Love and Hydrogen : New and Selected Stories (Vintage Contemporaries Original)

Rating:
Summary: It's spelled "Entwistle"!
Review: ....No "H"! I'll save my other comments for when I read the book, but as a loyal Who fan I had to point out the litte mistake in the Booklist review. I can't wait to read this book because I am in awe of those who can skillfully write in multiple narratives, and this book has intriguing characters. Hopefully the author spells "Entwistle" correctly. :)

Rating:
Summary: Love and Hydrogen
Review: Jim Shepard came to my university as part of Operation: Ohio, a group of estimable writers focused on encouraging college students to participate in the 2004 election. I wasn't very familiar with him, but could tell by the effusive reception of the audience that he was one of the more reputable writers there. I afterwards concluded that he was verily one of the best speakers of the night (along with the remarkable Julie Orringer). He read the beginnings of a few stories from his new collection of short fiction, titled Love and Hydrogen. After being impressed by engaging stories such as "The Creature from the Black Lagoon," and "John Ashcroft: More Important Things Than Me," I knew I had to rush out and procure my own copy of his book immediately. After finishing, I couldn't wait to rave about its manifest virtuosity, and praise Jim Shepard.

There are so many excellent stories here that I don't know where to begin, so I'll just quickly list a couple of my favorites. The first story, "The Gun Lobby," was to me redolent of the entropy showcased by contemporary postmodern writers, such as Donald Antrim. The story depicts a man held hostage by his discontented wife, who has set up an arsenal in their suburban home -- Great story. The aforementioned "Creature from the Black Lagoon," is just brilliant, plain and simple; I won't even bother ruining that one for you. I was absolutely mesmerized by "Descent into Perpetual Night," which is a first person narrative of William Beebe, who made history by descending beyond 3,000 feet into the abyssal depths of the Atlantic Ocean in a bathysphere. That one sort of haunted me for a while after I finished it, I can't explain why.

Do yourself a favor and buy this book, and see what I mean when I say that these stories are top-notch. You shouldn't be disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: We have become the inexplicable
Review: Reading Jim Shepard's `Love and Hydrogen' right after Adam Haslett's overwrought and over-rated `You Are Not a Stranger Here' was what I needed to re-affirm my faith in short fiction as an art form. As a reader I want a fulfillment of what fiction promises: a mimesis; that the author will try to inhabit other lives and situations and render them in a way that produces something novel for me. I don't need self-affirmation or a lesson. I want a story. And in a short story collection I want stories. Many times, such as in Haslett's book, the situations are so repetitive that you suspect that the author is rendering his own life through these stories, that self-indulgence and egotism over-ride art or any interest in art. Sorry for writing of my opinion of Haslett's work, but it brought into stark contrast why I liked this collection so much more.

Shepard's work is most notable for its incredible diversity of setting, voice and theme: a teen-age girl's first person account of a friendship strained by class division (Spending the Night With the Poor), the disaffections and fascination of a Yugoslav footballer in progressive 1960's Holland (Ajax is All About Attack), the thrill and resignation of a World War II German test pilot (Climb Aboard the Mighty Flea) are just a sample. He can approach a story as a straight ahead narrative (The Mortality of Parents) or as an ironic romp(The Creature from the Black Lagoon) and yet he always seems to find his way to the dark heart of the story. He is at his best when he takes on narratives or personae that we think we know and produces something startlingly fresh: `We Won't Get Fooled Again' a brief history of The Who from the eyes of their most enigmatic member, bassist John Entwhistle, is hilarious and heart-rending.

Nor is Shepard ideologically bound; in his exceptional story `John Ashcroft: More Important Things Than Me' he paints a self-portrait of the man that is at once more generous and chilling than any number of partisan biographies could hope to accomplish. Characters who would be no more than walk-ons or caricatures in another writer's story take centre-stage with Shepard, and you get the feeling that no character is automatically invested with more insight or dignity than any other. In all, it is a refreshing approach and one that declares a fuller, more humanistic artistic vision than ninety percent of the reheated autobiographies that masquerade as fiction today. The only weak point I found in the collection was `Alicia and Emmet with the 17th Lancers at Balaclava' where the interweaving narratives felt somewhat strained. It is a minor drawback, like a complaint about the scuff-marks on Fred Astaire's floor.

At first this incredible array of voices and settings may seem like a self-conscious tour de force, that the author is trying to keep you on your heels with off-speed pitches because he doesn't have any real `stuff', but the writing is so good and the voice so authentic that the novelty of reading a story about something other than domestic conflicts seems secondary. I was thinking for a word to describe this work, which reads like an anthology of great writing, and I could only come up with fearlessness, that Shepard has no fear, and that alloyed with his skill and curiosity and utter decency as an artist, he has given us a work of depth and intelligence and beauty. Here's the last paragraph of the final story in the collection ­'Climb Aoard the Mighty Flea' where a World War II German pilot, knowing a horrific war has already been lost, straps himself into the first rocket powered fighter plane,

'No one's speaking. Our ears are on the slipstream. Our thumbs are on the cannon triggers. Our hearts are in the dive. We have become the inexplicable. We have beome the unbelievable. We are our own descendants, the children we have always wanted to be.'

Wow.





Rating:
Summary: John Ashcroft & the creature from the black lagoon
Review: This is the best short fiction collection I've read in several years. ShepardÕs stories are both economical and leanÑthere isnÕt much here thatÕs over 20 pages long, but Shepard packs into those 20 pages a complexity of theme and character that most writers canÕt approach even at novella length. It is a dizzying collection, by turns violent, funny, and wrenchingly sad. Each piece is finely wrought, honed to a sharp edge. Shepard writes in a dazzling array of voices, handling each with effortless authority. He is particularly good at adolescents (see also the amazing Project X), but these stories also give voice to a Yugoslav football player, a German test pilot, John Entwhistle, John Ashcroft, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Superb.

Rating:
Summary: John Ashcroft & the creature from the black lagoon
Review: This is the best short fiction collection I've read in several years. ShepardÕs stories are both economical and leanÑthere isnÕt much here thatÕs over 20 pages long, but Shepard packs into those 20 pages a complexity of theme and character that most writers canÕt approach even at novella length. It is a dizzying collection, by turns violent, funny, and wrenchingly sad. Each piece is finely wrought, honed to a sharp edge. Shepard writes in a dazzling array of voices, handling each with effortless authority. He is particularly good at adolescents (see also the amazing Project X), but these stories also give voice to a Yugoslav football player, a German test pilot, John Entwhistle, John Ashcroft, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Superb.