Bradley Denton and Stona Fitch are two of the most original writers working today and if you haven’t gotten hip to either one of them yet then you should correct that ASAP. At their best these writers have written books that impact you in a deep and profound way but also manage that tight-rope trick of being entertaining as well as engaging you on multiple levels. The only identifiable pattern of their fiction is that every novel is so different from the one came before that it’s like they were written by someone else. And given how different successive novels are from one another it’s hard to get a bead on Fitch and Denton. They take their time in-between novels and their body of work runs the gamut.
“I’m incapable of strict adherence to any genre.” — Stona Fitch
In the shadows of the recently fallen towers, at the dawn of the reality TV age just weeks after 9/11 Senseless by Stona Fitch was released. Reading this book now, 8 years later, in the wake of a terror attack, two wars, the controversy surrounding Gitmo, the controversy surrounding torture tactics, a revolution televised in 140 character increments and a mother under fire for allowing a TV crew to set up shop in her home it’s hard to believe how prescient it was and how current it feels. Terrorism, torture, voyeurism, consumerism and capitalism in the modern global economy are some of the main themes dealt with here.
In Senseless we meet Elliott Gast an American economist and businessman with dealings in Europe and expensive tastes. He is kidnapped by an anti-globalization group and held for forty days. His captors torture him by brutally stripping him of his five senses one at a time. As time goes on we find out his secrets. His confinement is broadcast live on the web with the captive audience paying money to the terrorists to stop (or not) the torture. How Fitch manages to make us complicit is a part of the package too.
Senseless is an existential, visceral, psychological thriller that is unlike most other books written. It is also one of the most brutal books ever written. It is horrific in it’s inevitability but never sensationalistic and never exploitative but always thought provoking. From the consuming of the consumer to the complicit acts of the detached audience Senseless has more themes packed into a small package then others 4 times it size. Senseless is interested in unpacking it’s themes and looking at them from all different angles rather then presenting a stark, black and white moral judgment. It wants to kick start a discussion so go read it and join in.
For my original, unedited thoughts on the book right after I had finished it go here.
His latest novel, Printer’s Devil, is a post-apocalyptic dystopia. The specifics of what caused the degradation of the world are never discussed in great detail. The world is divided into guilds that wage war with one another. The air quality is deadly making even the most mundane of physical activities and exercise in endurance.
The guilds and the various groups place a great value on their stories that comprise their oral history. It’s through the telling of these stories that we gain some semblance of understanding about the formation of this society and the personal histories of some of these characters. But because of the subjective nature of the oral history it’s hard to gain a sense of what has “really” happened. This is the kind of book that needs to be re-read and deserves to be also.
Printer’s Devil is a very atmospheric novel with great characters that feel ripped out of a book of legends that was found in the back of a dusty bookstore that has been forgotten.
These days Stona Fitch, it seems, is most well known for founding Concord Free Press. A publishing company that operates off of a different business model. They print a limited number of their titles (2000 I think) then give them away for free, all you have to do is ask. In exchange you agree to a charitable act and pass the book along to someone else. It’s important to remember his own strong fictional output even as the rubber seems to be hitting the road with the publishing company.
“My reluctance to write a series has been based on my fear of growing bored with my own themes and characters. That also explains my “something different every time” approach … because that way, I’m never bored. And if I’m never bored, then (theoretically) my readers will never be bored either. Of course, you have to get the readers before you can worry about boring them. And it may be that my shotgun-blast pattern of career choices hasn’t been the best way of doing that.” — Bradley Denton
I suppose one way to start writing about Blackburn would be to say that years before there was Dexter there was Blackburn. Except that Blackburn is the better character and book and that Denton is the better writer. Blackburn is also the one that is more deserving of your time.
Maybe another way to start would be with a hypothetical question. Is it possible that one of the hoariest of the modern sub-genres, the serial killer novel, produced the most original novel of the 90′s?
The story of Blackburn’s life is told in chapters that alternate between biographical information and the murders of his victims in numbered ascending order. What comes out of this is as complex a portrait of a character as your likely to find anywhere else. Hannibal Lechter may be iconic but Blackburn is real and thus more affecting.
Blackburn is a tragi-comic novel that will pinball you between emotional extremes; that will have you laughing then cringing then laughing again all within a matter of sentences. This serial killer with a code will slide right in to your heart and keep it. You shouldn’t like this guy but you do, but not through blatant authorial manipulation but because you have to. Blackburn will perform an emotional coup d’etat on your heart and mind leaving you altered and on a different trajectory then when you first set out.
Whatever qualities you seek in the fiction you love you’ll find them here. This is that rare novel that hits the sweet spot — that gets so much right that you can’t really do it justice by trying to write about it. Instead just go read it and experience it for yourself.
Above I wrote on how it was interesting to read Senseless eight years after the fact and the commentary it offers on world events and world views that are vying for attention and dominance in America today. Laughin’ Boy by Bradley Denton does this too. But where Senseless looks at a broader and more global context Laughin’ Boy takes its sharp scalpel to America directly.
After a devastating act of domestic terrorism a dead dentist’s still running camcorder catches the aftermath, specifically a survivor of the tragedy who can’t stop laughing his ass off. He becomes a sensation in the media and his transformation from hated scapegoat, to mis-understood victim to ambiguous “hero” is a marvel to behold.
Denton takes no prisoners here and what starts off as a distorted funhouse mirror of gross satire and parody soon becomes straightened out and the reflection is easily recognizable as reality rather then extrapolation or humor (though it never stops being funny).
One of Denton’s best traits is that he is a first rate humorist and satirist. That he can make you laugh out loud in books about a serial killer and domestic terrorism is a daunting achievement. Reading Laughin’ Boy reminded me of a quote from one of my favorite writers, Charles Willeford, which could have just as easily come from the mouth of Bradley Denton:
“Just tell the truth, and they’ll accuse you of writing black humor.”
Well Bradley Denton tells the truth and it’s called black humor.
