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A review by discomagpie
Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, Found Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts by Matthew Vollmer, David Shields
4.0
I rated this book 3.75/5 stars on InsatiableBooksluts.com. A review copy was provided by the publisher.
Review excerpt:
"This anthology caught my eye because of a review I read in the LARB (and by "read," I mostly mean skimmed). The concept of the book revolves around the "fraudulent artifacts" in the title; it reminds me of a cross among blogs like Letters of Note, which contains real artifacts giving us fascinating peeks at people and situations via correspondence, pieces from McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and fake Amazon reviews, the writing of which has become an art form unto itself. (The reviews for Looking For ... the Best by David Hasselhoff kept me entertained for literally hours. Also, the three wolf moon shirt.)
The "artifacts" in the anthology range from an irate letter from William Carlos Williams' "roommate" ("Will, you are a dick. You're goddamn right I was saving those plums for breakfast"), to an essay from Lorrie Moore on how to become a writer ("First, try to be something, anything, else"), to reviews of Chris Bachelder's beard, to a series of police reports that unfold a more personal story. Many of the stories have elements of humor, which is to be expected, given the playfulness of the idea of a false artifact; some of the stories also deeply move the reader. My breath caught more than once."
Read the full review at InsatiableBooksluts.com.
Review excerpt:
"This anthology caught my eye because of a review I read in the LARB (and by "read," I mostly mean skimmed). The concept of the book revolves around the "fraudulent artifacts" in the title; it reminds me of a cross among blogs like Letters of Note, which contains real artifacts giving us fascinating peeks at people and situations via correspondence, pieces from McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and fake Amazon reviews, the writing of which has become an art form unto itself. (The reviews for Looking For ... the Best by David Hasselhoff kept me entertained for literally hours. Also, the three wolf moon shirt.)
The "artifacts" in the anthology range from an irate letter from William Carlos Williams' "roommate" ("Will, you are a dick. You're goddamn right I was saving those plums for breakfast"), to an essay from Lorrie Moore on how to become a writer ("First, try to be something, anything, else"), to reviews of Chris Bachelder's beard, to a series of police reports that unfold a more personal story. Many of the stories have elements of humor, which is to be expected, given the playfulness of the idea of a false artifact; some of the stories also deeply move the reader. My breath caught more than once."
Read the full review at InsatiableBooksluts.com.