Showing posts with label Disjointed Fictions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Disjointed Fictions. Show all posts
Thursday, March 16, 2017
Saturday, June 25, 2016
Thursday, May 26, 2016
Friday, June 1, 1979
Gargoyle Magazine reviews Richard Grayson's DISJOINTED FICTIONS
The Washington, D.C.-based literary magazine Gargoyle reviews Richard Grayson's Disjointed Fictions in issue 11 (May 25, 1979):
Disjointed Fictions - Richard Grayson,
X, a journal of the arts, PO Box 2648,
Harrisburg, PA 17105. 42pp. perfect
bound, $3, 1978.
Grayson seems to crop up everywhere these days. Perhaps the most prolific short story writer in America. Of the six stories in this book, "Inside Barbara Walters" is hilarious, and "Progress" even better. Like Grayson says, "We are all children of television. My first word was Boraxo." Catch him quick, before his big new book comes out this spring from a major New York publisher.
Tuesday, February 27, 1979
The Smudge Review reviews Richard Grayson's DISJOINTED FICTIONS
The current (Winter 1978-1979) issue of the Detroit-based magazine The Smudge Review has a review of Richard Grayson's Disjointed Fictions by Hank Malone on pages 11-12:
DISJOINTED FICTIONS
By Richard Grayson
Released as X - A Journal of the Arts #5
Printed by Lawson Press · First Rate Offset
$3.00 · 42 Pages · Write to editor George Myers, Jr.
P.O. Box 2648 · Harrisburg, PA 17105
Disjointed Fictions is a funny, very readable, collection of "short fictions" written by one Richard Grayson, a 26 year old, well-published MFA who teaches English in Brooklyn. Mr. Grayson's premise appears to be that since he cannot write a piece of sustained fiction, like a novel, that he will instead write a book-length manuscript, building it, piece by piece, with clever fictions, ramblings, and fragments, a form popular in South America and probably best known to American readers in the work of Jorge Luis Borges.
These literary morsels and tidbits suggest a very fine talent, capable of much larger work; so the premise of an inability to sustain a longer fiction is, I think, clearly contrived for the purposes of doing this sort of thing: just jogging along in print, writing one's heart out in a wide-ranging variety of styles and fictions, relating nearly everything and everyone (especially celebrities) to himself in some very intriguing ways. It is a wildly narcissistic narrative, on the surface: very bright, wise, very "Jewish," very "New York," and often very funny, if you enjoy "put-on" and a subtle kind of surrealism that bursts occasionally in all kinds of ironically wise ways.
Disjointed Fictions is full of fun for a literate reader (comix readers beware), with lots of puns and potshots at everyone and everything. And yet, it is a strangely haunting work a well. Grayson's sense of logic is both conventional and precise, ad with this book I have discovered another fine American talent whose future work should be more than a light entertainment. Grayson is both a philosopher and a class clown, and in Disjointed Fictions there is a lot of Talmudic wisdom showing up in the wisecrack format of the Marx Brothers.
This is not a book for everyone. Sometimes the cleverness turns to lead, and the fun and absurdity becomes merely frivolous detailing On the other hand, I laughed a lot with it, and I suspect others will as well. This would be a thrilling Good Friday present to a disjointed friend. - H.M.
Friday, October 20, 1978
Long Island Poetry Collective Newsletter reviews Richard Grayson's DISJOINTED FICTIONS
The Long Island Poetry Collective Newsletter reviews Richard Grayson's Disjointed Fictions in its current (October 1978) issue:
Disjointed Fictions. Stories by Richard Grayson ($3.00 from X, A Journal of the Arts. PO Box 2648, Harrisburg, PA 17105)
So what’s a person who mostly reads poetry and non-fiction doing with a book of stories? Fact is that lots of modern fiction is innovative, defiant of form, and often less self-conscious, more daring than most poetry we read. We see an evolving open form, assimilating poetic advances and rapidly transcending category. Read aloud, it even sounds great. In Disjointed Fictions, things fall into place . . . or seem to . . . or maybe not. Richard Grayson is frequently witty, nearly always irreverent; we catch him in the midst of talking to himself, trying to put it all together, commenting on the process of writing, managing to skirt self-indulgence as he steps and out of his stories. He tries for scope and simultaneity with mixed results, though; his connections are often tenuous, the parts sometimes refuse to link. Maybe it’s intended; the book’s title implies as much. Grayson is most effective when he works in direct forms. “Progress” is a bizarre but understated tale reminiscent of “The Twilight Zone” and works very well for me. “The Facts Are Always Friendly” is ingenious, successfully developing characters through news briefs covering all the days of Winter 1972-73. Disjointed Fictions appears as Issue #5 of X, A Journal of the Arts, and is perfectbound with endpapers. Unfortunately the entire thirty-eight pages of text are set in an italic typewriter face, without leading, a poor design choice resulting in margin legibility. The $3.00 price tag seems steep and is sure to discourage many who would enjoy the book.
– George William Fisher
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