Sherman, Delia: Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing
Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing (2009)
Edited by: Delia Sherman & Christopher Barzak
Genre: Short Stories
Pages: 302 (Trade Paperback)
Disclaimer: free from publisher
The Interfictions anthology series has a special place in my heart. That's because I submitted to and got rejected from the first anthology, but happy day, as a really good friend of mine was selected instead, so I had to read the sucker just to get my hands on his story. No, this is not sarcasm. I was and still am genuinely pleased for him! :)
When Interfictions 2 was announced, I was a little disappointed that I didn't know any of the contributors personally, but I did recognize some names, and aside from that, interstitial as a "genre" or better still, a form of storytelling, really appeals to me. I ended up winning my copy from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, and shame on me for not reading it until now (I got the thing back in December, and I meant to read it right away, I really did). Yet part of the reason I put it was was because I wanted to have a "Themed Anthology" month for the book club, but since this poor book only got ONE vote (though quite a few of you mentioned this was your second choice), I decided it deserved some love (and I need the LT credit!).
The premise: ganked from BN.com (and the shortest premise EVER): Twenty-one gems showing that the freshest, most startling stories come from the spaces between conventional genres.
Review style: What I really want to do here is talk about interstitial fiction as a whole and what it means to storytelling (and not just in books either), and I want to talk about how this anthology on the whole compares to the first anthology and why that doesn't mean a gosh-darn thing in terms of reviews, and then I guess I'll highlight which stories really caught my eye. No story-by-story review here. This anthology just didn't speak to me that way, and I'll explain why (and why that's not a bad thing). No spoilers at all, so rest easy. This is half-review, half-discussion.
The introduction to this anthology nearly did me in. After all, I'd already read volume one, so why did I need to be schooled, yet again, on what interstitial fiction is? What it means? To be fair, I tried reading the intro right before going to bed, so that played a factor in my impatience. I decided to give it one more go before skipping it altogether, and I'm glad I did.
To me, interstitial fiction is fiction that lives between genres. Not cross-genre, but such a blended mix that it really defies any and all genre convention. Henry Jenkins' intro takes this point and runs with it by talking about how genre alone will define our expectation, and then discusses how an author's ability to both conform to genre and break the mold is what makes for a successful read in said genre. I thought this was fascinating: the topic of expectation has been simmering on my mind for a while, and it's a rabbit I want to chase on a Maintenance Monday. However, I want to stress a fact: our expectations truly define how much we enjoy or dislike a particular read, be it a novel or a short story or something in between.
Interstitial fiction takes those expectations, looks them over with a critical eye, and basically says, "Fuck it. I'm gonna do what I want," and in turn, the reader--if caught unawares--gets lost or frustrated or sometimes both because said reader can't find their footing.
What REALLY caught my attention about this intro was Jenkins's naming of the television show Lost as a truly interstitial show. You may or may not know this, but I love that show. I followed it from the premiere and cried my eyes out at the finale and when I even THINK about the finale I get teary-eyed. So for all you haters, this isn't your opportunity to tell me how overrated and/or a waste of time the show is, okay? I'm not rational when it comes to this show: I'll bite your head off, or I'll try REALLY hard. :)
But my point in bringing up the show is to provide what I think is an excellent example of interstitial storytelling. Whether or not you like it is another story, and that's another rabbit I'm going to chase later, the rabbit that says just because you don't care for something doesn't mean it isn't an excellent example of interstitial fiction.
Because by my watch, the entire point of interstitial fiction is to defy expectations. And if most readers rely on genre touch-points to determine, however consciously or subconsciously, their enjoyment of a story, then having those touch-points thrown out the window can make the reader/viewer flounder. You see something you recognize, so you latch onto it and use that thing to determine what you think the story is going to be. And when that's thrown out the window, it's easy to get mad, unless something else is shiny enough to nab your attention. Be it character or setting or storytelling (i.e. pace of story or narrative or dialogue or whatever), you have to find something that you can latch on to.
This isn't unique to interstitial fiction, mind you. We do it with everything we consume when it comes to stories, be it novels, shorts, television, or film. It's just that when something's interstitial, the reader/viewer may have to work a lot harder to find that something to latch onto.
Which means, to me, that interstitial has a hard time finding fans. And keeping them. But here's something to consider:
The nature of interstitial fiction is that it cannot easily be defined by any other genre. It's a mix, or it lives between the cracks, but however you look at it, it just does sit comfortably in a single category, and sometimes, it doesn't bother with categories at all. Using Lost as the example, I can say it's science fiction, and be right to a certain extent. Someone else can say it's fantasy, and be right to a certain extent. Others could call it a parable, a philosophical allegory, spiritual fiction, character drama, and so on and so forth with every type of label you can think of. They're all right, but they're not all completely right, so to judge it on the basis of one label is, in my humble opinion, completely missing the point.
Because as of now, it's interstitial.
As of now? What the hell does THAT mean? Simply this: what's interstitial now may become something mainstream and easily categorized in ten to fifteen to twenty years. A great example: steampunk. It's a sub-genre that used to live between genres, and now it has its own label and expectations in which its judged by. And as laughable as it seems, there was a time when fantasy tropes that took place in the real, modern world wasn't easily defined as fantasy because it also included mystery and horror elements, and now we recognize this mix as urban fantasy.
But I said interstitial wasn't simply a blending of genres, didn't I? I did, and to clarify, it's not a recognizable mix. I think something is interstitial not just because it doesn't fit securely into one label, but because in its own way, its pretty much one of a kind.
