Black Glass: Short Fictions, by Karen Joy Fowler
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Black Glass: Short Fictions, by Karen Joy Fowler
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An early work from PEN/Faulkner Award winner and Man Booker finalist Karen Joy Fowler, reissued and beautifully repackaged for new fans and old. First published in 1998 to high praise, and now reissued with the addition of a prefatory essay, Black Glass showcases the extraordinary talents of this prizewinning author. In fifteen gemlike tales, Fowler lets her wit and vision roam freely, turning accepted norms inside out and fairy tales upside down—pushing us to reconsider our unquestioned verities and proving once again that she is among our most subversive writers.So, then: Here is Carry Nation loose again, breaking up discos, smashing topless bars, radicalizing women as she preaches clean living to men more intent on babes and booze. And here is Mrs. Gulliver, her patience with her long-voyaging Lemuel worn thin: Money is short and the kids can’t even remember what their dad looks like. And what of Tonto, the ever-faithful companion, turning forty without so much as a birthday phone call from that masked man? It is a book full of great themes and terrific stories—but it is the way in which Fowler tells the tale, develops plot and character, plays with time, chance, and reality that makes these pieces so original.
Black Glass: Short Fictions, by Karen Joy Fowler- Amazon Sales Rank: #378898 in Books
- Brand: Fowler, Karen Joy
- Published on: 2015-06-23
- Released on: 2015-06-23
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.56" h x 1.13" w x 5.75" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 304 pages
From Publishers Weekly Gifted novelist Fowler (Sarah Canary and The Sweetheart Season) delights in the arcane, and, as a result, these 15 clever tales are occasionally puzzling but never dull. In the long title story, temperance activist Carry Nation is resurrected in the 1990s ("We're talking about a very troubled, very big woman," says one shaken barman to reporters) and becomes such a nuisance that the DEA is forced to dispatch her with voodoo. Other plots are only slightly less outrageous in conceit. In "Lieserl," a lovesick madwoman dupes Albert Einstein into believing he has a daughter; in "The Faithful Companion at Forty," Tonto admits to second thoughts about his biggest life choice ("But for every day, for your ordinary life, a mask is only going to make you more obvious. There's an element of exhibitionism in it"). "The Travails" offers a peek at the one-sided correspondence of Mary Gulliver, who wants Lemuel to come home already and help out around the house. The homage to Swift makes sense, for, when Fowler doesn't settle for amusing her readers, she makes a lively satirist. The extraterrestrials who appear in her stories (whether the inscrutably sadistic monsters in "Duplicity" or the members of a seminar studying late-1960s college behavior in "The View From Venus: A Case Study") seem stand-ins for the author herself, who, in elegant and witty prose, cultivates the eye of a curious alien and, along the way, unfolds eccentric plots that keep the pages turning. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal This stunning collection of stories by the author of Sarah Canary (LJ 5/1/92) so carefully intertwines the ordinary with the extraordinary that what should seem incredible is fully believable. Though the stories may appear to be about a DEA agent who unwittingly revives the spirit of Carry A. Nation, two women held captive by aliens in the Brazilian rain forest, a magic potion made from a unicorn's horn, or a classroom of Venusians learning about Earthly love, at their core they are about human relationships and all the more startling for their insight from seemingly unrelated points. A few pieces puzzle more than they enlighten, but the reader may be motivated to return to them for a slower reading. Highly recommended.?Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Idaho Lib., MoscowCopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews Fifteen ferociously imaginative and provocative new stories from the author of a previous collection (Artificial Things, not reviewed) and the highly regarded novels Sarah Canary (1991) and The Sweetheart Season (1996). There are three different kinds of stories here: vignettes that elliptically portray women's fantasies of escaping the figurative (and sometimes literal) prisons men build for them; more fully developed tales of girls and women in and out of love with variously disappointing partners; and revisionist comedies (Fowler has been called ``an American Angela Carter''), in which the fantastic and magical-realist elements that crop up in her novels are central and crucial. The best of these latter include the title story, where temperance crusader Carry Nation returns to life, to the consternation of a henpecked DEA agent; the moving ``Lieserl,'' in which Albert Einstein learns of the birth of his illegitimate daughter, but excuses his neglect by claiming ``experience is a hindrance to the scientist''; and ``The Faithful Companion at Forty,'' a piece distinguished both by wickedly rendered contemporary psychobabble and by Tonto's exasperation over the Lone Ranger's disrespect for him (``You want to bet even Attila the Hun had a party on his fortieth?''). Fowler stumbles with murky stories about impaired father-daughter relationships (``The Elizabeth Complex,'' ``Go Back'') and in an overattenuated exploration of young moderns' sexual politics and role-playing (``The View from Venus: a case study''). But she's at her best in a heart-tugging story of a woman war-protestor's separation from the pacifist intellectual who was the love of her youth (``Letters from Home''); the fascinating ``Duplicity,'' about a woman who seeksand unfortunately findsan alternative to her unadventurous lover; and ``Game Night at the Fox and Goose,'' in which an abandoned pregnant woman's encounter with a female who promises her entry into ``another universe where the feminist force was just a little stronger'' reaches an astonishing climax. Accomplished, risk-taking, exciting new work from one of our most interesting writers. