What It’s Like Is What It Is - #37

STORY: "Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues" by Tao Lin

FROM: BED (Melville House Publishing, 2007)

BASICALLY: A self-conscious 23-year-old tries desperately to take on the appearance of a normal, functional life. Though he can barely talk to a teenage girl who works at the library with him, she seems oblivious to his awkwardness. When she invites him to toilet paper some guy's house with her and her friends, he goes along, but the experience only seems to fill him with more doubt.

Tao Lin is apparently some kind of hipster literary darling. (It's good work if you can get it. I imagine.) After reading "Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues," I can see the appeal. It's not exactly tightly-plotted, and the ending doesn't so much resolve as cut off, leaving the last lines hovering there in the darkness, but he orchestrates a towering moodiness and links it inextricably to a particular time of life. Youth is foremost, with all its attendant miseries, anxieties, and personal failures as it flowers painfully into adulthood. Sometimes Lin reminds me of Douglas Coupland back before everything Douglas Coupland wrote began to disappoint me.

The fact that Coupland, who really can be great, had such a hard time sustaining the Voice of Disaffected Youth makes me curious to know whether Lin can write in only this one voice, or whether he's got any range, because I think it's got to be very hard to be able to Speak For a Generation and still come up with other meaningful works that don't try to Be That Same Thing. I'm using a lot of Capitalized Phrases right now, but what I'm trying to point out is the way some authors' writing can be become kinds of writing, types of writing, and probably in a future entry I'll have to figure out whether Tao Lin succumbs to that or is able to break free of it. Even if he does succumb, of course, it doesn't negate the fact that, in "Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues" at least, he does something pretty cool.

What kept occurring to me as I was reading was that it would be so easy for a story like this to be completely boring. The protagonist, Greg, is weak. He's frequently passive, always self-incriminating, and his story opens on and returns to long passages of expository summation.

That kind of gnawing offness that Greg always felt, that constant knowledge that he was doomed in small but myriad ways, intensified in the presence of people, became immediate and insufferable, like a rat in the stomach. So after his parents sold the house and retired to California, Greg moved alone into an apartment behind a rundown 24-hour supermarket. 

It goes on in that vein for quite a while—for three and a half pages, in fact, everything we learn about Greg comes through the narrator's explanations and not through any action on his part.

As anyone who's ever taken a workshop class knows, this is Not How It's Done. Start with action! Into the pot boiling! The last thing in the world you want to do is give your character's whole history right up front—that shit's gotta work its way in through dialogue and flashback and other Artfully Applied Techniques! …And usually, that's great advice. But, in spite of All the Clever Things I Know, I enjoyed Lin's approach. He has a way of mucking around in the dullest, most quotidian details of experience and finding the warped little gems.

I suspect that Lin's ability to tell a story this way relates to what author/teacher John Dufresne says in THE LIE THAT TELLS A TRUTH: "The only reason to ever describe a tree is to show how it is different from any other tree." Well, Lin describes boredom, listlessness, uncertainty, and shyness in terms that are anything but customary. After Greg moves out on his own at the beginning of the story, 

His meals became larger and less often, like a crocodile's. He'd eat an entire package of bacon or a box of frosty muffins, sleep for 20 hours, and then masturbate, languishingly, to all his crushes from middle and high school. 

I love how this has the ring of universal truth, but is so specific to the nature of this character. Lin could have told us that Greg was lonely and angst-ridden and thought a lot about his past, but it wouldn't have had the power of these details. Equally, he could have given us a scene of Greg being bored, of doing nothing—but who wants to see boredom dramatized? We all know what boredom is. This story unfolds the unique crevasses of Greg's particular ennui, but it also keeps blazing forward.

Lin's also great with the similes—the word crocodile was my first hint of the kind of voice we're dealing with. In fact, Lin frequently uses similes to buffer his exposition. Greg "became nocturnal and strange," he tells us outright, but continues, "taking on all the impatience and bipolarity of a young child , without any of the charm or smooth complexion." As Greg struggles to fit more easily into society, he reads self-help books and tries to start calling people by their names because 

It would be interpreted as friendly. And though his voice still sounded small and weepy to him, like gerbils let into a swamp, Greg felt good to be saying people's names. To be making some kind of progress.

