He has amassed a varied group of established genre and "literary" authors and assigned each the task of telling a thrilling tale. Tales that told a story, or as Chabon theorizes, "contained enough plot and color to support an entire full-feature Hollywood adaptation." So, with the blessing of McSweeney's founder, Dave Eggers, Chabon set out to do something about this. Forgotten is the era of plot-driven works by Chandler, Hammett, Lovecraft and others. Editor Chabon prefaces: For the last year or so I have been boring my friends, and not a few strangers, with semi-coherent, ill-reasoned, and doubtless mistaken rant on the subject of the American short story as it is currently writtenĬhabon goes on to explain his concern with those who either expect or define the successful short story by the "moment of life" standard which typically graced the pages of The New Yorker in years past. The idea behind McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales is almost as interesting as the collection itself. Is this modern pulp? Or authors at play? It's left for the reader to decide. The collection is edited by Pulitzer winner Michael Chabon and contributors include thriller-ifick Michael Crichton, lit darling Dan Chaon, crimester Elmore Leonard, and senior scaremeister Stephen King, among others, all serving up a substantial 480 page collection with 1950s pulp art retro cover. McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales seems like an attempt to confuse such people with a collection of strange stories from an even stranger grouping of authors.
Then there are those people who only approach the latest award winners, the literary novels delivered in the more visually subtle and larger format of the quality trade paperback. There are those regular readers who, when walking into their local bookstore, head directly towards the mass market racks where the slick-covered smaller books of murder and fantasy reign supreme. It is said that you can't judge a book by its cover, but we all do this to some extent. McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling TalesĮxpectation can create one sticky wicket when it comes to being a reader (and a reviewer). Review | McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales edited by Michael Chabon
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