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful. Fifteen Dark Gems By David J. Schwartz As wonderful as Fowler's novels are, her short stories pack an even bigger punch. The blurb on the inside front cover wants you to notice that there are stories here about Gulliver's Travels, Carry Nation and the Lone Ranger and Tonto, but don't let the publisher's name-dropping turn you off; Fowler doesn't need to invoke names of legend or other fictions to tell her stories. She's got wit and intelligence and a total lack of mercy when it comes to her characters.Take a story like "Duplicity," where a pair of women are captured by what might or might not be aliens, who manage to slowly and chillingly turn the captives against each other. Or a story like "The Elizabeth Complex," a multi-faceted meditation on women and their fathers. Or the way Fowler uses history to paint unpleasant pictures of our own present, as she does with "Shimabara." Fowler is as much at ease with stark and unsanitized childhood remembrance ("Go Back," "The Brew") as she is with ironic reflections on radical Berkely ("Letters From Home," "The View From Venus: A Case Study"). Her stories are funniest when they are biting, her characters cut deepest when they are smiling, and she is never, ever, one hundred percent reliable.This is a great collection. I await more.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. A Superb Early Collection of Karen Joy Fowler's Elegant Tales Now Revisited By John Kwok This updated edition of "Black Glass: Short Fictions" demonstrates why Karen Jay Fowler is one of the greatest living American writers of fiction. The title story, "Black Glass", is a superb example of her intelligent, deliberate, often poetic, prose, in which she does a memorable job in melding 19th Century American history with the present and the mysteries of Voudon in conjuring the epic return of Carry Nation, haunting present-day America, attacking bars, discos and any other form of establishment that allows the sin of alcoholic drinking. In the title story and in many of the others in this superb collection, Fowler takes readers on some odd, but well traveled, journeys through what Jeff VanderMeer has dubbed "weird fiction". Imagine Tonto yearning for 40th birthday wishes from none other than the Lone Ranger, as he tries to psychoanalyze his relationship in "The Faithful Companion at Forty". Or two friends imprisoned by aliens in a setting so odd and familiar that it will force them into betrayal in "Duplicity". Or Lemuel Gulliver's wife writing letters to him for years without getting answers, telling him of his family's deplorable state in "Letters from Home". "Black Glass" is a rich, quite elegant, collection of stories from an early period in Karen Joy Fowler's career when her work was little known to many in the mainstream literary fiction community, and yet a collection whose tales remain some of the finest ever written by a contemporary American writer of fiction. "Black Glass: Short Fictions" remains an important literary milestone in her career, and one that is worth reading again, not only for superb stories like "Black Glass" but also for her introductory essay written for this new edition in which she recounts the artistic and other influences which led to her noteworthy, now distinguished, career in letters.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Ingenious and provocative By Miss Barbara Author Karen Joy Fowler is a wordsmith who proves herself a titan in the literary community with this collection of fifteen short stories. She had me caught up in her grips in the introduction with the insightful quote: “We all think we had the childhoods we think we had”. She then moves on to present her stories which are mostly about women and their thoughts, feeling and loves; all while staying far away from any sappy Hallmark Channel visualizations.Black Glass is the title story in which Carry Nation demolishes The Senate Bar while a bewildered DEA agent looks on. Although this story is the one that carries the most critical acclaim I found it to be my least favorite in the collection. The others seized my interest more with succinct and unique storytelling.There are stories about letters: “The Travails” – these are letters to an absent husband circa 1699 to 1715. In “Letters from Home” - Vietnam, Cambodia, Kent State and Nixon are revisited. “Lieserl” is told in semi-epistolary format to Albert Einstein about his illegitimate daughter.Father and daughter relationships are explored in “Go Back” via the reading of Uncle Wiggly cards and in “The Elizabeth Complex” in which Elizabeth’s father tells her “You should have been a boy”.There are imaginative stories of Tonto’s birthday, “The Faithful Companion at 40” and “The Brew”, a tale of Christmas in the Hague with remembrances of Indiana and a neighbor who may have been a British spy.This collection of vignettes showcase Fowler’s ability to look through a rare lens at the lives of women and their dealings with “the lives they think they have”. The stories are ingenious and provocative.
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