Short Story Wednesday: Thrilling Tales

 

Early this week, I started reading stories in McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, edited by Michael Chabon. I was a little bit confused by the introduction, which seemed to be describing what kind of stories would be in the book, but did not help me at all. The title indicates that the stories would be thrilling, but the four stories I read were not in any way thrilling. That description makes it sound like I did not like the stories, but I did, for the most part. 

My favorite story was "Chuck’s Bucket" by Chris Offutt. That story was all over the place, with time travel and a ghost and alternate universes. Plus the main character was Chris Offutt himself, writing about his difficulties in writing the story. Because he thinks that there is a ghost in his apartment, he goes to visit a university professor to ask for help. Instead his professor decides to use Chris as the subject for a time travel experiment. I liked that story very much; it was original and fun.

In "Blood Doesn't Come Out" by Michael Crichton, a private investigator's day starts off badly. He proves that an employee was stealing from his store, but it turns out that the guilty employee was the employer's lover, and the employer is very unhappy with the result. Then the PI's girlfriend walks out on him. From there, things go from bad to worse. The story was good and the ending was unexpected. 

"Private Grave 9" by Karen Joy Fowler was more of a supernatural story. It is set at an archaeological dig in Mesopotamia, around the same time as Howard Carter's dig. Those at the dig are unhappy because they are not finding anything as important as Howard Carter was finding at Tutankhamen's tomb. Finally they find the royal tomb of a princess. The narrator of the story is a photographer and takes photos of all the finds. On the photo of the princess, a face was superimposed over the skull. It was an interesting story because of the setting, and I like Fowler's writing, but it did not seem to go anywhere.

The last story I read, Aimee Bender’s "The Case of the Salt and Pepper Shakers," was closest to a mystery puzzle. A married couple is found dead in a room, the wife poisoned, the husband stabbed. The strange thing is that they have a collection of salt and pepper shakers. The police detective who narrates the story wonders if they killed each other. The end of the story is inconclusive. It was a decent story but not really satisfying. 

I will continue reading the stories in this book. The full list of authors and stories is below: 

• Jim Shepard’s "Tedford and the Megalodon"
• Glen David Gold’s "The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened Thereafter"
• Dan Chaon’s "The Bees"
• Kelly Link’s "Catskin"
• Elmore Leonard’s "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman"
• Carol Emshwiller’s "The General"
• Neil Gaiman’s "Closing Time"
• Nick Hornby’s "Otherwise Pandemonium"
• Stephen King’s "The Tale of Gray Dick"
• Michael Crichton’s "Blood Doesn’t Come Out"
• Laurie King’s "Weaving the Dark"
• Chris Offutt’s "Chuck’s Bucket"
• Dave Eggers’s "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly"
• Michael Moorcock’s "The Case of the Nazi Canary"
• Aimee Bender’s "The Case of the Salt and Pepper Shakers"
• Sherman Alexie’s "Ghost Dance"
• Harlan Ellison’s "Goodbye to All That"
• Karen Joy Fowler’s "Private Grave 9"
• Rick Moody’s "The Albertine Notes"
• Michael Chabon’s "The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance"