The Review of Contemporary Fiction articles from September 2007

The Review of Contemporary Fiction archives from September 2007

Introduction.
September 22, 2007... Australian fiction has been widely published in the United States. But, with some exceptions, it has been published under a commercial aegis. The marketing rationale for Australian literature has, in fact, particularly emphasized Australian...

Her voice was full of money and they were careless people.(Fictional work)
September 22, 2007... The Lisieux Convent. Not situated, as you might expect, in rural France, but in Leafland, a comfortable, affluent suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Such suburbs are often described as leafy and this one certainly was lined with lovely European...

From every shilling a prisoner.(Excerpt)
September 22, 2007... The cooee whistle cracked through the dawn like a baton slammed into a body. Echoes rang over the Hunter River and were lost in the masts of mangroves growing thick upon the river's black mud edges. Darkness paused above the restless pulse of...

Match Day.(Excerpt)
September 22, 2007... In the fairy tale of Cinderella... versions containing the gathering of the bones are documented in China, Vietnam, India, Russia, Bulgaria, Cyprus... So immense and varied a distribution precludes the possibility that the presence of this...

The intimacy of the table.(Short story)
September 22, 2007... But here I am in Sydney At the age of sixty-one With the clock at a quarter to bedtime And my homework still not done. --Kenneth Slessor I was twenty when I met the great poet. It seemed to me then that I would always live in a...

From the little gap in talk.(Excerpt)
September 22, 2007... Here am I, in line, talking about myself again. Who am I talking to? No one in particular. One on one is not something I can say I've experienced. Although now, with you and me, well... Have you ever thought that someone may be inventing you?...

Mid-list.(Excerpt)
September 22, 2007... From zis shithole, he told me, you must go.--Peter Carey, Theft When I published my second novel, the commissioning editor, Sophie Cousins, came down from Sydney for the launch and gave me a bouquet of flowers. She was good like that,...

From Barley Patch.(Excerpt)
September 22, 2007... Must I Write? A few weeks before the conception of the male child who would become partly responsible, thirty-five years later, for my own conception, a young man aged nineteen years and named Franz) (aver Kappus sent some of his...

From the English class.(Excerpt)
September 22, 2007... Living under English 1. "My name is Ma Tian. I come from Taiyuan. Let me explain my name first. You may think I am horse in a field, Ma for horse and Tian for field, but my middle-school classmates used to call me Horse Sweet because...

Isnis.(Short story)
September 22, 2007... Travelers who don't know the Kust region or its history would be hopelessly confused by the signs where the Birzek and Kust highways intersect. Having followed an arrow indicating the road to Kust, the traveler finds himself making a long,...

From The Waterfall Pool.(Excerpt)
September 22, 2007... ONE HAL COLLINS 1. Albin Setheni is dead. He has to be. Three years is too long for anyone to be a missing person. And besides, I have my own reasons to suspect the worst. If that's what you would call it. His shack is empty, has been...

From Dead Europe.(Excerpt)
September 22, 2007... To a saintly man--So goes an Arab tale--God said somewhat maliciously: "Had I revealed to people How great a sinner you are, They could not praise you." "And I," answered the pious one, "Had I unveiled to them How merciful you are, They would...

Vast partings out in space.(Excerpt)
September 22, 2007... Allie and Ash were watching TV in the breezeway on the farm when the terrorist's ex-wife came on. It was a week for ex-wives; Ash had just read a newspaper interview with the ex-wife of a gangster. These women talked about their husbands in the...

The prisoner of mount warning.(Fictional work)
September 22, 2007... Back in the 1970s, Charles Dorritt worked on a bibliographical survey of the alternative press. Thirty years later, recovering from a nervous breakdown by doing a creative writing course, he announces that he is publishing his memoirs of...

George.(Fictional work)
September 22, 2007... I can hear the lions roar and the monkeys gibber at feeding time across the park. Those animals are my neighbors, separated by a line of trees, a pea-green meander of water and a barbed-wire fence that angles inward out of sight. Each day, as I...

Guest editor.(Nicholas Birns)(Brief biography)(Brief article)
September 22, 2007... Nicholas Birns lives in New York City where he teaches literature at Eugene Lang College, The New School. His teaching specialties include Victorian and modern fiction and literary theory. His book Theory After Theory, a survey of the current...