For some readers, I suppose the constant similes could get grating. If I read more Lin and find that this is always his technique, that he always describes people in the same way and uses similes to couch his explanations, then I'll be less impressed. But for this story, about a suburban guy trying to find some meaning and some forward momentum in his unremarkable life, I think Tao Lin's technique works beautifully to find the beating heart at the center of one person's nothingness.

GUEST POST: How Now, Mister Chow?

STORY: "The Evil B.B. Chow" by Steve Almond

FROM: THE EVIL B.B. CHOW AND OTHER STORIES (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2005)

BASICALLY: A woman goes on a blind date. She gets involved with the guy much too quickly, all to find out that he is a total chump. It sounds very normal and mundane, but the story is well told and amazing. AMAZING.

Hi! I'm Audrey! This is a copy of The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories!

 
While you could argue that there are better and brighter pieces in this collection of short stories, I chose the title work because I know a B.B. Chow. His real name might not roll off the tongue with such poise, but as I flipped the pages of this story, I found myself more and more engaged and more and more frantic to get to the end to see if things ended better for the narrator. (They did not.) This means if you pick up this collection, "The Evil B.B. Chow" may not be the same experience for you. In that case, I suggest you read "The Soul Molecule" or "A Happy Dream," both good stories. But the remembrances of my own B.B. Chow tied me to Almond's work immediately.

From early on, it is clear that the narrator is probably doomed. A few pages in, she says, "It's a relief, frankly, to hang out with someone [B.B. Chow] who plunges through life without the almighty force field of irony." (Cue the irony.) With dark, sinister music playing in the background, you can see Almond as Puppetmaster, manipulating this woman into a position that has no good exit. Almond sends her down a slippery slope so gradual that the narrator—not to mention, the reader—aren't aware that she is inching closer to impending ruin. I continued to hope that everything would work out—a hope strengthened when the story briefly looks up. Then everything crashes around the narrator and the truth emerges: B.B. is still in love with his ex. The transition is masterful, and possibly more important, believable.

Besides his artful story progression, Almond is excellent at dropping hints for the reader without making them obvious. It looks easy, but only because he is so good at it. When I read the story a second time, I was amazed at how early Almond starts dropping clues. On the first page, one of the secondary characters compares Chow to the villain from a Bruce Lee flick, but the narrator ignores the suggestion of evil. The allegation seems silly, and it is easy to be persuaded that it shouldn't be taken seriously. The story, unfortunately, does not feature any kung fu, but Chow does emerge in the end as a real nogoodnik.

But a review cannot be completely glowing, right? I labored under the impression that the narrator was male for a good two pages. There was nothing frankly to detour me from thinking that, and yes, it was a poor assumption on my part—a male author can write female narrators. However, it looked to be a much different story when I thought the male narrator was receiving roses in a terra cotta bowl. The attributes that we normally consider "requirements" for a narrator (name, age, life story, etc.) are not present in this tale. While it is somewhat refreshing that this piece works without those details, if the narrator was introduced as "Sandra" in the first sentence, it would have cleared up some confusion.

Also, the set-up for the narrator's showdown with Chow's ex felt a little off to me. I love the actual showdown, so I'm willing to forgive, but the next time I'm angry with someone, I hope I can walk to their approximate neighborhood and find them walking their dog at the exact moment I'd like to bust some chops.

Overall, I enjoyed this work by Steve Almond. I hope you do too!

- - -

AUDREY reads, writes, blogs, and creates culinary masterpieces for her small family which is located for now in the midwest. Her hair is a lovely shade of pink, even when it's not. Check out more of her insights at http://pinkaudrey.blogspot.com/.

Miscalculations - #36

STORY: "Division by Zero" by Ted Chiang – Well, the internets continue to amaze and delight with their bounty. Looks like you can go read this story, too, all legal-like. Go HERE and enjoy, or just buy the book/ebook because Small Beer Press is super-duper.

