Trampoline: An Anthology [Paperback]

Kelly Link (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 2003

“Fabulous tales.”—The Washington Post

“No unblinkered, gloveless reader can resist the stream of associations unleashed by Ford’s story and the rest of Trampoline: influences as disparate as science fiction, magic realism, pulp, and Twilight Zone morality plays.”—The Village Voice

Twenty astounding stories by Karen Joy Fowler, Glen Hirshberg, Samantha Hunt, Shelley Jackson, Rosalind Palermo Stevenson, Greer Gilman, and more.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Small Beer Press is proud to publish Trampoline, an anthology of mostly original fiction. Perhaps the first of an occasional series, perhaps the one and only book of its kind. Only time will tell.

This book does not contain a manifesto.

First lines from Trampoline:

T he little creek behind my trailer in Kentucky is called Frankum Branch.
R amnath Mishra's life changed forever one morning,
A ll this started when my father told my mother she was a waste.
M argaret, do you see the leaves?
P ristine silence was the law in the gleaming white halls of The Center for the Reification of Actual Probability.
O ne day when I was in the first grade Scott Arnold told me he was going to wash my face with snow on my way home from school.
L ately, Walter has been hard to live with.
I t's the start of a brand new life, Johnny."
N b. No story begins with the letter N. Is that odd? Should we be worried?
E xclusion Rights for minors?

About the Author

Kelly Link is the author of two collections, Magic for Beginners (chosen as a 2005 Best Book by Time Magazine, Salon.com, and Book Sense) and Stranger Things Happen. She is the editor of the anthology Trampoline. She and her husband Gavin J. Grant started Small Beer Press in 2000.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Small Beer Press (August 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931520046
• ISBN-13: 978-1931520041
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,765,442 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kelly Link's debut collection, Stranger Things Happen, was a Firecracker nominee, a Village Voice Favorite Book and a Salon Book of the Year -- Salon called the collection "...an alchemical mixture of Borges, Raymond Chandler, and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Stories from the collection have won the Nebula, the James Tiptree Jr., and the World Fantasy Awards. Her second collection, Magic for Beginners, was a Book Sense pick (and a Best of Book Sense pick); and selected for best of the year lists by Time Magazine, Salon, Boldtype, Village Voice, San Francisco Chronicle, and The Capitol Times. It was published in paperback by Harcourt. Kelly is an editor for the Online Writing Workshop and has been a reader and judge for various literary awards. With Gavin J. Grant and Ellen Datlow she edits The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror (St. Martin's Press). She also edited the anthology, Trampoline. Kelly has visited a number of schools and workshops including Stonecoast in Maine, Washington University, Yale, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, Brookdale Community College, Brookdale, NJ, Lenoir-Rhyne College, Hickory, NC, the Imagination Workshop at Cleveland State University, New England Institute of Art & Communications, Brookline, MA, Clarion East at Michigan State University, Clarion West in Seattle, WA, and Clarion South in Brisbane, Australia. Kelly lives in Northampton, MA. She received her BA from Columbia University and her MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Kelly and her husband, Gavin J. Grant, publish a twice-yearly zine, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet -- as well as books -- as Small Beer Press.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SLIPSTREAM AT ITS MOST COMPELLING, July 5, 2003

By 

Richard Bowes (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Trampoline: An Anthology (Paperback)

Trampoline is a fascinating and rewarding book. Among the twenty stories are a dozen that I found to be first rate. Another reader might disagree on the ranking of individual stories but not, I think, on the remarkable overall quality.

A nice mixture of fine work by veterans (Carol Emshwiller, Jeffrey Ford, Karen Joy Fowler, Maureen McHugh) and newcomers (Christopher Rowe, Shelley Jackson, Alex Irvine, Vandana Singh, John Gonzalez, Christopher Barzak). All, it seems, are original to his collection except for the extraordinary KING OF SPAIN by Dave Shaw.

The collection shows the strong presence of editor Kelly Link. Common themes crop up: Barzak and Jackson find interesting things to do with dead boys, McHugh and Fowler deal with lost children. This gives Trampoline a cohesion akin to that of a single author collection.