Raymond Queneau. Letters, Numbers, Forms: Essays 1928-70.(Book review)
September 22, 2007... RAYMOND QUENEAU. LETTERS, NUMBERS, FORMS: ESSAYS 1928-70. TRANS. JORDAN STUMP. URBANA AND CHICAGO: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS, 2007. 251 PP. PAPER: $45.00. "Few if any twentieth-century writers are as present in the twenty-first-century...

Lydie Salvayre. Portrait de l'ecrivain en animal domestique.(Book review)
September 22, 2007... LYDIE SALVAYRE. PORTRAIT DE L'ECRIVAIN EN ANIMAL DOMESTIQUE. SEUIL, 2007. 240 PP. 18.00 [euro]. In her latest novel, Lydie Salvayre offers a "portrait of the writer as a household pet," an animal that has learned how to please its master,...

Lydia Davis. Varieties of Disturbance.(Book review)
September 22, 2007... LYDIA DAVIS. VARIETIES OF DISTURBANCE. FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX, 2007. 240 PP. PAPER: $13.00. With singular grace and audacious understatement, Lydia Davis structures a vision of contemporary experience that is as much Seinfeld as it is...

Richard Burgin. The Conference on Beautiful Moments.(Book review)
September 22, 2007... RICHARD BURGIN. THE CONFERENCE ON BEAUTIFUL MOMENTS. JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2006. 192 PP. PAPER: $18.95. Earth, air, fire and water: nothing new there, but how important they remain. In a similar way, despite the complexities,...

Antonio Munoz Molina. In Her Absence.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2007... ANTONIO MUNOZ MOLINA. IN HER ABSENCE. TRANS. ESTHER ALLEN. OTHER PRESS, 2007. 126 PP. PAPER: $13.95. Mario, a bureaucratically minded man from a provincial Spanish town, encounters Blanca, a highly cultured and highly troubled woman whose...

Assia Djebar. The Tongue's Blood Does Not Run Dry: Algerian Stories.(Book review)
September 22, 2007... ASSIA DJEBAR. THE TONGUE'S BLOOD DOES NOT RUN DRY: ALGERIAN STORIES. TRANS. BY TEGAN RALEIGH. SEVEN STORIES PRESS, 2006. 220 PP. PAPER: $13.95. In this collection of stories, Assia Djebar, the gifted Algerian novelist, filmmaker, and...

George Konrad. A Guest In My Own Country: A Hungarian Life.(Book review)
September 22, 2007... GEORGE KONRAD. A GUEST IN MY OWN COUNTRY: A HUNGARIAN LIFE. TRANS. JIM TUCKLER. OTHER PRESS, 2007. 352 PP. PAPER: $15.95. Konrad should have died, and after that, he should have left Hungary. He and his sister were able to escape their town...

David Markson. The Last Novel.(Book review)
September 22, 2007... DAVID MARKSON. THE LAST NOVEL. SHOEMAKER & HOARD, 2007. 190 PP. PAPER: $15.00. Markson's latest novel--composed, as has his every work since Reader's Block, of fragments, quotations, and anecdotes from or about (mainly deceased) artists,...

Michael Hafftka. Consciousiunconscious.(Book review)
September 22, 2007... MICHAEL HAFFTKA. CONSCIOUSIUNCONSCIOUS. SIX GALLERY PRESS, 2007. 182 PP. PAPER: $18.00. Midway through Michael Hafftka's weirdly alluring matrix of episodic narratives (I hesitate to call them short stories as they defy virtually every...

Yasutaka Tsutsui. Salmonella Men On Planet Porno.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2007... YASUTAKA TSUTSUI. SALMONELLA MEN ON PLANET PORNO. TRANS. ANDREW DRIVER. ALMA BOOKS, 2006. 256 PP. PAPER: $17.95. Comparisons with Haruki Murakami may be inevitable, but Yasutaka Tsutsui's Salmonella Men on Planet Porno brings more to mind...

Michael Joyce. Was. FC2, 2007.(Book review)
September 22, 2007... MICHAEL JOYCE. WAS. FC2, 2007. 152 PP. PAPER: $17.95. Like Joyce's earlier print novel Liam's Going (2002), Was extends several themes and techniques that have informed his celebrated hypertexts afternoon, a story (1987) and Twilight, A...

