly fairy grandpa to weigh in. It’s not his movement.
And then there is the lack of ending, and sometimes the lack of clear stakes at all. I’ve become hypersensitive to it after so many years working and reading in genre fiction, where stakes are clear, where plots are at least somewhat resolve—where, indeed, there are actual plots, even in the tiniest flash. I remember thinking as I read that Crowley is my parents’ age, that he and my parents would have much in common—and they would probably read one of his stories and say, “but what’s the point? I don’t get it.” This need to allude, to sometimes downright obfuscate, rather than clearly state the choices being made: who then is the audience? Not the man on the street, to be sure. Perhaps Harold Bloom, who championed Crowley for so long; but we can’t all be Harold Bloom. Nor should we be, or there would be nothing to write about.
This got better as it went along for me. The best stories were the ones that seemed to draw from personal experience, so that even when he’s wielding his vast knowledge of the Elizabethan period for “Flint and Mirror” it is in following the main character’s life, from wondering boyhood into a strategizing, diplomatic middle age, that the story finds its strength. The very last tale, “Anosognosia,” was perhaps the strongest of them all, as it married what felt like deeply personal experience to an actual, concrete dilemma that the reader could identify with.
As I was reading this, I thought too about craft meta-issues, for lack of a better phrase: of what happens when you don’t stay in your own lane; of the way literary fiction persists in the open ending, its obstinate refusal to put a period on any tale. “Spring Break” was the one story I DNF, in part because the language felt like a bad rehash of A Clockwork Orange, but mostly because I no longer want to spend my time reading an elderly New England professor’s take on gender and sexuality. At a time when binary gender is undergoing a radical re-examination, often with violent consequences, I don’t want my kindly fairy grandpa to weigh in. It’s not his movement.
And then there is the lack of ending, and sometimes the lack of clear stakes at all. I’ve become hypersensitive to it after so many years working and reading in genre fiction, where stakes are clear, where plots are at least somewhat resolve—where, indeed, there are actual plots, even in the tiniest flash. I remember thinking as I read that Crowley is my parents’ age, that he and my parents would have much in common—and they would probably read one of his stories and say, “but what’s the point? I don’t get it.” This need to allude, to sometimes downright obfuscate, rather than clearly state the choices being made: who then is the audience? Not the man on the street, to be sure. Perhaps Harold Bloom, who championed Crowley for so long; but we can’t all be Harold Bloom. Nor should we be, or there would be nothing to write about.
November 18, 2025
2.5 stars, Metaphorosis reviews
Summary
A collection of lightly fantastic stories, often about aging, by John Crowley
Review
For reasons that escape me (and may amount to no more than having books by both authors in the house when I was young), my mind has tended to blur John Crowley and John Fowles into one. Despite access to both, I don’t recall reading either (maybe Fowles’ The Magus). When I saw this book at WorldCon’s Freebies table, I felt it was a chance to address that at last.
Crowley starts the book with an introduction suggesting he adapts his voice to each story he writes; never the same. I disagree, finding his voice and tone reasonably consistent. Unfortunately, it also didn’t often excite or intrigue me. I found the stories mildly and distantly interesting, like the plot-less, resolution-less New Yorker stories I read in my youth, wondering why anyone else did. To the extent the stories did resonate, it’s because I’m old and many of the stories are about aging.
My experience of the first story, “The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines” is a fair representation. Initially about both Shakespeare and growing up, it turns eventually into a story about polio and post-polio. Since my father was one of what Crowley calls “the iron lung kids” and cruel post-polio contributed to his death, the ending of the story resonated with me, but only really the ending. The rest was, to my reading, fairly ho-hum.
At the other end of the book, “Anosognosia” was the closest thing to a fully formed story, and the most SFF of the bunch. But even there I at times had to force myself to read every word rather than skim. There’s no doubt that Crowley can write, but also no doubt that I personally find his style too often self-absorbed and maundering.
The only other story I found worthy of much note was the titular “And Go Like This” – a broadly pathless rumination on fulfilling a comment by Buckminster Fuller that has no real resolution, but does have an indefinable something that drives it on.
I’m glad to have resolved my own minor mystery of which John the novelist is which, but I can’t say I’m drawn to this one, nor can I recommend him. If you’re a fan of 1970s New Yorker stories, go for it. Otherwise, I’d advise a pass.
Summary
A collection of lightly fantastic stories, often about aging, by John Crowley
Review
For reasons that escape me (and may amount to no more than having books by both authors in the house when I was young), my mind has tended to blur John Crowley and John Fowles into one. Despite access to both, I don’t recall reading either (maybe Fowles’ The Magus). When I saw this book at WorldCon’s Freebies table, I felt it was a chance to address that at last.
Crowley starts the book with an introduction suggesting he adapts his voice to each story he writes; never the same. I disagree, finding his voice and tone reasonably consistent. Unfortunately, it also didn’t often excite or intrigue me. I found the stories mildly and distantly interesting, like the plot-less, resolution-less New Yorker stories I read in my youth, wondering why anyone else did. To the extent the stories did resonate, it’s because I’m old and many of the stories are about aging.
