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    Fugue State: Stories
    Unavailable
    Fugue State: Stories
    Unavailable
    Fugue State: Stories
    Ebook307 pages4 hours

    Fugue State: Stories

    By Brian Evenson and Zak Sally

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    From the “the Donald Barthelme of psychological horror” (Los Angeles Times) comes this collection of “satisfying and surreal stories” (The Plain Dealer).
     
    Illustrated by graphic novelist Zak Sally, Brian Evenson’s hallucinatory and darkly comic stories of paranoia, pursuit, sensory deprivation, amnesia, and retribution rattle the cages of the psyche and peer into the gaping moral chasm that opens when we become estranged from ourselves. From sadistic bosses with secret fears to a woman trapped in a mime’s imaginary box, and from a post-apocalyptic misidentified Messiah to unwitting portraitists of the dead, the mind-bending world of this modern-day Edgar Allan Poe exposes the horror contained within our daily lives.
     
    “Brilliant . . . Evenson manages to capture madness with a masterful tone. The specific genius of Fugue State rests in subtlety, in Evenson’s ability to maintain suspense, dread and paranoia through utter linguistic control.” —Time Out New York
     
    “Brian Evenson is one of the treasures of American story writing, a true successor both to the generation of Coover, Barthelme, Hawkes and Co., but also to Edgar Allan Poe.” —Jonathan Lethem
     
    “The stories in this collection will thrill, unsettle, and captivate . . . Read at your own risk.” —Kelly Link
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateFeb 17, 2011
    ISBN9781566892674
    Unavailable
    Fugue State: Stories
    Author

    Brian Evenson

    Called "one of the world's foremost authors of books about programming" by International Developer magazine, best-selling author Brian Evenson has written about programming for over three decades. His books have sold millions of copies worldwide and have been widely translated. Brian is interested in all facets of computing, but his primary focus is computer languages. He is the author of numerous books on Java, C, C++, Python etc. Brian holds BA and MCS degrees from the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign.

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    Reviews for Fugue State

    4/5

    35 ratings5 reviews

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    • 5/5
      "I had, Bentham claimed, fallen into a sort of fugue state, in which the world moved past me more and more rapidly, a kind of blur englobing me at every instant." Most mature work from evenson to date, the stories nestle against each perfectly. Less shocking horror, more haunting, these tales are comic, bizarre, cathartic but always chilling. Connected through a theme of dissociation these 19 stories are shot through with isolation, jarring events and the disintegration of self.One of my favourites deals with two sisters and an insignificant childhood event which while one no longer remembers deeply traumatised the the other. evenson expert crafted language creates a simple tale yet deeply evocative and arresting tale. It is a complete contrast to my other favourite: Fugue State, a cold clever circular tale with an arresting plot that superbly epitomises its title. A highly recommend it for all fans of dark tales.
    • 5/5
      I've been a fan of Brian Evenson's fiction for several years now, and as much as I thoroughly enjoyed his earlier collections of short stories, Fugue State strikes me as being the single best assembly of his output to date. Evenson has always trafficked in themes dark, morbid, and surreal, and all of those elements are present in these new stories. But there is a softening in the contents of Fugue State that allows these stories to rely less on shock value and more on character development, albeit within the constraints of the short story form. There is a strong sense of isolation and self-reliance shared by these various narrators that allows the protagonists to take the spotlight away from the extreme, and sometimes a bit cliched, circumstances that they find themselves in. Being along for the ride as a writer as talented as Evenson breaks new ground in this way makes for a thrilling reading experience.
    • 3/5
      From my reading experiences horror is probably the toughest genre to succeed in. It's much more suited to a TV or cinema screen where you can combine emotions with visuals and sound. I can count on one hand the number of times literature has genuinely managed to unnerve me (and that's not quite the same as scaring).To be honest, I don't think much of the likes of Ligotti, an author who gets touted as the best writer of horror currently in existence (though perhaps only because Ligotti's collections seem so hit and miss from the ones I've read). None the less, Evenson, even if he doesn't match Ligotti when he's at his best, still gives a good showing here. These stories are uniformly pretty good. I don't think any in particular stand out as stronger or weaker than the rest, they're all solid. None of them made me uncomfortable when reading them but Evenson creates a good atmosphere throughout each and his prose is nice and direct. Nothing revelatory then but I think Evenson does a good job with a very tough genre and I wouldn't mind reading more of his output.
    • 4/5
      Great stories - unusual subject matter, great writing, interesting characters. Everything I want from a modern short story.
    • 4/5
      Brian Evenson is interested in the limitations of human understanding and our futile attempt at trying to understand the world around us using our primitive faculties that are woefully inappropriate for the job. All of the stories are based around this fundamentally human, but ultimately very limited thematic material. So it's not a surprise that Evenson runs out of things to say towards the end of the collection. Still a solid collection though.