Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Synopsis
A Vintage Contemporaries Original
Includes:
Jim Shepard's "Tedford and the Megalodon"
Glen David Gold's "The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened Thereafter"
Dan Chaon's "The Bees"
Kelly Link's "Catskin"
Elmore Leonard's "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman"
Carol Emshwiller's "The General"
Neil Gaiman's "Closing Time"
Nick Hornby's "Otherwise Pandemonium"
Stephen King's "The Tale of Gray Dick"
Michael Crichton's "Blood Doesn’t Come Out"
Laurie King's "Weaving the Dark"
Chris Offutt's "Chuck’s Bucket"
Dave Eggers's "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly"
Michael Moorcock's "The Case of the Nazi Canary"
Aimee Bender's "The Case of the Salt and Pepper Shakers"
Harlan Ellison's "Goodbye to All That"
Karen Joy Fowler's "Private Grave 9"
Rick Moody's "The Albertine Notes"
Michael Chabon's "The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance"
Sherman Alexie's "Ghost Dance"
The Washington Post
All in all, the proportion of good stuff to filler in this anthology is unusually high, and the Moody novella alone is worth the price of the book. Perhaps the book's most ironic accomplishment is the long story by Dave Eggers, Mr. McSweeney's himself. After Moody's, it's the best story here, a wholly un-self-conscious account of a troubled thirtysomething named Rita who spends four days on a guided walk up the side of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It's beautifully written, wonderfully evocative of its exotic setting and full of vivid and finely detailed characters. It ends, not with risen corpses, monster sharks or the end of the world, but with -- and here's the thrilling part -- an epiphany. — James Hynes