Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing by Delia Sherman

Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing Reviews

• 
  Althea Ann

  This is one of those anthologies with a pretentious introduction, and apparently demanded that all the authors write a brief blurb explaining WHY their work is ‘interstitial.’ I am firmly in a ‘let the work speak for itself’ camp. However, the whole idea of interstitiality is interesting to me, and I like things that don’t necessarily fit into neat pockets… so here goes:
  Jeffrey Ford, “The War Between Heaven and Hell Wallpaper” – Ever have that urge to write down your dream as soon as you wake up? Mr. Ford did, and this is the result. It’s a more interesting dream than most!
  
  M. Rickert, “Beautiful Feast” – A story that aims for Zen, and doesn’t entirely succeed. A father is listed as killed in Vietnam, but his son believes that he is still alive, and goes on an obsessive quest to find him.
  
  Will Ludwigsen, “Remembrance is Something Like a House” – A house is, literally, haunted by an incident that happened within it, and goes on a (literal) journey to find its former tenants. An unusual twist on this theme.
  
  Cecil Castelucci, “The Long and the Short of Long-Term Memory” – What would be worse? To be unable to remember? Or to be unable to forget? A story of a research scientist and his brilliant assistant explores the question. The powerpoint slides didn’t add to the story.
  
  Alaya Johnson, “The Score” – Hmm. A ‘story’ about fame, jealously, politics, and Occupy Wall Street protests, told in snippets of ‘news articles,’ reports, and suchlike. At first, it seems a fairly standard musing on the intersection of art and politics – but an unusual ghost story element creeps in.
  
  Ray Vukcevich, “The Two of Me” – Bizarre story of a boy whose twin gradually grows out of his shoulder. I just don’t care for this sort of thing.
  
  Carlos Hernandez, “The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria” – A little boy turns to voodoo rituals, looked up in a book from the library, after his mother dies. As in many stories, dealing with the dead is more complex than one might hope. A very authentic, almost autobiographical feel to this.
  (re-reading, 1/16)
  
  Lavie Tidhar, “Shoes” – Set on the island of Vanuatu. The author obviously encountered the pidgin language of Bislama, and decided to write a story featuring it. As an old man remembers his lost love, the story speaks quite beautifully and effectively about the unfortunate period in history where South Pacific islanders were shanghaied into slavery and forced to work on Australian plantations. [As a side note… did editor Christopher Barzak actually READ the stories in this book? In the afterword, he says this story “takes a magical realist perspective on current political strife in the Middle East.” HUH? Get out a globe!]
  
  B. F. Slattery, “Interviews After the Revolution” – A World-War-Z-style piece, discussing a revolution on a remote island which was accidentally triggered by a brazen heist at a wealthy resort. I’ve read Brian Francis Slattery’s ‘Lost Everything,’ and I enjoy his writing style. Some of the sentiments here about resorts not benefiting the local people seem a bit overplayed, if accurate, but this story overall is excellent.
  
  Elizabeth Ziemska, “Count Poniatowski and the Beautiful Chicken” – A man builds a time machine, and uses it to travel back in time to meet with the King of Poland, in a scheme to prevent WWII. The reasons this doesn’t actually happen are pretty sappy, and not really justifiable.
  
  Peter M. Ball, “Black Dog: A Biography” – A big, black, demonic dog follows a guy around as he grows up, and eats most of his girlfriends. A bit too heavy on the metaphor for me.
  
  Camilla Bruce, “Berry Moon” – Another very metaphorical piece: the internal artistic muse as vampiric, incestuous being (sort of), feeding on others’ lives.
  
  Amelia Beamer, “Morton Goes to the Hospital” – A romantic story of two old folks… getting into trouble just like young folks.
  
  William Alexander, “After Verona” – A really powerful story about dealing with the violent death of a loved one, and the emotions and unanswerable questions that follow. Beautiful.
  
  Shira Lipkin, “Valentines” – A disturbing but effective story that conjures up the experience of living with brain damage due to epilepsy.
  