FROM: STORIES OF YOUR LIFE AND OTHERS (Small Beer Press, 2002)

BASICALLY: When she discovers a mathematical proof that any two numbers can be shown to be equal to one another, a mathematician's entire world collapses and she tries to kill herself. Her husband, who once attempted suicide many years ago, experiences both déjà vu and numbness as he attempts to help her. Parallel points of view converge on an emotional truth about their relationship and the nature of love.

Recently, my friend Christa pointed me toward a Metafilter thread in which people were talking about the best short story they'd read in the last ten years. One writer whose name comes up again and again in the thread is Ted Chiang. Wait, who? Despite a gazillion awards and the fact that I have actually heard of his new novel, THE LIFECYCLE OF SOFTWARE OBJECTS, he was completely off my radar as an author. So, being the dedicated blogger I am, I ordered me up a copy of his book. Oh, the sacrifices I make for you, my public. (Hi, Mom!)

So, anyway, following my usual method, I picked a story because I liked the title and read it. And let me tell you, I am not sorry I did. Ted Chiang is a great writer and I can't wait to read the other stories in this book. In "Division by Zero," he does this thing that I've loved ever since I read the second half of Italo Calvino's classic T ZERO—he combines mathematical principles with human desires to create a form of fiction that feels at once connected to the architecture of the universe and divorced from mere subjectivity (even though, of course, it's not—fiction is by definition subjective).

In terms of technique, there's a lot for me to write about. The most obvious subject would probably be the story's overall structure. Numbered sections first present a mathematical concept, then advance the story through the POV of Renee the mathematician, and finally switch to her husband Carl's POV. In 1, for example, we're told what it means that division by zero is "undefined." In 1A, we see Renee in close third person, post-suicide-attempt, just about to leave the psych ward. In 1B, it's Carl in close third, in the office signing forms for her release, and he's remembering back to the questions he answered during Renee's intake. Then it's on to another mathematical concept in 2. It's a really interesting structure, and what's most impressive is how Chiang, at the story's conclusion, manages to tie the structure directly to the mathematical concepts he refers to in the story. That is, the numbered sections aren't just arbitrary or cleverly postmodern; they're actually integral to the story's meaning.

Another strong aspect of this story was Chiang's handling of time. Though the numbered sections progress in an orderly fashion—1, 1A, 1B, 2, 2A, 2B, etc.—the story unfolds in a decidedly nonlinear manner. This allows him to move around, showing Renee falling in love with mathematics as a child, how Carl's life changed after his suicide attempt two decades before, and the recent events leading up to Renee's own attempt, while still keeping it clear for the reader that the now of the story is occurring after Renee's release from the psych ward. The significant part of the story is foregrounded, while the narrative's still free to include any relevant scenes from the past.

But instead of talking further about either of these well-handled aspects of "Division by Zero," I'd like to focus on one tiny little detail that occurs early in the story. It's in 1B, when Carl is signing release papers and thinking about those questions he answered when Renee entered the hospital. Here's how he remembers the conversation: 

"Yes, she's a professor of mathematics. You can find her in Who's Who." 
"No, I'm in biology." 
And: 
"I had left behind a box of slides that I needed." 
"No, she couldn't have known." 
And, just as expected: 
"Yes, I have. It was about twenty years ago, when I was a grad student." 
"No, I tried jumping." 
"No, Renee and I didn't know each other then." 
And on and on.

What Chiang is really doing here is finding a unique way to work exposition into his story. In one fell swoop, the reader learns about Carl's profession versus Renee's, how he discovered her suicide attempt, and his own history. To be sure, these are only introductions—Chiang returns to both attempts and gives the reader more information and context for them—but the broad strokes are laid out early.

Using the one-sided conversation consisting in Carl's answers (from which the doctors' questions can be easily inferred), is another brilliant stroke. Doing it this way avoids having to include the doctors or ward staff as characters. If Chiang had wanted his story to comment on psychiatry and psychiatric hospitals, he would have wanted to introduce such characters, but instead he directs the narrative entirely on the effect that Renee's suicide attempt has on her and Carl's relationship. Rather than having an unwieldy scene taking up space and shifting the focus too much onto the hospital, Chiang simply shows Carl's responses. We get exposition, we get Carl's POV, and it feels natural and appropriate because hey, hospitals can be impersonal places. It's so simple and elegant and effective a solution that I'm filing it away for future use.

