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Stories
by Ed Park
Book Reviewed by:A deadpan, wildly imaginative collection of stories that slices clean through the mundanity and absurdity of modern life, from the author of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize–winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Same Bed Different Dreams.
In "Machine City," a college student's role in a friend's movie causes lines to blur between his character and his true self. In "Slide to Unlock," a man comes to terms with his life, via the passwords he struggles to remember in a moment of extremis. And in "Weird Menace," a director and faded movie star discuss science fiction, memory, and lost loves on a commentary track for a film from the '80s that neither seems to remember all that well.
In Ed Park's utterly original collection, An Oral History of Atlantis, characters question the fleetingness of youth and art, reckon with the consequences of the everyday, and find solace in the absurd, the beautiful, and the sublime. Throughout, Park deploys his trademark wit to create a world both strikingly recognizable and delightfully other. All together, these fifteen stories have much to say about the meaning—and transitory nature—of our lives. And they are proof positive that Ed Park is one of the most insightful and imaginative writers working today.
BRING ON THE DANCING HORSES
When I call my parents, my mom tells me my dad is busy teaching a class on the internet. That is, the class is in a classroom but the topic is the internet. More specifically, he's teaching seniors—that is, old people—how to blog, write anonymous comments on news articles without panicking, poke their children on Facebook, and get away with not writing h, t, t, p, colon, forward slash, forward slash, w, w, w, dot before every web address.
I had no idea my dad liked the internet so much. "Who said anything about like?" my mom says. I can hear her clicking away at her keyboard in the background.
My dad is retired—or was. Is it that they need the money? I fantasize about a heretofore unknown gambling problem, hush funds, love children. My mom sells my old comic books and De La Soul cassingles on eBay. She doesn't know I know. Every so often I'll think about stuff I loved in my youth, and a search inevitably brings up her dealer name.
I amp the ...
The stories in Ed Park's collection An Oral History of Atlantis range from whimsical to tragic, and mundane to fantastical. This is not a collection for readers who prefer realism in fiction. "Well-Moistened with Cheap Wine, the Sailor and the Wayfarer Sing of Their Absent Sweethearts" in particular is wonderfully surreal, with a research group composed entirely of women named Tina studying an ancient script on a strange, isolated island. The collection is full of clever humor and enchanting unreality juxtaposed with the characters' very real emotions. This contrast with the stories' fantastical elements makes the undercurrents of longing and loss all the sharper. The originality of the collection and the wit with which its ideas are executed make it truly a pleasure to read...continued
Full Review
(631 words)
(Reviewed by Katharine Blatchford).
Samantha Hunt, author of The Dark Dark
What's the collective noun for a school of stories so bright and brilliant, they ripple with humor, compassion, and wonder? Call them an 'Ed Park.' These stories will continue to delight us, long after the flood.
One of the short stories in Ed Park's collection An Oral History of Atlantis involves a research group made entirely of Tinas trying to unravel the meaning of an ancient script found on a mysterious island. While much of the story is fantastical, the writing they are trying to interpret is quite real. Oracle bone script, in use from the fourteenth to eleventh centuries BCE, is China's oldest known system of writing, and the precursor to modern Chinese scripts.
The modern discovery of oracle bone script happened by chance in 1899. Ground bone is a component of some traditional Chinese medicines; Wang Yirong, a scholar, calligrapher, and director of the Chinese Imperial Academy, had obtained bone from a pharmacy for this purpose and ...
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The low brow and the high brow
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