  Alan DeNiro, “(*_*) ~~~ (-_-): The Warp and the Woof” – In a dystopian future, a best-selling author, his agent, and a young courier are drawn together, and secrets of the author’s past are revealed. Interesting political ideas are brought up here, and an interesting scenario, but I don’t feel that it all came together as well as it could have.
  
  Nin Andrews, “The Marriage” – A short vignette about relationships.
  
  Theodora Goss, “Child-Empress of Mars” – An Edgar Rice Burroughs pastiche written by someone who, admittedly, had not read Edgar Rice Burroughs. Interesting. I suppose it shows how very deeply certain tropes have entered our social consciousness, that this is possible (and it’s pretty well done, too.) However, if I were going to do this, I’d pick up a couple of paperbacks, at least… I’d still prefer the original to the meta-fiction, just on principle.
  
  Lionel Davoust, “L’Ile Close” – Meta-fiction about the Arthurian myth. It didn’t win me over.
  Stephanie Shaw, “Afterbirth” – A story, clearly autobiographical, about pregnancy and giving birth, with some surrealist elements thrown in. Boy, am I glad I’m not having any children.
  
  David J. Schwartz, “The 121″ - A bombing occurred, and 121 people died. For some reason, the explosion didn’t die away or fade, but acquired sentience, melding the consciousnesses of its victims. It’s useful for action movies.
  
• 
  Nicole

  So, last week I went to the library and perused the new fiction section. I came upon this book and for some weird reason I picked it up. Let me confess one thing - I rarely read short fiction books. The only other book of short stories I've read was The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender, a book filled with stories that had a mix of surrealism and an honest examination of real life.
  
  And this book, oddly enough, turned out to be very similar. I decided not to think of the odds of running into another book with a similar theme.
  
  The introduction describes the idea of interstitial fiction. "[It's] a simple search for stories that don't rest comfortably in the cubbyholes we traditionally use to organize our cultural experiences (v)."
  
  Of course, I was drawn to this book. I love anything that steps out of the norm.
  
  I'm not sure how to describe the stories I read. I enjoyed some more than others. There were a few that stood out to me that I will describe in brief.
  
  Remembrance is Something Like a House by Will Ludwigsen
  
  
  I'm not sure that I believe in ghosts, but I do believe that houses hold memories of the people that once lived there. I think you can walk in a house and just feel if there has been sadness, happiness, joy, grief, fear, celebration. All with just walking in the door.
  
  This short story takes on the point of view of the house in its search for the family that once lived there. A family ripped apart by torment and sadness. The houses holds tightly to the memory of its family and travels cross country to find them.
  
  I love when a writer takes on another point of view - a very unique point of view, in fact. It was heartbreaking as the house described picking up its feet, dodging storms, and intruders. And I identified with the house and it's desire to reclaim and fix a past long since gone.
  
  Morton Goes to the Hospital by Amelia Beamer
  
  
  I think I'm beginning to love the idea of taking on new points of view. Although less obvious, this short story takes on the view of...someone else. Someone closer to the main character than the usual narrator. You meet Morton, an elderly gentleman, you feel heartbroken for as he tries to recover from his fall on the sidewalk. But life goes on, and he goes to his breakfast with an old flame named Alice, who suffers with memory loss.
  
  Morton's wife, Marie interjects every now and then. But she isn't there, not really. She's with the narrator, who watches over Morton's shoulder like the reader does. Just waiting to see what happens as Morton drives with Alice to take in the views of the California coast. to see what happens when their love is rekindled again.
  
  After reading this book, I think you will find new possibilities in the realm of fiction and short stories. Books like these make me realize the purpose and enjoyment of short fiction. That something greater can be obtained through their existence. A knowledge about life and living. No, you may not like all the stories presented here. I'm not sure that's always possible with books like these. You will, however, take something away from reading this book. Maybe the hope that you can stretch your wings as a writer without worrying about how you define yourself.
  