So there you have it. A strong story from a gifted writer. Lots to ponder and maybe something to read. Seriously, hooray internets.

Keep an Eye on the Little Guy - #35

STORY: "Eric" by Shaun Tan – And oh-em-gee I did NOT know this when I picked this story, but it's available online! Legitimately! Go HERE to read.

FROM: TALES FROM OUTER SUBURBIA (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2009)

BASICALLY: Illustrated story in which a family tries to be good hosts to a "foreign exchange student" named Eric. If he seems unaccountably interested in the strangest things, like serial numbers and stray buttons, they kindly to chalk it up to cultural differences. Then Eric leaves! They're puzzled--did they do something wrong?--but it turns out he's left behind a one-of-a-kind message for them.

In general, all stories do the same things. They interest the reader by invoking curiosity/wonder/fear/sadness/identification. They create desires and they create tension by not fulfilling those desires but then they fulfill them and it's such a relief. Like in that quote by James Wood I mentioned in story #26, literature must "manage a specific hunger for its own characters, its own reality level."  [Edited to add: I also mentioned the quote in story #17, so apparently it's time for me to dig up a new quote to mention.  Hrmph.]

And that's why it doesn't matter that this is a story in a book for kids, nor that part of the storytelling occurs by means of the illustrations. Personally, I love children's literature and I love art, and the fact that at this late stage in the game it's highly unlikely that I'll suddenly blossom with unsuspected artistic talents of my own, does not deter me one bit from wanting to know how a story like this works.

Eric, the so-called foreign exchange student, is shown in the story's illustrations to be a cute little poky-headed leaf-like guy, small enough to fit in a teacup. An alien, maybe? An elf of some kind? He's carrying luggage made of nutshells, for cripes sake. But the black-and-white pencil drawings are realistic, and the text never refers to the strangeness of Eric's looks, so immediately this unlooked-for irony creates tension—like, what's THAT dichotomy all about, huh?

Leaving that question hanging, the narrator's character gets developed. "But sometimes I wondered if Eric was happy," says this pensive child. And, 

Secretly I had been looking forward to having a foreign visitor – I had so many things to show him. For once I could be a local expert, a fountain of interesting facts and opinions. Fortunately, Eric was very curious and always had plenty of questions.

However, they weren't the kinds of questions I had been expecting. 

So, now we have the question of what this foreigner really is AND we have the narrator's desire to seem useful and knowledgeable. But the illustration serves to deepen the first's mystery and to block the second—Eric appears to be asking about the tail on the capital letter Q on a box, he peers under the stamp on an envelope. He's not at all interested in the things the narrator might know about. 

Most of the time I could only say, "I'm not really sure, " or, "That's just how it is." I didn't feel very helpful at all. 

(By the way, this is a beautifully-designed book, which you can't appreciate while reading the story on the web. The text layout makes a little more sense, too—each page works the illustration organically into the narrative; it's not just a big block of text underneath a picture like it is in the Guardian slideshow. I just thought I'd mention that.)


Now, it's all well and good to notice how brilliantly Tan uses a wordless picture of Eric pointing questioningly to the serial number on some sort of computer cord and quite another to apply the lesson for those of us who aren't so talented with the visuals.

But I'd argue that while Tan's technique is particular to him, he's making the same kinds of decisions about storytelling that any other writer would be. For example, these particular illustrations are so charming partly because they're so specific. It's not just any old run of the mill power cord that Eric's peering at. It's probably for a monitor or something else that I should know but don't—notice how I find that I'd be just as helpless as the narrator in the story.

Tan also uses compression in his pictures. Take a look at that image of Eric holding up a piece of paper with a picture of a flower and a question mark on it while he points inquiringly to the flower-shape of the drain. An entire conversation is summed up in that picture and conveyed to the reader without the reader having to actually sit through it. Now, obviously, you can't do that same exact literal thing in words, but you certainly can understand that less is more. If it doesn't need to be spelled out, that's a good argument for not spelling it out.

