reviews

I might be a little more predisposed to love Chicago Stories, come by way of Curbside Splendor (increasingly an indie publisher to be reckoned with, and fittingly based in Chicago, IL), than some. I wear my affinity for my hometown on my sleeve and I love seeing new takes on some of its most recognizable historical persons and places and so on. Now you know how I could be construed as “biased,” though I’m no more than the next biased person, as sports commentator Joe Buck is to St. Louis.

Consideration here of the concept ‘post modern’ writing begins under a cloud of suspicion born of ignorance. Isn’t what is written yesterday or tomorrow about today or tomorrow generally pretty modern? I’m just saying, what could be more ‘modern’ than today? So, how can something even be ‘post-modern’ without being about ‘after today’, which is tomorrow, i.e. futuristic or science-fictional stuff? Since the concept of `modern’ presumably includes the specious ‘now’, how can a `post modern’ artistic event (a story or a painting) happen except after now? As the late George Carlin observed: `Here comes ‘now’. Whoops, it’s gone.’ (sic)

There’s nothing to trust about anyone or anything. So saying seems as good a note to start on as any with respect to Amelia Gray’s first novel, THREATS (March 2012, Farrar, Straus and Giroux). It doesn’t take too much attention to narrative detail to realize THREATS is, to say the least, an unconventional novel.

Gothic.

The word conjures up images of dimly lit dungeons, pasty emaciated butlers and ramshackle mansions. My Merriam-Webster pretty much covers it: a style of fiction characterized by the use of desolate or remote settings and macabre, mysterious or violent incidences. Okay. Like most other fiction genres, Gothic has its good stuff and its maybe not so good stuff and much in between.

Anyway, one sign of good writing, they say, is the ability to use words like untoward naturally in places where they actually fit. If we have to reach for a word, or cram it in somewhere just to demonstrate our erudition, maybe we should ask ourselves: Am I writing to convey information, create a mood, tell a story, touch a reader, or am I writing (a) to show how clever I am, or (b) to convince somebody to believe something I want them to believe?