Customer Reviews

Invitations to a Bridge Burning

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David Maizenberg's book is much more than a fine collection of short stories -- it's an unintentional treatise on what is wrong with the corporate book-publishing world. For every nonlinear leap and unpredictable twist of thought in these pages, there's a moment of genuine revelation. I don't want to call it spiritual, though it is. I don't want to call it redemptive, though I feel redeemed. I only want you to give this book a chance to change your life. Because it can do so, it is art in the truest sense. Don't say you weren't warned.

If you're looking for a familiar landmark to compare this book to, try George Saunders. Although Maizenberg's targets are more real and immediate than Saunders's, this author possesses a similar wit and dazzling capacity for self-revelation through seemingly mundane details. This book will haunt you.

A kneejerk reaction would be to compare "Invitations to a Bridge Burning" to "Generation X." Maizenburg's tone echoes the simple profoundness of Douglas Coupland's watershed novel, and like Coupland, firmly entrenches his characters in times and places familiar to young oh-so-hip college-educated readers -- coffee shops in SoHo, IPO parties in Palo Alto, flirtations in Rome. There are no universal sentiments here. With only a few exceptions, the prose is sleek and evocative, sometimes dancing with verse. This is a book for those looking for love and the Big Score in the 2000s.

But read the last two stories, and suddenly you are thrust deep within a character's spirit, where dreams are not empty but virile, and for better or worse take control. This collection yanks you on a bullet-train from dirty realism to surrealism in 137 pages flat. "Invitations to a Bridge Burning" will appeal to everyone who might feel his or her life is not quite settled -- not because Maizenburg reflects our yearning for more with a pandering wink and nod, but because he realizes our dreams exist to serve us, not vice versa. By the last page, you feel wrong has been made right.

This is a very exciting collection, electric and original, the author never reaching and straining with his dynamic language; the text moves smoothly, mellifluously; it breathes, intelligently alive, often hilarious, and it is filled with keen, pretty lines and scenes, deft touches, sensitive feels, so much more refreshing than the majority of short fiction published today: MFA fast food, tiny mass produced crackers (salt-less) in shiny cellophane packages; but not this author, who is consistently bold, expressive, and vital. I burned through this collection and I can't wait to read any new collections, stories, or novels.

I just delved into one of the shorts, "Dotcomicon" last night and, being a "dotcommer" myself, was amused and unnerved by the truth of the story. David paints at once a colorful and painful-to-read portrait of his characters, and pinpoints the irony of a generation of money grubbing, insecure and tragically hip consumerist dot-communists with amazing accuracy.

A great read......words and phrases twist and turn, stories that prompt an original thought or two....a nice way to spend a couple of hours! I look forward to future writings. Good cover art. Congrats to the author and new publisher, Agony Press.

I bought this book because I was interesting in Agony Press and wanted to see what they published. Invitations was supposed to be an introduction to a publisher. It turned out to be an introduction to a remarkable new voice in short fiction.

Maizenberg surprised me with his terse fiction stylings in the first story, "Smoking with Felix-the-Super." I didn't want to think it at first, because it's a dooming thought if tossed around hastily, but I was forced to relent and make the comparison--it's like Carver, only fresher than the thousands of other imitators out there. Honest. Real.

That's what Maizenberg is in all these stories: honest and real. And sometimes that gives us a queasy feeling, like in "Looking for Jojo," and sometimes it just washes over us in a tide of recognition, like in Play-Doh Pill/Lego Life"; we know these people--we are these people.

But he's versatile, too. The collection's best story is "Dotcomicon," a story I dreaded from the title. "Hip," I thought. "He's trying to be hip and 'Now'." And he is current, but what he's trying to do is write an allegory. He succeeds. This is one of the best modern allegories I've read in a while. And that title is one of the best titles I've seen, too, the kind that grows in depth each time you think about its connection to the story. A must-read.

Short, too-the-point but not in-your-face, Maizenberg hasn't redefined contemporary fiction, but he's certainly refreshed it. Keep an eye out for more by this author.

An utterly original new voice, both lyrical and wry. A pinpoint consciousness in a half-conscious universe.

An extraordinary and compact collection of unpredictable and disturbing characters, subtle relationships, and haunting situations. Fine storytelling! David Maizenberg is a true talent with a wry sense of humor and a keen sense of the painfully ridiculous. Plenty of hip, cool, refreshing (as a tonic) prose. Nuance galore.

A fresh, new group of short stories from a young writer who can only be on his way up. Maizenberg combines insight into the human condition, excellent prose, and an acute sense of drama and wit. The stories' diversity of intent and plot show off both the range of talent and the originality of voice of this exciting new author. I look forward to reading his next wave of writings.