Blood Lake and Other Stories [Paperback]

Jim Krusoe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 1999

Jim Krusoe’s beset and bemused narrators are awash in a solution of Donald Barthelme’s worthy absurdities and Kafka’s mutating humor. In these surreal, dystopian tales, characters find their way into and out of Plato’s cave, mental hospitals, interspecies love affairs, plane crashes and Gypsy kidnappings. These narratives, which shapeshift and interpenetrate, contain everything form the rhapsodies of a night nurse, to a lyrical meditation on the egg, to lists of wryly named sexual positions. Krusoe’s universe is full of amazing chaos and deadpan astonishment.

When you enter Jim Krusoe’s wittily indeterminate world, your first instinct is to grope around for a literary coordinate. At first he reminds you of Kafka: the dreamlike inconsequentiality and gentle-sinister comedy—the half-human animals and evanescent temptresses. But the America that Krusoe inhabits is spelt with a C, not a K. He is robustly situated in his time and place, and he has a lilt that is all his own. In the end, he stopped reminding me of anyone. Jim Krusoe is an original. — Martin Amis

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Jim Krusoe's stories and poems have appeared in the Antioch Review, Bomb, the Iowa Review and the Santa Monica Review. His essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Florida Review, and Manoa. He teaches writing at Santa Monica College and Antioch University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Boaz Publishing (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0965187969
• ISBN-13: 978-0965187961
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,783,906 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, which is the location of my forthcoming novel from Tin House, Erased. I have spent most of my life since then in Los Angeles. For about 20 years I wrote poetry, and then little by little learned to write prose, first stories, then novels. I'm still learning.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful; simultaneously erudite, sobering, farcical, September 10, 1998

By 

[e-mail] or Richard McKee (Venice, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Blood Lake and Other Stories (Hardcover)

Jim Krusoe's Blood Lake and Other Stories is the wittiest collection of tales I've ever read, and more. For on top of and above the wit is a style and voice, and occasional whopping metaphor, that make for dizzying satire. Krusoe's fictional worlds compare to those of Kafka, Donald Barthelme, and Raymond Roussel, his reviewers observe. Some of his characters resemble the posturing, fraudulent whackos found in Woody Allen. Then there's the morphine addict pharmacist who buys at zoo auction a female gorilla that becomes his lover; and the unlucky night nurse who confesses, "I like hospitals and I like the sick, and of all the times that I can be with them, my favorite is the night shift, those hours from eleven to seven, when everyone's asleep." "Another Life" is a story whose narrator, an elderly bear, resides at the National Institute of animal Narrative, where he was "... trained by well-meaning scientists to operate a typewriter." In these tales there is thundering satire that smacks of the saturation bombing carried out over 200 years ago by Swift, yet has been terribly silent since. Simultaneously erudite, sobering, and farcical, Blood Lake and Other Stories will make you laugh, cringe, and cry, as Krusoe the writer does so many things so maddenlingy well.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful, associative, lingering, August 4, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Blood Lake and Other Stories (Hardcover)

This is a strange, rich, memorable book; by the end of it I had that feeling of being moved to another place, and wanted to reread to understand more. It is full of texture, layers, ideas; anyone who likes unconventional fiction should check it out. Jim Krusoe guides his stories with a masterful hand.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Some of the most original and sharp writing I've come across, April 12, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Blood Lake and Other Stories (Paperback)

Jim Krusoe sits on the weathered edge of reality to describe the view from both sides beautifully. His writing is sharp, original and entertaining. He captured a jaded reader's belief in the surreal tales layed out here, and left me wanting more. Fantastic.