Sudden Fiction (Continued), by Robert Shapard and James Thomas (eds)
Take the first two members of this family first, and go on to this one only if you find you enjoy short-short stories and want more
(Review posted 21 Nov 1996 12:12:12)

(Copied from an old review originally posted elsewhere.)

No, this isn't a continuation of my review of Shapard and Thomas's "Sudden Fiction"; it's a brand-new review of Shapard and Thomas's "Sudden Fiction (Continued)". Got that?

This is the third book in this family that I've read, the others being the abovecited "Sudden Fiction", and its jet-set cousin "Sudden Fiction International". I have to say that this is my least favorite so far, but it's still a good collection.

It starts and ends very well. Margaret Atwood (one of the few Big Names in this one) gives us the odd and gemlike, funny and introspective, "My Life as a Bat" to start out the collection, and Barry Yourgrau's surreal (and also funny) "Silver Arrows" and Glen Weldon's painfully accurate "The Cat was Dead" end it up nicely. But somewhere in the middle, something happens. Maybe it's just me, but consider this list of stories and themes that occur consecutively in the latter part of the middle of the book:

  Judy Troy, "Ten Miles West of Venus"
    Suicide and lovelessness
  William deBuys, "Dreaming Geronimo"
    Genocide, despair, nightmare
  Mario Roberto Morales, "Dead Weight"
    Death and lovelessness and a doomed marriage
  Allen Woodman, "Waiting for the Broken Horse"
    A failing marriage, futility
  Pagan Kennedy, "The Monument"
    Alienation, a failing relationship
  Daniel Lyons, "The Birthday Cake"
    Selfishness, sorrow, pathological mourning
  Cathryn Alpert, "That Changes Everything"
    A failing marriage

Well, that probably gives the general idea. None of these stories are bad, in fact all are at least pretty good, but still! Dave Barry once said ("quipped", I suppose) that the meaning of every poem ever written is "poets are very sensitive". Several times while reading this collection, I began to feel that the meaning of all of these short-short stories is "writers of short-short stories know all about suffering and futility and death". A bit more variety in the selections would, in my always-humble opinion, have greatly improved large swathes of this volume. There are non-tragic stories scattered here and there, but not in sufficient numbers to undo the overall impression.

So I would recommend potential readers to take the first two members of this family first, and go on to this one only if you find you enjoy short-short stories and want more, and you don't mind a heaping helping of well-written bleakness and despair. Not recommended, say, as a gift for shut-ins in need of cheering up...

%E Robert Shapard
%E James Thomas
%B Sudden Fiction (Continued)
%I W. W. Norton & Company
%C New York
%D 1996
%G ISBN 0-393-31342-5
%P 311 pp.
%O trade paperback, US$11.95
%T My Life as a Bat
%A Margaret Atwood
%T Ten Miles West of Venus
%A Judy Troy
%T Dreaming Geronimo
%A William deBuys
%T Dead Weight
%A Mario Roberto Morales
%T Waiting for the Broken Horse
%A Allen Woodman
%T The Monument
%A Pagan Kennedy
%T The Birthday Cake
%A Daniel Lyons
%T That Changes Everything
%A Cathryn Alpert
%T Silver Arrows
%A Barry Yourgrau
%T The Cat was Dead
%A Glen Weldon
%O etc etc etc