• 
  Brigid Keely

  I enjoyed the first anthology better than the second. Every story engaged me in the first anthology, it was like it had been written for me. That wasn't the case with the second anthology, but the gems in this book more than make up for that. The strong stories in this collection are incredibly strong, evocative, well written, emotional. And the ones I didn't care for? Well, obviously, not everyone has the same taste and interests I do. They weren't bad stories or duds, they just weren't tailor made for me. Alas.
  
  One thing I noticed about this collection is that most of the authors are NOT white dudes from the USA. There's a pretty wide range of voices presented, leading to a much richer experience.
  
  I checked this book out from the library, but would like to own a copy.
• 
  Andy

  I really enjoyed Interfictions, which had a lot of stories which 1) struck me as a reader and 2) inspired me as a writer, so I was admittedly afraid that I wouldn't have the same experience. And I didn't, but that's only because these are different stories by different authors with different tones and uses of the written word. I thought that for the most part all of the stories were solid enough, but my favorites were the following:
  
  - "Remembrance Is Something Like a House," Will Ludwigsen
  - "The Score," Alaya Dawn Johnson
  - "The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria," Carlos Hernandez
  - "Count Ponitowski and the Beautiful Chicken," Elizabeth Ziemska
  - "Black Dog: A Biography," Peter M. Ball
  - "After Verona," William Alexander
  - "Valentines," Shira Lipkin
  - "Child-Empress of Mars," Theodora Goss
  - "L'lle Close" - Lionel Davoust
  - "Afterbirth" - Stephanie Shaw
  
  So, essentially, half of the book I enjoyed. The other half I LOVED LOVED LOVED. It's all personal taste, of course, but this is the sort of writing that makes me want to do my own writing.
• 
  branewurms

  They didn't all work for me, but many of them did, and all of them were very different and interesting. I think my favorites were Theodora Goss's "Child Empress of Mars", Will Ludwigsen's "Remembrance is Something Like a House", Shira Lipkin's "Valentines", and Stephanie Shaw's "Afterbirth".
  
  Although I gotta say to Camilla Bruce ("Berry Moon: Laments of a Muse"): SEMEN DOES NOT TASTE LIKE SUGAR. Semen will never taste like sugar! No, not even if he's really hot and his eyes are cinnamon brown. (Well, maybe fairy jizz might! ...Okay no, that would just be hilarious.)
• 
  Kinsey_m

  I am half-way through this anthology, and so far there have been mostly very good stories and a couple of average ones. I found of especial interest "rememberance is something like a house", a haunted house story from the point of view of the house itself and "the score" with its mixed media approach. With regards to what is interstitial writing I think some of the examples are good but, for instace "Two of me" would seems to me to be magical realism, which is fine, but I wouldn't call interstitial...
• 
  Bridgett

  My favorite stories were "The Long and Short of Long-Term Memory," which I could relate to because I want to erase a number of my own memories and "Llle Close" because I love archetypes and Arthurian mythology. I didn't like the stories focused on war and politics as much.
• 
  Sarah

  A fascinating and eclectic collection of stories that run the gamut from merely odd to freaky to fantastical to just a bit horrific. The idea of interstitial fiction is a provocative and interesting one--fiction that doesn't really fit anywhere else, that plays with conventions of form and genre.
• 
  Stephen Dorneman

  An excellent collection of genre-crossing short fictions -- recommended to literary fiction fans who like to dip into fantasy and science fiction now and then, and F&SF fans who want more than standard genre fare.
• 
  Noam

  As with all collections, some were better than others. "After Verona" was amazing. There were about three or four other really good ones. The rest were kind of meh. Worth checking out of the library for AV, but not worth buying.
• 
  Remy

  Been wanting to read and submit work to this anthology.
• 
  Kate

  I rated more toward 3.3 to 3.4 stars. A mixed bag of interesting in-between stories. Some tales were playful, while some were too heavy-laden with politics for my taste.
• 
  Alisa

  Favorite stories:
  
  Will Ludwigsen "Memory Is Something Like a House"
  Elizabeth Ziemska "Count Poniatowski and the Beautiful Chicken"
• 
  Barrita

  4-4.5