L by Theresa Smith: A Book Review

In an early scene from the movie Adaptation, a Hollywood studio executive says to the screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, “Boy, I’d like to find a portal into your brain.”

I could say the same for myself regarding Theresa Smith, the author of the short story collection L (Expat Press).

 

[Yes, that’s the title… L.]

 

I’d like to survey the firing synapses that are at work when she is writing her stories. As a matter of fact, her stories made me feel the same way I felt when I first watched Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich or his Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

 

Her stories are that good, that new… that much the product of a unique intellect and spirit.

 

This is not hyperbole. These stories are unlike anything else I’ve read. You should be reading them.

 

You just should.

 

Reading Smith’s work is akin to watching a movie scripted by Kaufman, which is akin to watching a magician. Like Kaufman, Smith’s literary sleight of hand will leave you asking, “How did she do that?”

 

If you’ve read my blog, you know that I’ve committed to buying and reviewing small press books. In the past I’ve reviewed:

 

Silt (Alternating Current Press) by Chris Geier: here

A Dog Between Us (Stalking Horse Press) by Duncan Barlow: here

Collected Voices in the Expanded Field (11:11 Press): here

 

When L arrived, I was impressed with the overall look of the book. Then, I started reading the stories and immediately flipped to the front of the book to see what literary magazines they’d been published in.

 

But, there wasn’t an acknowledgments page. That lead to me reaching out to Manuel Marrero, the publisher and lifeblood behind Expat Press to ask about it. Was it an oversight? Were none of these stories previously published (very rare for a short fiction collection)? Did Smith just send you the entire manuscript with no previous publications?

 

Marrero: “Finding Theresa Smith is actually the origin story of the press. I wanted to put out writers I thought were exceptional, many of whom only had a passing interest in publishing, who wouldn’t self-advocate in the way it takes to send their work out for consideration. I’d found Theresa’s writing on a music message board actually. She had these tumblrs that I’m not sure are still up, that were really geeky, about science, philosophy, but with humorous angles like, an algorithm to determine which member of Rush wrote a given song. I had seen her at shows in New York. She was in a band. I private messaged her on that music message board, she met me and my then-partner at a bar, and we fast became good friends. She started sending me writing and as far as I know, she only ever sent them to me. I published iterations of her work on the site and in early zines. I propositioned a book, and she delivered.”

 

That is just one cool origin story for a press!

 

Back to Manuel in a moment. He and I have been corresponding a bit, and it’s been a true pleasure.

 

But, so… L. It’s a question I’ve been asking myself as I’ve been reading: How does one make potential readers understand the writer/mind at work in these groundbreaking stories?

 

I make bold now my attempt to do just that.

 

For instance, in the story “Henry” the narrator summons from watery depths the body of author Henry James… and then reanimates the corpse. The goal? To interrogate the now undead author to settle an argument about James’ book, Turn of the Screw.

 

Each of the stories, if given a short synopsis, would sound something like that. It’s bizarre and good stuff.

 

Really good.

 

Genius, even? I would say yes. An easy genius to live with? I don’t know. When the Hollywood executive tells Kaufman she’d like a portal into his brain, a sweaty Kaufman (played by Nicolas Cage) responds, “Trust me, it’s not fun.”

 

I wonder if there are days that Smith would answer the same… a brain like that can be a burden and a gift.

 

I think the extent of her writing genius would be best appreciated in some short excerpts.

 

In the story “The Transformations of the Archaeologist” an archaeologist gets prepared to drill into a monument of an historical figure. Smith enjoys writing lists in her stories, and the list in the excerpt that follows demonstrates her creative genius. It has to be the most believable and wholly fictional list in literary history:

 

            “The next task was to obtain permission to drill through the monument. This could effectively displace hundreds of historical objects interred in the same monument, including, but not limited to, Farglan’s Knives; the three paroles of Mxin, a fellow of the Fourth Academy; the logical connective “but”; the roots of the prepositional calculus; Photh’s sulfuric gaming set; the barrier between kingdoms, rendered in invisible gradations; the last tock of Nnob’s favored timepiece; the battle standard of M’s army (forced to retreat into a geological impossibility and therefore never technically vanquished); the similarity between P’s and p’s battle swords; the word used by F to describe a blemish on his silvery livery; the world-sized anvil of X, a basket-shaped arrangement of the known elements according to their relative propensity to compose materials pleasing to the senses; a census of all the law-breaking shapes residing in V’s protectorate; N’s self-branding brand.”

 

In another story titled G.A.M.E. a bartender describes how a popular video game seemingly takes over human existence. I’m not certain if it’s my own need to find a message in a story, but in this one it felt like Smith was possibly saying something about the ubiquitous nature of technology in our own lives… where virtual reality is becoming difficult to distinguish from reality.

 

But, Smith might not have meant this at all.

 

The story includes the copy that originally appeared on the back of the game box:

 

“A puzzle that exploits the basic psychological requirements of organization and delineation! At the core of human experience is the need to make sense of a chaotic and uncoordinated world. The Game uses patented suggestive techniques to pleasantly aggravate your natural impulse to categorize events and objects as it diminishes and eventually destroys the conceptual space between these objects, creating a Fun Conundrum in which efforts to maintain distinctions between classes of objects are consistently undone by frequent intimations of a higher conceptual unity (cards included). But not to worry: positive affirmation tokens (available for purchase) and special polarized eyewear (make your own!) could allow you to be the first to escape from the Funundrum, leaving other players to deal with the massive cognitive dissonance induced by the simultaneous recognition of the object of cognition as a plenum and a unity!

 

            It sold like crazy, of course, because it was something people were basically already doing, only now they could quantize it and beat other people at it, which is something people love to do, and always have. I can’t help wondering how many remedial versions of the game have been invented over the years which, because they lacked this precise scientifically-calibrated balance of metaphysical certainty and intellectual sadism, faded into obscurity, or became religions.”

 

Even as I excerpt this book and try to review it, it dawns on me that I’m failing. To make you understand the unique genius of these stories, I’d have to excerpt all of them in their entirety.

 

It’s that good.

 

I did have more opportunities to ask Manuel Marrero some question about ExPat Press. We got on one of my favorite subjects, which is that readers should first purchase small press books directly from the publisher’s website rather than Amazonopoly. Marrero doesn’t even have ExPat’s books available on Amazon. When I told him about my quest to get more people to buy direct, he had this to say:

 

Marrero: “Haha, we’re of one mind and you’re talking to a mirror. I always buy directly from the author or press if I can, even if more expensive. If you want the world to look like Amazon, buy exclusive. If you want sacred spaces like bookstores and if you want salt of the earth interaction, engage actively. Some presses don’t bother with it and do all their business on amazon. I don’t judge. I buy books on amazon when the author is dead or if there’s something specific that I want and can’t find anywhere else, but I gotta put my money where my mouth is, you know?”

 

I admire his approach to publishing as it’s probably a risk to forego Amazon.

 

But, just because it’s not on Amazon doesn’t mean that L doesn’t exist. It’s for sale on Expat’s site (just scroll down to find L and click Add to Cart): here

 

If you take a chance on this book, you very likely won’t be disappointed. What I would say of Theresa Smith is that she’s writing entirely to please and perplex herself… and thereby, I believe, she’s truly writing for all of us.

Jeff Vande Zande is an English professor at Delta College in Michigan. His latest collection, The Neighborhood Division: Stories, is now out through Whistling Shade Press and available: here