Martin Nakell. Settlement.(Book review)
September 22, 2007... MARTIN NAKELL. SETTLEMENT. SPUYTEN DUYVIL, 2007. 176 PP. PAPER: $14.00. It's been some time since we've heard from Martin Nakell, who has established himself as a praiseworthy writer of both poetry and fiction. His last full-length work,...

Pavel Brycz. I, City.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2007... PAVEL BRYCZ. I, CITY. TRANS. JOSHUA COHEN AND MARKETA HOFMEISTEROVA. TWISTED SPOON PRESS, 2006. 156 PR PAPER: $14.50. I, City is Brycz's third book, published in 1998, and his first to be translated into English. It is a collection of...

David Markson. Epitaph for a Tramp & Epitaph for a Dead Beat.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2007... DAVID MARKSON. EPITAPH FOR A TRAMP & EPITAPH FOR A DEAD BEAT. SHOEMAKER & HOARD, 2007. 377 PR PAPER: $14.00. REPRINT. Cecil Day Lewis as Nicholas Blake, Julian Barnes as Dan Kavanagh, John Banville as Benjamin Black: the list of literary...

Deb Olin Unferth. Minor Robberies. From One Hundred And Forty Five Stories In a Small Box.(Book review)
September 22, 2007... DEB OLIN UNFERTH. MINOR ROBBERIES. FROM ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY FIVE STORIES IN A SMALL BOX. MCSWEENEY'S, 2007. 144 PP. CLOTH. $25.00 Deb Olin Unferth's first story collection comes in a boxset from McSweeney's, along with collections of very...

Andre Furlani. Guy Davenport. Postmodern And After.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2007... ANDRE FURLANI. GUY DAVENPORT. POSTMODERN AND AFTER. NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2007. 247 PP. PAPER: $27.95. When Guy Davenport died, the Provost of the University of Kentucky, Davenport's employer for most of his career, lamented: "We...

Harold Jaffe. Beyond The Techno-Cave: A Guerrilla Writer's Guide To Post-Millennial Culture.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2007... HAROLD JAFFE. BEYOND THE TECHNO-CAVE: A GUERRILLA WRITER'S GUIDE TO POST-MILLENNIAL CULTURE. STARCHERONE BOOKS, 2007. 181 PP. PAPER: $16.00. Harold Jaffe's earlier "docufictions" have blurred the boundary between fact and fiction, and this...

Laura Mullen. Murmur.(Book review)
September 22, 2007... LAURA MULLEN. MURMUR. FUTUREPOEM BOOKS, 2007. 176 PP. PAPER: $15.00. "Just This" is the title of one chapter (or is it section, division, segment?) of Laura Mullen's Murmur, and if "lust This" is the resolution of any detective novel, the...

Robert Lopez. Part Of The World.(Book review)
September 22, 2007... ROBERT LOPEZ. PART OF THE WORLD. CALAMARI PRESS, 2007. 182 PP. PAPER: $17.00. The title of Robert Lopez's newest novel cannot be anything but ironic. While the narrator lives among people, he is not really engaged in society. He is a man...

Christine Brooke-Rose. The Christine Brooke-Rose Omnibus: Four Novels: Out, Such, Between, Thru.(Book review)
September 22, 2007... CHRISTINE BROOKE-ROSE. THE CHRISTINE BROOKE-ROSE OMNIBUS: FOUR NOVELS: OUT, SUCH, BETWEEN, THRU. CARCANET PRESS (U.K.), 2007. 742 PP. PAPER: $35.95. The Christine Brooke-Rose Omnibus, first issued in 1986, provides a crash course in this...

Joanna Gunderson. Night.(Brief article)(Book review)
September 22, 2007... JOANNA GUNDERSON. NIGHT. RED DUST, 2007. PAPER: $12.95. The words, voices, images, and sounds of Joanna Gunderson's experimental plays ripple over mind and body like a fugue. In her recently published collection of four experimental plays,...

Books received.
September 22, 2007... Adderson, Caroline. Sitting Practice. Trumpeter, 2007. $21.95. Alemi, Massud. Interruptions. Ibex, 2008. $24.95. Allen, Sarah Addison. Garden Spells. Bantam, 2007. $20.00. Alonso, Nancy. Closed For Repairs. Curbstone Press, 2007....