My experience of the first story, “The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines” is a fair representation. Initially about both Shakespeare and growing up, it turns eventually into a story about polio and post-polio. Since my father was one of what Crowley calls “the iron lung kids” and cruel post-polio contributed to his death, the ending of the story resonated with me, but only really the ending. The rest was, to my reading, fairly ho-hum.
At the other end of the book, “Anosognosia” was the closest thing to a fully formed story, and the most SFF of the bunch. But even there I at times had to force myself to read every word rather than skim. There’s no doubt that Crowley can write, but also no doubt that I personally find his style too often self-absorbed and maundering.
The only other story I found worthy of much note was the titular “And Go Like This” – a broadly pathless rumination on fulfilling a comment by Buckminster Fuller that has no real resolution, but does have an indefinable something that drives it on.
I’m glad to have resolved my own minor mystery of which John the novelist is which, but I can’t say I’m drawn to this one, nor can I recommend him. If you’re a fan of 1970s New Yorker stories, go for it. Otherwise, I’d advise a pass.
September 21, 2025
This is an eclectic collection of stories, some realist and some fantasy. They are all well written, but mostly too literary to appeal to me. The prose was exquisite, the characters nuanced, and though the predominant themes--older men wrestling with ill-health or diminished capability--should have spoken directly to my own circumstances, whatever messages they bore, were words I didn't wanted to hear. I'm only ten years younger than Crowley, and I don't want to be reminded that I'm an old guy.
The one exception is the short story "Anosognosia," first published in this collection. The protagnonist, a high-school student, suffers a fall, and enters a coma. When he awakens, his personality appears altered. He seems more mature, more capable. He is imbued with a dogged purpose alien to the student who suffered the accident. He achieves professional success. When he is 49 he enteres into therapy and confides to his therapist, when he was (will be) 50, he was granted the opportunity to redo his life from a random point in his youth. Both his first life and the alternate life which he now inhabits were professionally and personally fulfilling, but now he needs to choose which one to make real. The life not chosen will disappear, never to have existed.
Who, having passed middle age, hasn't had that daydream? Go back to an earlier version of you and reboot your life story, this time with foreknowledge of the challenges that face you and the goals you want to pursue.
Crowley handles this theme with exquisite deftness. The unfolding of the protagonist's existential dilema is presented in a series of segments, each compelling in its own right. The effect is to draw the reader into the fact that a choice must be made, and the difficulty of making the choice.
I'm going to keep this book, simply so I can reread this short story anytime I want.
The one exception is the short story "Anosognosia," first published in this collection. The protagnonist, a high-school student, suffers a fall, and enters a coma. When he awakens, his personality appears altered. He seems more mature, more capable. He is imbued with a dogged purpose alien to the student who suffered the accident. He achieves professional success. When he is 49 he enteres into therapy and confides to his therapist, when he was (will be) 50, he was granted the opportunity to redo his life from a random point in his youth. Both his first life and the alternate life which he now inhabits were professionally and personally fulfilling, but now he needs to choose which one to make real. The life not chosen will disappear, never to have existed.
Who, having passed middle age, hasn't had that daydream? Go back to an earlier version of you and reboot your life story, this time with foreknowledge of the challenges that face you and the goals you want to pursue.
Crowley handles this theme with exquisite deftness. The unfolding of the protagonist's existential dilema is presented in a series of segments, each compelling in its own right. The effect is to draw the reader into the fact that a choice must be made, and the difficulty of making the choice.
I'm going to keep this book, simply so I can reread this short story anytime I want.
December 26, 2019
Excellent collection of John Crowley’s more-recent short(ish) fiction.
Its earliest story is 2002’s Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines, which I’ve described elsewhere ( www.staff.city.ac.uk/~solomon/Girlhoo... ). Rabid fan that I am, I’d already managed to obtain most of these stories in their original publications. I re-read two of them this week: 2005’s outstanding portrait of what I’ll call age-related identity dissolution: Little Yeses, Little Nos and what I hadn’t realised at the time was a companion piece: 2012’s Glow Little Glowworm. Back in 2012, I’d missed this story’s thematic connection with (it’s been a long time since I read it, but probably still my favourite of Crowley’s novels) Engine Summer (although it’s more of an Indian Spring in Glow Little Glowworm), but it’s unmissable here, not only because of its insertion in the middle of Mount Auburn Street’s trilogy on aging, but also because of its proximity to the never-before published Anosognosia, which combines as many, if not more of Crowley’s favourite themes than any other single story in his oeurve, e.g. the story within an artifact, the alternate history, the unobtainable (female) muse, disability as a complement of magic, the ability to imagine a life, and the realisation that one’s life is imagined. I can’t help but marvel at the seamless way all these themes have been combined into a (fairly) straightforward narrative. If nothing else, this collection flaunts Crowley’s stylistic range like no other. Although (at least parts of) all the stories described above adhere to what I call his faux-autobiographical style, others are more ironic/horror or straight-up historical fiction.
