Fortune Smiles
Adam
Johnson
First and foremost, a content warning: the story "Dark Meadow"
centers on a pedophile and treats this character sympathetically;
proceed with caution. While I believe that this story effectively
accomplishes its goals, reading it is a profoundly disturbing
experience, insofar as it plants the reader firmly in this
character's mind. Johnson (and, indeed, his editor(s)) may have had
good intentions when including this story in the collection, but it
is unsavory and would have better been left out.
Otherwise, this is an interesting short story collection that
operates primarily in a familiar mode: it consists mostly of
"literary" fiction with a few hints of sci-fi-inspired
intrigue that are always a little too ashamed to cross over directly
into genre writing. This is not necessarily a bad thing in and of
itself, but Johnson seems too willing to go along with the
traditional strictures of litfic rather than exploring the inventive
elements that would otherwise lend this collection some desperately
needed originality. Several stories simply fail to capitalize on the
author's grand ideas, whether by coming into them with too little
interest too late in the story ("Nirvana") or by failing to
connect the fantastic elements effectively to the story's other
themes ("Fortune Smiles"). Interestingly enough, the most
effective stories are the realistically minded "Hurricanes
Anonymous" and "George Orwell Was a Friend of Mine",
both of which are grounded in strong, compelling characters who carry
the narratives even when nothing much is actually happening to or
around them; the latter story, especially, is a masterclass in
engendering readers' sympathy for an unsavory character, offering as
it does an exploration into the idea of the banality of evil without
excessive moralizing or unaffected indifference. Overall, Fortune
Smiles is full of excellent writing and grapples with several
interesting themes, but fails to capitalize on its most intriguing
ideas, settling instead for typical aimless litfic fare.
Grade: B-
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