Conjunctions: 52, Betwixt the Between: Impossible Realism

Postfantasy fiction that defies definition is at the center of a groundbreaking issue edited by Bradford Morrow and Brian Evenson in the Spring 2009 edition of Conjunctions. Imagine an everyday world in which meat is grown in vats by men called collies and butchered by BattleBots while adults play Frisbee with robots. Imagine a world in which secret societies meet in private to have "soft evenings" during which they travel "psychotic highways." Imagine what might follow the opening lines of "Brain Jelly" by Stephen Wright: "Apostrophe came from a country where all the cheese was blue. The cows there ate berries the whole day long. You should see their tongues." Along with other fictions gathered in this issue, these stories begin with the premise that the unfamiliar or liminal really constitutes solid, though undeniably strange, ground on which to walk. Contributors include such veterans as Jonathan Lethem, Elizabeth Hand, Theodore Enslin, George Saunders, Peter Straub, James Morrow, China Miéville, Robert Coover, Kelly Link, Jeff VanderMeer, M. John Harrison and Ben Marcus, as well as emerging writers such as Jon Enfield, Karen Russell, Micaela Morrissette and Stephen Marche.