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5.0
Scott Edelman’s collection is something special. It’s my favourite kind of collection, the kind where each story is its own world separate from the others, yet they were all birthed from a single concept—what if Edelman, veteran scifi writer and editor, wrote his own original stories, but presented them in the form of pastiches, paying homage to great writers of the past?
Edelman traverses a range of genres and styles as he visits the minds of Hemingway, Shakespeare, Carver, and many other literary greats. The results are familiar forms and structures housing stories that only could have been written in the present, and only if the “giants’” works had existed first to inspire them. It’s a bit of a paradox, but one that fascinates by facilitating a literary conversation across time. For example, “A Plague on Both Your Houses” asks, what if Shakespeare wrote about the things that occupy 21st century minds, like zombies! The result is a modern Shakespearean script that reads like The Walking Dead in iambic pentameter.
The title story, “Tell Me Like You Done Before” similarly posits a spinoff of Of Mice and Men in which zombies shape the setting. But all of the stories aren’t about zombies. “This is Where the Title Goes,” for example, is a fascinating piece of metafiction in the vein of Italo Calvino, that is as much about telling the story as it is about the story itself.
Since the collection is such a delicious work of fiction about fiction and the many forms it takes, it is the kind of book you can’t help but study and learn from. In fact, it would be a perfect text to delve into in a creative writing course or for independent study, and many of the stories reminded me of my own experiences in creative writing workshops, of pastiche assignments and the wild incarnations that they spawned.
My favourite story was the Carver-inspired “What We Still Talk About” that took the traditional Carver relationship-focused plot and set it in a far future in which a couple are making a pilgrimage back to Earth.
While the stories themselves provide a wealth of literary history and present, Edelman’s interpretations at the end were my favourite part. He’s provided notes on each story that explain the inspiration, the precise intent, and often offer more insight into the writers’ minds. For example, he explains that he was inspired to writer “What We Still Talk About” when he learned that Raymond Carver began by writing science fiction stories, which he later abandoned to pursue more “literary” themes. The insight presented in these story notes is the perfect way to round out the conversation Edelman has facilitated with the giants of the past, and just might propel him into giant-territory himself.
Edelman traverses a range of genres and styles as he visits the minds of Hemingway, Shakespeare, Carver, and many other literary greats. The results are familiar forms and structures housing stories that only could have been written in the present, and only if the “giants’” works had existed first to inspire them. It’s a bit of a paradox, but one that fascinates by facilitating a literary conversation across time. For example, “A Plague on Both Your Houses” asks, what if Shakespeare wrote about the things that occupy 21st century minds, like zombies! The result is a modern Shakespearean script that reads like The Walking Dead in iambic pentameter.
The title story, “Tell Me Like You Done Before” similarly posits a spinoff of Of Mice and Men in which zombies shape the setting. But all of the stories aren’t about zombies. “This is Where the Title Goes,” for example, is a fascinating piece of metafiction in the vein of Italo Calvino, that is as much about telling the story as it is about the story itself.
Since the collection is such a delicious work of fiction about fiction and the many forms it takes, it is the kind of book you can’t help but study and learn from. In fact, it would be a perfect text to delve into in a creative writing course or for independent study, and many of the stories reminded me of my own experiences in creative writing workshops, of pastiche assignments and the wild incarnations that they spawned.
My favourite story was the Carver-inspired “What We Still Talk About” that took the traditional Carver relationship-focused plot and set it in a far future in which a couple are making a pilgrimage back to Earth.
While the stories themselves provide a wealth of literary history and present, Edelman’s interpretations at the end were my favourite part. He’s provided notes on each story that explain the inspiration, the precise intent, and often offer more insight into the writers’ minds. For example, he explains that he was inspired to writer “What We Still Talk About” when he learned that Raymond Carver began by writing science fiction stories, which he later abandoned to pursue more “literary” themes. The insight presented in these story notes is the perfect way to round out the conversation Edelman has facilitated with the giants of the past, and just might propel him into giant-territory himself.
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