Virgin Fiction - Softcover

3.24

25 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0688160816 ISBN 13: 9780688160814

Publisher: Rob Weisbach Books, 1998

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Gathers twenty winning stories entered in Salon magazine's on-line fiction contest for unpublished writers

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From Publishers Weekly:

The smart online magazine Salon sponsored a short-story contest last year, named, with uncharacteristic tackiness, Virgin Fiction. The premise, to publish previously unpublished authors under the age of 35, is wonderful, although the results of the first anthology reflect mainstream creative writing culture more than the outer reaches of Net zaniness. Among the stories worth noting are Amy Gebler's "C Clamp," which describes the preparations for a wedding with a strong, shaping sense of contemporary life reminiscent of Anne Beattie; Lee Harrington's "Live Bait," in which a wife finds a novel way to stop her husband from cheating; Todd Dorman's darkly humorous "Wasn't That It," which chronicles the stay of a suicidal stalker in an institution for the socially misfit; and Courtney Saunders's "Wes Looks Like Paul Newman and I Don't," a comic story of the rivalry between two brothers told with a Texas twangAand the only story, significantly, that uses the kind of twist beloved of O. Henry. There are some forays into unusual territory: Paula R. Rhyman, for instance, in "The Middle Way," imagines the inner life of a 12-year-old Thai girl sold into prostitution; Tony Carbone, in "the end of the beltline," employs the kind of surrealism familiar to readers of Usenet groups; and Shamira Gratch's "Second Skin" takes up Chicano themes with a certain lyricism in the story of an enormously fat young boy's Halloween. Even if Virgin Fiction isn't yet up there with the Pushcart Prizes or the O. Henry Awards, this is a noble, promising start.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

The "virgin" in the title refers not to the pristine state of the characters in these stories but to the writers' having never been published before in a national magazine or book. These 20 stories are the winning entries in the annual Virgin Fiction contest, and a varied lot they are. In "Memory of a Dog," Michael Nigro advises that if you are hurtling toward a windshield, remember to cover your eyes. Having one glass eye doesn't stop the narrator from wryly observing how those around him wallow in a lack of good sense. The protagonist of Shamira Gatch's "Second Skin" has a sweet disposition, but his ever-increasing girth draws taunts from his peers, until he begins shedding his skin like the fish scales he wears on his Halloween costume. Celebrating dead friends and relatives is a revelation to the narrator of Kathleen Holt's "Collecting the Dead." Memorializing becomes an uplifting ritual, placing the mourner in a more harmonious place within the arc of life. These are unsentimental, briskly paced stories. A very good collection at a reasonable price. [Former LJ book editor Amy Boaz has a story in this collection.?Ed.]?Lisa S. Nussbaum, Euclid P.L., O.
-?Lisa S. Nussbaum, Euclid P.L., OH
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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