In this pulp-noir short story collection, tough men and women grit their teeth through lousy jobs and half-crazy plays for action. Whether they’re on the top of the heap or the bottom of the pile, they’re struggling with sex, drugs, booze, and money, with just enough humor to make it through the dark days but too much presence of mind to believe it’s going to be okay.
This Other Eden is a collection of six new and old stories by Michael Hemmingson. Of those which are not original to the collection, most have been renamed—”This Other Eden” to “That Never Happened,” “Tuck” to “Where He was the Day It Happened,” and “The Agent” to “What Happens Between Literary Clients and Agents While in New York.” The other titles manage to happen as well, presumably natively—”Now That I Know What Happened, Could You Hold Me, Please, and Say This Is Love?” “And Then It Happened,” and, in a coup de grace, “What Happens When Things Happen to People.” In other words, one is alerted from the table of contents onward: these are stories in which things occur. Often to people. Sometimes disputably. Other times with aftermaths.
I already feel a like I need a cup of coffee and a shower.
First impressions: As an object, it’s nice. This is a hard-boiled book which could actually hold its own in a seedy dive; I could read it while eating a greasy hamburger and I wouldn’t smear the type. I can stuff it in my backpack or throw it across the room without doing much damage. The cover art works, the pages don’t stick together, and when I’m reading the book at the DMV or loaning it to a friend I don’t worry it’s going to fall apart or make me look like an idiot. It’s a good size and shape; the text is legibly printed and admirably free from typos and punctuation errors, always a gamble with this traditionally dime-store genre.
As for the words between the covers, they’re readable without being brilliant. Put more positively, my world hasn’t been expanded but my time hasn’t been wasted either. The stories in This Other Eden are limited in scope, but full of likeably gritty intellectuals—Bogart for the new millennium, basically, the kind of stuff that helps you feel, when you’re down on your luck, that it’s maybe sorta romantic—or at least that your troubles really are deadly and you’re not a wuss for thinking so.
I won’t go so far as to say that Hemmingson transcends or embodies his genre, but he offers a satisfying take on it. His protagonists are neither he-men nor whiners, and his women are, well, women—smart and motivated and rounded out. (You know, human beings.) He never guts stuck in props or proselytizing—no trench coats and no impassioned speeches about how awful poverty is. The characters get it done and live their lives; they don’t try to make a big thing about it. A particular standout is the first half of “What Happens When Things Happen to People,” the Raymond Carver-with-a-broken-jaw story of a young couple struggling to make it in New York.
Hemmingson does not entirely escape genre pitfalls; throughout the stories, there’s a sense that hairdressers are more real than literary agents, and dive bars more true than suburban homes. The elevation of the workingman always feels a little false coming from an educated writer, even someone like Ginsburg or Kerouac. It’s a little fetishistic.
Hemmingson doesn’t go deep into this. He’s not supermacho. His hairdressers are often finishing MAs. But it’s a trope endemic to the style, and he doesn’t quite transcend it. His characters are all writers, of course, but do not use computers or e-mail. Heavens no. The low point of the collection, the meandering novella, “Now That I Know What Happened, Would You Hold Me, Please, and Say This Is Love?,” which starts off nicely gumshoe, but unfortunately possesses the least interesting protagonist and the most use of women as external signifiers for the hero.
In the end, I would have liked to see something more reflective from such an experienced author. (Hemmingson has, to date, written more than 50 books.) A lot of the stories begin and end with “isn’t it messed up that this happens (at least in this fictional story of rape, underage hookers, drug abuse, adultery, incest, or violence, but probably also in true stories)?” Sometimes it’s well observed, but it’s not enough for me just to observe events happening. I want a little insight on top of the event—not just a witness, but a shrink.
I’m being hard on Hemmingson, though. If hardboiled pulp noir is your bag, it’s a pretty agreeable way to spend a few bucks and a few hours rubbing elbows with lottery winners and coke fiends—especially if you have a sandwich and a glass of milk to keep you company. You can shock a few people and feel a little more intellectual about it than you might otherwise. And if you hate it, you can always throw the book across the room. It can take it.
Note: An abridged copy of this review appeared in the reviewer’s personal blog in February, while RE was on hiatus and several months before the book was published.
To buy a copy of This Other Eden, click here.
If you liked this book, check out:
Porno, by Irvine Welsh
The Urban Bizarre, edited by Nick Mamatas
Gargoyle #56, edited by Lucinda Ebersole and Richard Peabody
Pulp Fiction (Two Disc Collector’s Edition), directed by Quentin Tarantino