Anthologies of original stories have long been a place where Speculative Fiction redefined itself (i.e. Ellison's Dangerous Visions and Moorcock's New Directions ushering in the tumult of the 1960's New Wave). The last couple of years have seen a number of important titles: Conjunctions 39: The New Fabulists, (ed. Peter Straub),McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (ed. Michael Chabon), Album Zutique (ed. Jeff Vandermeer). A common trend in these books and others I haven't mentioned, maybe the one that will prove definitive, is a tendency toward 'Slipstream', the melding of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror with mainstream fiction.

This is a basic aspect of Trampoline. Even stories that utilize genre tropes: IMPALA's Virtual Reality or DEAD BOY FOUND's necrophilia, use them to explore emotional abuse or the death of the spirit. The wonders glimpsed by the fabulous slackers in GUS DREAMS OF BITING THE MAILMAN or almost caught in the waters of Hawaii in SHIPWRECK BEACH are filtered through much too much beer and cannabis or mad-making psychological damage. Three strong pieces: KING RAT, EIGHT-LEGGED STORY and KING OF SPAIN provide all the illumination and wonder and fear we look for in SF and Fantasy and Horror with little more of the uncanny and inexplicable than most of us find in our daily lives.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Boing! Boing!, January 28, 2004

By 

Jeff Topham "jtopham" (Louisville, KY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Trampoline: An Anthology (Paperback)

Trampoline mixes a group of writers from the literary edge of genre (Irvine, Hirshberg, Ford) with another group of fugitives from the mainstream (Park, Hunt, Jackson), proving that some of the most interesing fiction being written right now is sprouting in the cracks between the two. ItÕs remarkable what a coherent collection this is, given that the only thing that really binds these stories together is a uniformly high quality of writing and a willingness to doggedly pursue an individual vision. What really distinguishes these stories is a sense of possibility and adventure; Trampoline is fiction as a form of play and risk-taking rolled into one. The stories here proceed as if the constraints of genre simply donÕt exist and move from there in some pretty strange but wonderful directions. There are a handful of stories that don't quite work, but even those are worth your time. An extremely strong collection.

7 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Underwhelmed, disappointed, January 18, 2005

By 

Jay D. Swartzfeger "Lord of the Evil Monkeys" (Scottsdale, AZ USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Trampoline: An Anthology (Paperback)

I ordered this Anthology on the strength of Editor Kelly Link's reputation and fiction. I first read Ms. Link's work in Conjunctions 39 and was blown away (Lull, IIRC). With Authors like Jeffrey Ford, Alex Irvine, etc and Kelly Link at the helm, this had to be a must have anthology.

Trampoline couldn't have disappointed me more. Many stories have barely any speculative elements whatsoever. There's also a disturbing case of 'literaryitis' to quite a few of the stories here -- I guess I have a low threshold for affected stories heavy on character and zippo in the plot department. Maybe I'm just an old fashioned curmudgeon expecting things that keep those pages turnin' -- you know, quaint things that literary writers seem to have a pathological aversion to, like plot, tension, conflict and resolution.

I guess that's what ultimately killed this anthology for me. Most of the stories simply didn't engage me, and within a few pages I was already flipping ahead to see how many more pages I had to endure.

There were very few bright spots. Shelly Jackson's "Angel" floored me, and is the only story in the collection I consider a must read. While there are a few other enjoyable stories, overall the navel gazing pomposity overshadows the few gems in Trampoline.

If you're looking for quality slipstream/magic realism/weird/outre short story collections, I can't recommend highly enough 'Conjunctions 39', Jonathan Carroll's 'The Panic Hand', James Morrow's 'Bible Stories for Adults', Jeffrey Ford's 'The Fantasy Writer's Assistant', Jeff Vandermeer's 'City of Saints and Madmen' and Borges' 'Labyrinth'. Although I've only read the first few stories, Leviathan III (edited by Jeff Vandemeer) is also shaping up nicely (keeping my fingers crossed).