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- - - - Copyright 2003 Toronto Star
- - - - Title: To the golden age of pulps
- - - - To the golden age of pulps Michael Chabon calls on some pals to spin a few really tall ones Some very hip names answer a challenge to put up or shut up Section: Entertainment, pg. D14 McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury Of Thrilling Tales started off as something of a dare, an opportunity for Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon to either put up or shut up. According to his foreword, Chabon had spent months bemoaning the state of the literary short story, now almost solely the province of "the contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory story," to anyone who would listen. Where was narrative? What had happened to high-quality ghost stories, adventure tales, detective fiction, romances? Where was the sheer pleasure of storytelling? Chabon made his case to Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius and founder of the quirky literary quarterly McSweeney's. Eggers countered: "If I let you guest-edit an issue of McSweeney's, can we please stop talking about this?" Chabon took Eggers up on his offer. The result, McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury Of Thrilling Tales, is a special issue of the magazine (co-published with Vintage Books to meet the anticipated demand) dedicated to the heady, pulpy joy of short fiction. In commissioning original stories from almost two dozen contributors, Chabon has assembled a collection that balances the heady verve of 1950s story magazines with high contemporary literary values. The collection is almost evenly split between solid genre stories from experienced genre sources and more literary figures exhibiting rare narrative abandon. The usual suspects include Sandman creator Neil Gaiman weighing in with "Closing Time," a subtle, affecting ghost story about the nature of storytelling, Harlan Ellison providing a metaphysical romp through fast food with "Goodbye To All That," and Stephen King presenting a new story, "The Tale Of Gray Dick," set in his Gunslinger mythos. Michael Crichton's "Blood Doesn't Come Out" is a weak, too-mannered noir tale, but Elmore Leonard's "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name To Carl and Became A Famous Oklahoma Lawman" is a crisp and punchy piece of classic Leonard storytelling. Then are the genre pieces from unexpected sources. Nick Hornby's "Otherwise Pandemonium" is a charming story of sex and death at age 15 (along with a VCR that shows the end of the world). Dave Eggers himself creates a mind-bending story, "Up The Mountain Coming Down Slowly," rich with his trademark wit and insight. Rick Moody's "The Albertine Notes" is a compelling, visionary science fiction novella about the nature of reality and memory. Sherman Alexie's "Ghost Dance" mixes race relations with zombie flesh-eaters at Little Big Horn. In the spirit of the original pulps, much of the joy of the McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury is never knowing what the next story will bring. That the writing is so generally powerful adds to this collection's considerable pleasures. The best part, though? A small footnote at the close of Michael Chabon's own quirky and sly "The Martian Agent, A Planetary Romance" reads "Look for the second installment of "The Martian Agent" ... in McSweeney's Second Mammoth Treasury Of Thrilling Tales. Leave them wanting more, with a promise of delights to come. Can a reader ask for anything more? Robert Wiersema is a Victoria-based bookseller and freelance reviewer. Mcsweeney's Mammoth Treasury Of Thrilling Tales edited by Michael Chabon Vintage, 480 pages, $21 - - - -
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