Its earliest story is 2002’s Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines, which I’ve described elsewhere ( www.staff.city.ac.uk/~solomon/Girlhoo... ). Rabid fan that I am, I’d already managed to obtain most of these stories in their original publications. I re-read two of them this week: 2005’s outstanding portrait of what I’ll call age-related identity dissolution: Little Yeses, Little Nos and what I hadn’t realised at the time was a companion piece: 2012’s Glow Little Glowworm. Back in 2012, I’d missed this story’s thematic connection with (it’s been a long time since I read it, but probably still my favourite of Crowley’s novels) Engine Summer (although it’s more of an Indian Spring in Glow Little Glowworm), but it’s unmissable here, not only because of its insertion in the middle of Mount Auburn Street’s trilogy on aging, but also because of its proximity to the never-before published Anosognosia, which combines as many, if not more of Crowley’s favourite themes than any other single story in his oeurve, e.g. the story within an artifact, the alternate history, the unobtainable (female) muse, disability as a complement of magic, the ability to imagine a life, and the realisation that one’s life is imagined. I can’t help but marvel at the seamless way all these themes have been combined into a (fairly) straightforward narrative. If nothing else, this collection flaunts Crowley’s stylistic range like no other. Although (at least parts of) all the stories described above adhere to what I call his faux-autobiographical style, others are more ironic/horror or straight-up historical fiction.
November 18, 2019
Except for a short PM Press booklet in 2017, we haven't had a collection of John Crowley stories in 15 years. This collection makes up for it, showing a master fictioneer at the height of his powers. From the cleverly structured story “The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines” to the gonzo Poe homage of “Spring Break” to the highly metafictional “Anosognosia”, Crowley shows that he can craft just about any type of fiction he chooses.
Crowley walks through genre like a ghost through walls. While he is viewed as a fantasy writer by the SF&F field, his writing doesn't feel that way: some of the stories might seem to have fantasy elements (“Anosognosia”), but they are often ambiguous and can be read either way, the way Karen Joy Fowler's stories (e.g. “The Pelican Bar”) can be read.
Crowley's stories are so layered that they reward re-reading. However, that is not necessary to enjoy them immensely.
Sometimes writers like him are described as a “writer's writer”, someone who other writers admire. While this is true, I prefer to think of him as a 'reader's writer': someone who keeps the reader in mind and knows exactly how to frame a story for the reader's benefit and thoughtful enjoyment.
So enjoy. The first full Crowley collection in 15 years. Get it now.
Crowley walks through genre like a ghost through walls. While he is viewed as a fantasy writer by the SF&F field, his writing doesn't feel that way: some of the stories might seem to have fantasy elements (“Anosognosia”), but they are often ambiguous and can be read either way, the way Karen Joy Fowler's stories (e.g. “The Pelican Bar”) can be read.
Crowley's stories are so layered that they reward re-reading. However, that is not necessary to enjoy them immensely.
Sometimes writers like him are described as a “writer's writer”, someone who other writers admire. While this is true, I prefer to think of him as a 'reader's writer': someone who keeps the reader in mind and knows exactly how to frame a story for the reader's benefit and thoughtful enjoyment.
So enjoy. The first full Crowley collection in 15 years. Get it now.
August 17, 2019
I've liked John Crowley since I first read Little Big. His stories creep up on you, starting quietly then surprising you in a totally unexpected way. This volume of twelve stories does the same. They don't disappoint.
Not all these stories are Science Fiction. The first story "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines" tells the story of a young man and woman who meet as amateur actors in a local Shakespeare festival. Flash back, flash forward, it all flows.
"And Go Like This" imagines what Buckminster Fuller's statement that the population of the entire world in the year 1963 could fit into the existing buildings of New York City would look like.
Some of the stories are short or fairly short while others run to 30 or 40 pages. All are worth reading.
Disclaimer: I received an Advanced Reading Copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.
Not all these stories are Science Fiction. The first story "The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines" tells the story of a young man and woman who meet as amateur actors in a local Shakespeare festival. Flash back, flash forward, it all flows.
"And Go Like This" imagines what Buckminster Fuller's statement that the population of the entire world in the year 1963 could fit into the existing buildings of New York City would look like.
Some of the stories are short or fairly short while others run to 30 or 40 pages. All are worth reading.
Disclaimer: I received an Advanced Reading Copy of this book in exchange for a fair review.
January 23, 2020
I enjoyed these stories, but I prefer his long work. I liked the depth of Little, Big and a few of these stories felt like they should have been saved for a novel length treatment. But overall, I thought these showed Crowley's versatility.
August 9, 2020
Lyrical and poetic prose. Short stories with quite a lot of genre variety. A very masculine perspective. Kinda wanna be John Updike at times.
August 27, 2020
Another excellent, thought-provoking collection from one of the best writers in the business.
October 12, 2020
Some wonderful stories of growing up or growing old, but also a few misses.
January 9, 2023
I'm a fan of everything Crowley writes and this collection is no exception. An enjoyable read from cover to cover.
February 8, 2024
Whatever you do, don't listen to the audiobook. Sit down instead with your solid book, its pages and words, your lamplight or sunlight, and for godsake don't involve an intrusive narrator.
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November 18, 2025some of the stories were enrapturing. some not so much. got to try some of his other books.
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