Point of view is also crucial to Tan's telling of this story. Although Eric is present in every illustration (except the final two, after he leaves), the narrator and his or her family are in exactly none. As readers, we stay inside the mind of the child telling the story, looking out through their eyes. Because their gaze remains centered on Eric (and, after he's gone, on the places where he used to be) the story is about Eric—and how this child sees him.

In what I've read so far of TALES FROM OUTER SUBURBIA, Tan likes to keep his endings loose. The finale of "Eric" really raises more questions than it answers. I happen to like that quality about Tan's book; it's part of what gives a sense of wonder and expansiveness to the stories because there's always something left to be told. Nonetheless, this ending does confirm for the reader that Eric is some sort of otherworldly being, not governed by human rules, and it does give the narrator something satisfying to be a tour guide about. So Tan walks a fine line between satisfying the desires he's raised in the reader and defying their expectations in a way that will hopefully entertain. I think it's pretty great. What do you think?

A Life in the Day of - #34

STORY: "My Shape" by Joan Silber

FROM: IDEAS OF HEAVEN: A RING OF STORIES (Norton, 2005)

BASICALLY: Spanning many years of a woman's life, this story begins with her childhood curiosity about religion. That impulse gives way in adolescence to a reliance on her blossoming physical charms--a shallow and unfulfilling "advantage" that eventually helps bring her minor success as a dancer on cruise ships. Ultimately, her marriage to a Frenchman fails and she moves to New York, determined to make it as a real dancer. Weeks of demanding dance lessons culminate in a humiliating display for her cruel teacher and she realizes finally that she'll never succeed as a professional dancer--and, surprisingly, she doesn't even want it that much. The story ends both on a note of happiness--describing her happy long-term relationship with another man--and one of ambivalence, as she finds herself unable to forget the dance instructor whom she allowed to treat her so strangely.

GEEZ. My description is practically longer than the freaking story. Can you blame me? This story crams most of a lifetime into just twenty-two pages. And yet cram seems like the least appropriate of words, since the story is loose and light and flows very easily across the decades.

It's worth looking at Joan Silber's transitions for a moment—they're so simple they seem easy, though I know that must be an illusion. For example, the story opens with the narrator's fascination with attending religious services, then recounts how she eventually abandons the practice. 

After a while, I heard myself making fun of it with the others, and I stopped going. All at once, suddenly, cold turkey. I turned my back on the whole thing.

And then she advances into a new period. 

So. Then I grew the mounded body that was to be my adult shape. I came from a family of women with large breasts, and by fourteen I had my own set, which I sheathed in satin brassieres that made them point forward in military cones. Torpedo tits they were called (by us girls too).

Notably, Silber chooses to make the seam of her story's time-shift quite visible—her "So." is a distinct break that prepares the reader for a big change (and also mimics speech, making the narrator's voice feel naturally conversational). On top of this, Silber's juxtaposition of these two events—abandoning religion and developing physically—avoids making the narrative drone on with this happened and then this happened and then this happened. That's where stories that try to span a lifetime can get bogged down, I think—the feeling that they're just rattling off a collection of events. It works here because Silber's narrator remains very specific, but these events take place over a span of time.

…As opposed to what? You'd be right to wonder. It's common to see stories that use a single event—a big fight with a boyfriend, say, or a particular Sunday morning making pancakes with Grandma—to stand in for a whole series of similar experiences. We don't hear about every Sunday morning with Grandma; just seeing the one gives us a good idea of their relationship. There's not a thing wrong with this approach, but Silber doesn't use it much here.

Instead, she finds a lovely balance between specificity and generalities. With certain important events, such as the scene of total humiliation with the dance instructor, the speaker does focus on moment-by-moment narration, but the rest of the time she covers huge swathes of history by talking about specific events that happened over long periods. "And I worked on cruise ships for years," she mentions casually; 

I went to Nassau and Jamaica and Venezuela and through the Greek islands. I worked in clubs in Miami too, walking around with a big feathered headdress on and the edges of my buns hanging out the back of my satin outfit. I lived with a bartender who was irresistible when he wasn't a repetitious, unintelligent drunk, and with an older man I never liked. 

