THE AMPHORA PROJECT | William Kotzwinkle | Grove Press | In a 1988 essay literary agent Russell Galen had some advice for writers gunning for the big time: “Don’t worry about ‘breaking out of genre.’” Just “make it big, big, very big.” Maybe someone should send a copy to William Kotzwinkle: the man knows how to write, but he’s remained a subcult fixture since Doctor Rat and Fata Morgana were published in the 70s.
BLUEBIRDS USED TO CROON IN THE CHOIR | Joe Meno | TriQuarterly | I count at least seven children (or pairs thereof) who’ve lost a parent to suicide, disease, accident, or simple abandonment in Joe Meno’s new collection of 17 wacky yet tragic ministories. Most of these cartoonish Tiny Tims bear up cheerfully, managing to either have epiphanies or inspire them before Meno hustles his next victims onstage. In addition to the kids there’s a colon cancer patient who mysteriously starts floating, a refugee worker whose magical singing drives a coworker to try to start a strike, and another guy with a butt problem who has, surprise, an epiphany while watching porn between trips to the loo.
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In the end, though, it’s Saunders’s cloying style that’s most dispiriting. His measured self-satisfaction wafts from every element, from his precious faux-representational descriptions of his impossible creatures and transparent world–the region of Far East Distant Outer Horner, for example, is “a lush verdant zone where cows’ heads grew out of the earth shouting sarcastic things at anyone who passed”–to his equally precious, faux-imaginative asides. | Brian Nemtusak
Louise W. Knight
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Moody has structured the 500-plus-page tome with all the conventions of a TV drama, and for the most part the imitation is effective. Things get off on the wrong foot with “Opening Credits and Theme Music,” an 11-page narration of the sun rising on Los Angeles and proceeding around the world to New York that reads like an undergraduate writing exercise, but from there they come together nicely. The masterful “Epilogue and Scenes From Upcoming Episodes” caps it all off with a winding dinner conversation between two old Harvard chums–one a network executive, the other a U.S. Supreme Court justice–that leaves no doubt about the fate of the miniseries’ production or the outcome of the presidential election recount. There’s space for both obvious juicy plot turns and surprising Shakespearean weight. The world Moody creates with this unique literary mode is a great place to get lost awhile. | Todd Dills
