The Best of Philadelphia Stories

Since its debut in 2004, Philadelphia Stories magazine has been presenting the literary and artistic work of writers from (of all places!) the Philadelphia area, and this collection brings together the best of the works that appeared in the magazine in its first two years. The best comparison I can make to this collection is the 2006 film Paris Je T'Aime, which I loved. If you saw Paris Je T'Aime, you know that it's composed of a series of short films set in and around Paris; in much the same way, this collection has a distinct Philadelphia vibe and might just as easily be called Philly Je T'Aime. In fact, The Best of Philadelphia Stories reads very much like a series of love-letters to Philadelphia, told from many perspectives and through many voices.

There are many excellent works in this collection, and picking my favorite is no easy task. If pressed, I'd lean toward works like Randall Brown's "Flies: Wet, Dry and In-Between" in which a fly-fishing enthusiast must learn to bend the rules in order to escape the ties that bind. Or the oddly surreal "Field Trip" by Greg Downs in which the narrator realizes, among other things, that he's not wearing any clothing. Or Julie Odell's "Blast," a tense, darkly humorous tale of one woman's efforts at leaving the man she kind-of loves as the building in which they live teeters on the edge of destruction. Or "The Prettiest Lie," an essay by Curtis Smith (author of The Species Crown, see below) that attempts to reconcile the infinite potential of childhood with the grim realities of life in the real world.

But to pick one story or even a handful of stories from this collection is unfair; they're all wonderful, and they all speak highly of the emerging voices of the Philadelphia literary scene. Without exception, the stories in this collection sparkle with life, and the only surprise is that so few of the authors' works have appeared in other literary journals. All of this is to say that The Best of Philadelphia Stories is a "must-read" not only for fans and friends of the City of Brotherly Love, but for lovers of good literature everywhere.

The anthology can be ordered at The Philadelphia Stories Store.

Attack of the Jazz Giants

I initially bought Attack of the Jazz Giants to assuage my sense of guilt over kidnapping Greg Frost at the end of a Philadelphia literary event, keeping him tied up in traffic for a good hour and a half while I picked his brain regarding the publishing industry, and then dumping him off at a gas station well after sunset. As it turns out, however, the book -- a collection of short horror and fantasy fiction published by Golden Gryphon Press -- suggests that such turns are par for the course as far as Frost is concerned, or at least that the imaginative worlds he has created over the years are not too distanced from the frequently mad world that he inhabits along with the rest of us. To put it another way, Frost's fiction is lively, relevant and engaging because for as far out as it gets, its conceits and premises are always firmly rooted in the day-to-day stuff of reality.

Take, for example, my favorite story in the collection, "Touring Jesusworld," which first appeared in Pulphouse Magazine in 1995. As the title suggests, the story takes the reader on a tour of a Christian-themed amusement park, complete with animatronic saints and apostles. At the same time, however, the proprietor of the theme park continually points out that what he's giving the public is a highly watered-down version of Christianity and that the real history of Christianity is much too complex for the masses to understand. Yet this sly commentary on the state of religion in postmodern America is never didactic or preachy; rather, Frost attacks the issue with wit and humor, as when the proprietor of Jesusworld places a call to one of his technicians to repair a malfunctioning John the Baptist: "Ernie, get someone to reset John the Baptist's timer, would you? Yes, he's just drowned Jesus."

For my money, this may be one of the funniest phone calls ever made in a short story.

Frost's humor aside, what really makes this book work for me is the fact that the author offers commentary at the end of each story, so what we get is not simply a fine collection of fiction, but an informative meditation on writing as well. In each of his "Afterwords," Frost explains (among other things) what inspired each story, how he went about writing it and/or how it initially found its way to publication. By providing this sense of context, Frost allows his readers to see that stories don't just happen, that there is, in fact, a process and quite a bit of work behind writing, and that the life of a writer is a journey best shared with other writers.

Attack of the Jazz Giants is a wonderful book -- not just for the fan of fantasy and horror fiction, but for anyone interested in the craft of writing. The stories are tight, the commentary is engaging, and Frost's dark wit is apparent on every page.

As for Frost himself, let's just say I hope he made it home from the gas station in one piece.

The Species Crown

I just finished reading Curtis Smith's The Species Crown a couple of days ago, and as far as glowing reviews go, let's just say that it inspired me to start this blog. Before I go on, though, a bit of background is in order: I met Curt a year or so ago when we were both doing a reading at the University of Pennsylvania's Kelly Writers' House. The program for the evening included a number of writers who'd had work published in Philadelphia Stories magazine (an excellent free publication highlighting works of writers from the Philadelphia area), and Curt's piece was a touching memoir about the birth of his first child. More recently, I saw Curt at a local writers conference, and he was talking about the value of small presses and where they fit into the big picture of the publishing scene. Intrigued, I thought I'd take a look at his own work in the small press field, so I ordered a copy of his collection of short stories, The Species Crown, from his publisher, Press 53.

And I loved it.

What Smith does especially well throughout his book is to combine pathos and comedy. Without fail, his protagonists aren't simply flawed; they are failures. Failures at jobs, failures at love, failures at life in general. And not just failures either, but grandiose failures, masters of failure, failure virtuosos. In one piece, a petty criminal can't even manage to get a fair shake on a heist that he organized. In another, a bush-league basketball player hits rock bottom when his team falls apart during a tour of Japan. And the novella that lends its name to the collection, "The Species Crown," opens with the protagonist losing his job and moving in with a severely handicapped cousin whose brain injury occurred as a direct result of the protagonist's carelessness.

By placing his protagonists at the end of their respective ropes, Smith does an important thing as far as storytelling goes: he forces them to find new ropes. And as they grasp madly and (more often than not) blindly at potential lifelines, his characters come alive. The petty criminal murders his partner. The basketball player finds a job as an actor, donning a rubber suit and playing Godzilla in Japanese monster movies. The protagonist who lost his job... Well, he has to deal with a lot of issues. But the point is that the solutions in each of these cases invariably open doors to more challenges, and Smith's characters deal with them in realistic and often heartbreakingly comedic ways. This, I think, is the beauty of Smith's work. Time and again, his fiction demonstrates that we are human, we are frail, we are flawed, and we are funny despite (or perhaps because of) it all.