Conjunctions 39
If you’re interested in genre fiction—it’s what I learned to read on, and I’ve been finding my way back to it for the last couple years—then I suspect Conjunctions 39: The New Wave Fabulists (Conjunctions site, Booksense link) is something not to miss. It’s on the newsstands now. I say my feeling is a suspicion because I’ve only read the first three pieces so far: a table of contents with a great list of names, the first story (”The Girlhood of Shakespeare’s Heroines” by John Crowley), and the guest editor’s note. The editor’s note talks of those who “approach horror from the inside out, with the understanding that it is above all a point of view” and calls Crowley’s story and another in the volume “remarkably mature examples of that particular point of view, which has literally no points in common with the genre’s conventional definitions.” The guest editor is Peter Straub, and he ought to know.
Of course, I read that paragraph in the editor’s note only after reading Crowley’s story—continually looking for those points in common, expecting them always around the turn of the next page, until there were only a few pages left and I realized they would not appear. I’ve spent the morning since wondering about genre, and it feels like it’s going to be an interesting wonder. So, for your own dose, pick up Conjuctions.
The next story, where my bookmark rests now, is by Kelly Link, the author of “The Girl Detective”—a story I seem to be recommending to everyone I talk with these days. It can usually be found online at Event Horzion—though the page appears down right now (hopefully temporarily).