And just like that, the narrator's summed up the passage of nearly a decade. But she's done it in such a way that my understanding of the character has grown, as well as my sense that something more significant must be coming for this protagonist.

Summary has its place in short fiction, just like every other technique of storytelling. Joan Silber shows not only how to do it correctly, but how to place it at the center of a vividly unfolding life.

What a Dainty Spider’s Web - #33

STORY:  “The Landlady” by Roald Dahl

FROM:  KISS KISS (Dell, 1961)

BASICALLY:  Fresh off the train from London, a young man about to start work at his first job is seeking lodgings, but becomes ensnared by the motherly owner of a too-good-to-be-true bed and breakfast.

I guess I'd classify this as a mild suspense story. I might also throw the word murder in there even if it is kind of a spoiler, but here's the thing. I don't read much mystery/suspense, and I'm no expert at guessing endings—but even to me, early on, it was clear that the fresh-faced protagonist of this story was headed for his doom. The book's packaging probably helped create some assumptions going in, some sense of dark doings, but most of the feeling comes from Dahl's own setup. You have seventeen-year-old Billy Weaver, whose youth and gee-whiz inexperience are emphasized. The night's "air was deadly cold and the wind was like a flat blade of ice on his cheeks." The streets are empty, and then Billy notices this bed and breakfast so abruptly it's almost magical. And everything about it, from the dachshund curled up before the fire to the extremely low rent mentioned by the toothache-sweet landlady, conspires to make it irresistible to Billy.

At this point in the story, it's clear that something is off. It's just all too too. So twee and delightful you could just puke! It's clear to the reader, even if Billy just blunders his way past it. There's even an explicit moment of almost-supernatural inveigling as Billy decides he's going to check out the pub before settling on this cozy little bed and breakfast, but then finds himself "compelled" by mysterious forces to turn back.

If the story had been written more recently, I would expect this blatant setup to be undermined somehow. Sure, it's a bit of an inversion of classical tropes to put a little old lady up to villainous acts, but within the story's own logic, it doesn't come as a surprise. She's too perfect, a fact that Dahl emphasizes rather than obscures. In this postmodern age of literature, the reader's expectations become part of a narrative—for many writers (Italo Calvino, for example, or Donald Barthelme, or Lydia Davis) the fun lies in turning those expectations on their heads. But Dahl, at least in this story, isn't operating on that level. He sets out to tell a straightforward, suspenseful story about a young man who never suspects that he's been ensnared by an evil being. And that's exactly what he delivers.

Strangely enough, this is yet another story that was first published in The New Yorker. (See here and here for my ever-evolving opinion of that magazine.) It doesn't feel like a New Yorker story in the least, but maybe things were different in the fifties. I wonder if, in its day, "The Landlady" would have seemed edgier to the common reader. Maybe to those for whom zombies, vampires, and CSI weren't a part of mainstream pop culture, Dahl's spooky tale would have come across as grim and macabre and dark. I mean, for me, it still does all those things, but in the same way that A Series of Unfortunate Events does—its darkness doesn't really scare, but still kind satisfies the desire for something creepy. Just, in a really, really mild way.

So mild, in fact, that the story might almost fail—were it not for the fact that every single sentence is basically as faultless as sentences can be. And not only are the sentences themselves perfectly simple and perfectly phrased, but they are placed in such an order and with such a rhythm that they unspool the story with a perfect pace. (If you're curious, you should google the story and take a look for yourself. I'd love to know what you think.) The thing that's great about this story is that even though you know what's in store for poor Billy, Dahl still raises a powerful curiosity about how everything's going to go down. If the place is so preternaturally nicenice, how is Billy going to die?

That's the carrot that Dahl dangles before his reader every step of the way. From the moment the reader ascertains what naïve Billy cannot—that this bed and breakfast is not what it seems—they become invested in the story's outcome. So Dahl draws this out by showing Billy's gradually dawning suspicions. Not suspicions, even; Billy doesn't ever quite catch on to what's happening to him. But he starts asking questions about the previous tenants who've signed the guest book, and even if he won't live long enough to figure out what it all means, the reader hangs onto every word, waiting for the grisly fate that's sure to come.