To move out of my Lost comparison and to move into fiction, look at Audrey Niffeneger's The Time Traveler's Wife. Sure, you could slap a "science fiction romance" label on it, but that'd be ignoring the literary tradition the novel is pulling from. And what about Gail Carriger's Soulless? Sheesh: this book is historical fiction, humor, paranormal, mystery, steampunk, romance… giving this book just one lablel, unless said label is interstitial, is kind of difficult. And also, like Lost, Carriger's book is something that people either love or hate, and that's largely due to that fact that your enjoyment of this book pretty much depends on your expectations going into it.
Again, I'm not saying you have to LIKE these examples, but I am saying they make good examples of work that can be considered interstitial.
Now, because of expectations, sitting down to read an anthology of stories whose editors consider to be interstitial is an interesting endeavor. Because NONE of these stories fit easily into a defined genre/sub-genre, which means I can't use my subconscious markers to define my expectations for the story. So basically, I had to approach each story with a blank slate, no expectations, and judge the story for whatever it delivered, not based on what I would expect it to deliver because I knew it had vampires or spaceships or a hot hero on the cover.
Expectation and interpretation is everything. So reading a series of interstitial stories is VERY much a mixed bag, because I'm not guaranteed to like every single one, because every single story is someone else's notion of interstitial. Be it the story itself or the experience of writing, interstitial is often in the eyes of the beholder, and this is something that becomes very clear when reading the postscript to each story by said story's author where they talk about why they feel their story was chosen for the anthology.
Now, while I've been singing the praises for my fascination of all things interstitial, there is a drawback: sometimes, interstitial fiction feels like an excuse for a literary writer (for whom genre elements are not allowed, according to the elitists) to safely make a foray into speculative elements without coming completely out of the closet. Another negative way of looking at it is that it's a way for a writer to say, "I'm going to do whatever the hell I want and not listen to criticism because it's interstitial and DEFIES your conventions and limitations!"
That's the cynical view of interstitial, but it's a valid one. A few stories in this anthology made me raise my eyebrows and think those very things. However, I'm not going to name those stories. Because while I'm going to name the stories I had a positive reaction to, I don't want to influence you negatively: you should read each of these with a (mostly) clean slate, so note that just because I don't mention a story doesn't mean it's bad. It just means it didn't nab me in a way that I could latch on to it. With interstitial, your mileage will especially vary.
The stories I note are those, as I said before, that I was able to latch on to in some form or fashion, even if it's just because they interested me on a odd intellectual or emotional level.
Will Ludwigsen's "Remembrance is Something Like a House" (a house literally creeping across the countryside to find its lost family. LOVE this image!)
Cecil Castellucci's "The Long and Short of Long-Term Memory" (it's not often that I see an interstitial story with a truly SF element, let alone a scientific element, which makes this quite fascinating)
Carlos Hernandez's "The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria" (there's a very violent moment in this story that had me cringing and wincing away from the pages, but in a good way, and I had to keep reading more)
William Alexander's "After Verona" (there's a line in here that sort of defines interstitial fiction and defies expectations in terms of general storytelling expectations. I won't say it here, because then it'd be a spoiler, but it has to do with the difference between knowing and not knowing, and I love it).
Lionel Davoust's "L'Ile Close" (an interesting spin on Arthurian Legend, and that might seem like a label, but oh, it isn't. This story is one of those seriously intellectually engaging ones that make your brain hurt, but in a good way).
Stephanie Shaw's "Afterbirth" (in which the line between reality and fantasy is muddled to the point where you have to ask yourself if it matters if you know the difference between fact and fiction, between fantasy and reality, etc. And not in a way that'll make your brain hurt. No, this story will make your body hurt, because its focus is childbirth).
Runners up are Peter M. Ball's "Black Dog: A Biography," Camilla Bruce's "Berry Moon: Laments of a Muse," Amelia Beamer's "Morton Goes to the Hospital," Shira Lapkin's "Valentines," Nin Andrews's "The Marriage," and David J. Schwartz's "The 121."
What's appealing about this anthology as a whole is not just reading a whole slew of authors I've never heard of (though I've heard of and/or have read Jeffrey Ford, M. Rickert, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Lavie Tidhar, Theodora Goss, and David J. Schwartz), but also seeing such great diversity between the authors, be it race or ethnicity or nationality, this anthology definitely has a little of everything, and how appropriate is that, given its one unifying factor of interstitial fiction?
My Rating
Worth the Cash: but kind of close to "Glad It Was Free." Why? Because if I were to compare my overall experience between reading volume 1 with volume 2, I would have to say that volume 1 won me over more, as I found myself really engaged by more of the stories. Heck, that's evidenced by the fact that for volume one, I reviewed each story individually, whereas with this volume, I just mentioned with ones stood out. All in all, it probably all balances out, but this time around, I'd forget most stories as soon as I moved on to the next. Now, this is a ME-THING, and this will be true for every reader. That's because with every reading experience, the reader is bringing their own experiences, their own expectations, their baggage, etc. But this becomes an even bigger issue with interstitial fiction, because the one defining expectation is that you should have NO expectations whatsoever. That you should let the story take you where it may without labels defining where you THINK it should go. So while on the whole I preferred the first volume of Interfictions to this second one, this second one is still enjoyable with a variety of stories from a variety of authors (diversity of race, sex, nationality, and ethnicity!) and if you're looking for something that doesn't try to fit any standard mold, or if you're a literary reader looking for something that pushes the boundaries, this is a good place to start.
Cover Commentary: I love this cover. I might prefer the first anthology in terms of content, but in terms of covers, this one wins with its eyes closed and both hands tied behind its back. First, it's designed quite nicely. I like the differing fonts for the title alone. And the images, while none related to each other, balance out the overall cover in a way that draws the eye. The coloring, even though it's pink, is very easy on the eyes. Great job!
Next up: Magic Bleeds by Ilona Andrews