Contagion and Other Stories [Paperback]

Brian Evenson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 2000

Mapping a literary space uniquely his own, Evenson's CONTAGION AND OTHER STORIES pursues to a new level the crepescular and delirious exploration begun in his acclaimed and controversial ALTMANN'S TONGUE. In the O'Henry Award winning "Two Brothers," a minister breaks his leg while his sons watch then refuses to call an ambulance, remaining convinced even unto death that God will arrive to lift him up and make him whole. The self-acclaimed language specialist of "The Polygamy of Language" indiscriminately blends linguistics with murder. "Contagion" is a skewed retelling of the early history of barbed wire, which interweaves metaphysics and the Western genre. "Watson's Boy" shows a boy endlessly wandering the human equivalent of a conditioned response box while the protagonist of "By Halves" finds himself trapped in a relationship that may not exist. Throughout, Evenson's immaculate prose draws us mercilessly up to confront troubled and troubling lives that, astoundingly, are no less human than our own.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"It's work that lodges in a reader long after he's through turning the pages, like ancient scripture or true crime." -- Rick Moody, author of THE ICE STORM and PURPLE AMERICA

"Readers of Ballard and Burroughs will exult in CONTAGION..." -- Rikki Ducornet, author of THE FANMAKER'S INQUISITION

About the Author

Brian Evenson is the author to two collections of stories, ATLMANN'S TONGUE (Knopf, 1994) and THE DIN OF CELESTIAL BIRDS (Wordcraft of Oregon, 1997). In addition, he has published a novel, FATHER OF LIES (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1998), and a chapbook, PROPHETS AND BROTHERS (Rodent, 1997). He teaches at the University of Denver. His email address is: [e-mail]

Product Details

• Paperback: 151 pages
• Publisher: Wordcraft of Oregon; 1st edition (July 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1877655341
• ISBN-13: 978-1877655340
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,224,291 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Door Into the Dark, and Words About Words, February 9, 2001

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Volkswagen Blues "cead1" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Contagion and Other Stories (Paperback)

I've read just about everything that Brian Evenson has published, and this recent collection was especially encouraging, as it contains some of his most adventurous and aggressive fiction to date (including the O. Henry Award pieces, "Two Brothers" and "The Polygamy of Language"). Some of the stories don't catch hold as well as others, but overall, in bleak tones and economic prose, Evenson lays bare the damaging inter-relatedness of language, religion, and violence.

Several of the stories in "Contagion" have a darkly cultish feel to them: a preacher rewrites scripture and his children are unsure of how or whether to resist him; a madman discourses on the origin of language while going through a polygamists' camp. Others have a somber and scientific pulse: in "Internal," an interning research assistant begins to suspect that the subject of his observations may in turn be observing him, or that the line between observer/observed might not exist at all; in "Watson's Boy," humans in (what the back cover tells us is) a conditioned response box vie against rats for survival.

For me, the highlight of the collection is the title story, "Contagion." As two hired hands walk a long stretch of barbed-wire fence, the clarity of their assigned mission--repair? report?--begins to fade, and they begin to distrust each other. One of the men keeps a journal of their actions, until, the two men separated from each other, the whole thing begins to unravel. At the story's end, one of the men is held captive in a room and forced to keep writing, until the clarity of the story itself begins to fade.

Evenson is able, in a short amount of time, to rig a perfectly normal story and then let it unravel as problems of language and fiction become thematized. Shades of Kafka, Perec, maybe, or some of Handke's earlier work. Often, fiction about fiction and language about language is just plain dull, but Evenson's compact, blunt prose won't allow that.

If you're interested in fiction that walks a little on the wild side, "Contagion" is a good buy.