These Milk Glands Were Made for Walking - #32

STORY: "The Night He Cried" by Fritz Leiber

FROM: THE BEST OF FRITZ LEIBER (Nelson Doubleday, 1974)

BASICALLY: Over-the-top sci-fi parody of the hard-boiled detective story "perfected" by author Mickey Spillane. In Leiber's story, a heptapus (think octopus, but with only seven appendages) from Galaxy Center has come to Earth disguised as a sexy broad to correct author Slickie Millane's misconceptions about the purpose of sex. Ever prone to violence and misogyny, Slickie alternately tries to seduce and kill her. Good-naturedly reconstituting itself after each attempt on its life, the heptapus drinks too much scotch and bungles the mission to hilarious results.

This may be my new favorite story. I'm fickle, so that'll probably change, but for now, I'm in lurve lurve lurve. "The Night He Cried" is utterly silly and beyond funny. Even if you're unfamiliar with the literature being parodied, as I was, Leiber's vision of a bumbling but well-intentioned alien trying to reason with a completely insane tough guy is pure gold. I also love what Leiber has to say about this story in his Afterword.

I wrote "The Night He Cried" because I was distantly angry at Mickey Spillane for the self-satisfied violence and loveless sex and anti-feminism he was introducing into detective fiction and because he had the temerity to publish a couple of stories in the fantasy field, about which I have a parental concern. My rage seems remote, now, yet the point was valid.

Writing a story to make a point is a tricky thing. Obviously, no one likes to be preached to. Nor are readers likely to care about some writer's personal vendetta. And specificity can be dangerous—Slickie Millane as author of the Spike Mallet novels is really only funny if you know that Mickey Spillane wrote the Mike Hammer novels.

But I don't think Leiber's story suffers from any of these problems. First off, preachiness is absent. Though Leiber explains in his Afterword that he was reacting to Spillane's anti-feminist themes, he didn't respond by writing A Very Impassioned Story About Feminism. I'm a feminist—it's by no means a dirty word—but even I wouldn't want to read that story. Nor Stories About the Evils of War, the Wrongs of Colonialism, or the Decline of America's Educational System. What I do want to read is a story—something that involves me in its world, makes me care about its characters, and entertains me. Leiber's piece works because the story takes priority over the message.

Secondly, even though it references an "enemy" more or less by name, Leiber's story is saved from seeming petty by virtue of its sheer ludicrousness. The most grotesque elements (the hyper-sexuality, the misogynistic violence) are part of what's being parodied and come from the source material. Leiber doesn't go after Spillane personally—there's nothing in the story that might be read as a commentary on Spillane's religion, for example, which was Jehovah's Witness. Instead, it's very clear that what's being mocked is the tough guy propaganda machine. Leiber destroys the idea that anyone, including some pulp writer, could resemble the one-dimensional, morally-unconflicted hero of Spillane's trashy novels.

All this might make it sound like Leiber's lampooning is only funny if you know something about Mickey Spillane, but I don't think that's the case. The hard-boiled detective is a well-known type, even if many modern readers won't recognize its specific roots in Spillane. And the story never takes itself seriously. A sense of zany fun keeps the focus firmly planted on the action, not on some other story you're not reading. After Slickie Millane has shot in the gut what he thinks is a mouthy dame, she has reconstituted herself and awaits him in his convertible. 

There was a burst of juke-box jazz. Footsteps tracked from the bar toward the convertible. I leaned back comfortably with my silver-filmed milk glands dramatically highlighted. 

"Hi, Slickie," I called, making my voice sweet and soft to cushion the shock. 

Nevertheless it was a considerable one….Then with a naive ingenuity that rather touched me, he asked huskily, "Hey, have you got a twin sister?"

What it all comes down to is that, whatever else he might be doing during the course of his story, Leiber never forgets his audience. This story sets out to entertain and that's what it does. The fact that it's making cultural commentary or trying to drive home a point is just an added bonus—the story makes sure to succeed on its own terms. Leiber shows writers that they don't have to avoid putting a direct message in their fiction, but that they'd better make it worth the reader's while. Go find yourself a copy of this gem and read it, because it's superfun.