"A strikingly original collection . . . imaginative, insightful, witty and sad." -- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"An already dazzling writer shows us a new card. . . . Men and Cartoons ends on a note that portends Lethem's most experimental turn yet: toward human love as [a transporting] alternate universe. . . . Lethem in a new, more nakedly personal key." -- San Francisco Chronicle
"Lethem is the man to beat in fiction these days. . . . Every tale of ennui, cosmic regret and petty yearning is perfectly realized. The brevity of the book and perfection of the stories puts every other member of his generation to shame." -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Ineffably poignant." -- Time
"His sheer inventiveness is a treat. . . . Affecting and clever, these tales are standouts." -- People
"Terrific. . . . Lethem captures the world we know and the one hovering just beyond our periphery." -- The Baltimore Sun
"A pleasure. . . . These stories offer potent little distillations of Lethem's considerable imagination." -- Entertainment Weekly
"Compelling. . . . Effective. . . . Intelligent and poignant. . . . Strange, amusing, haunting. . . . Lethem has what musicians call 'chops,' or technical mastery. He can mix and match prose styles and literary genres to create glittering fictional artifacts. . . . Each of these nine tales rewards the reader in some way--through an insight, a scene or simply the force of the author's imagination." -- St. Petersburg Times
"Bristling with familiarity. . . . Theme[s] that resonate. . . . [Lethem is] adept at letting palpable human experiences emerge from absurd, fantastical situations." -- The San Diego Union-Tribune
"Nuanced. . . . Resonates with intense force." -- Newsday
"Laugh-out-loud funny tales of love, flamboyance, and childhood memories." -- Elle
"Smart. . . . Original. . . . Memorable. . . . Lethem is . . . [like] the Coen Brothers of fiction." -- The Seattle Times
"Men and Cartoons will open up a vast new world to readers unfamiliar with Lethem's oeuvre. . . . The entries are uniformly fine--each in its own way representative of Lethem's mastery of whatever style he attempts." -- Rocky Mountain News
"Fantastic." -- Vanity Fair
"Engaging. . . . A Lethem primer. . . . The characters of Men and Cartoons need their stories to be told." -- The Village Voice
"Jonathan Lethem spits out genres like curse words--from sci-fi to pseudo-erotica to the
epistolary. His narrative psychosis is our disturbed enjoyment." -- Genre Magazine
"Wonderful. . . . A collection of tales based in Brooklyn but permeated with fantasy [from] the very talented Mr. Lethem." -- The Hartford Courant
"Lethem at his best. . . . [An] appealing array of stories [that] exemplify Lethem's talents as a profoundly imaginative writer." -- Chattanooga Times Free Press
The Vision
I FIRST MET THE KID KNOWN AS THE VISION at second base, during a kickball game in the P.S. 29 gymnasium, fifth grade. That's what passed for physical education in 1974: a giant rubbery ball, faded red and pebbled like a bath mat, more bowled than pitched in the direction of home plate. A better kick got the ball aloft, and a fly was nearly uncatchable—after the outfielder stepped aside, as he or she invariably did, nearly anything in the air was a home run. Everyone fell down, there'd be a kid on his ass at each base as you went past. Alternately, a mistimed kick scudded back idiotically to the pitcher, and you were thrown out at first.
The Vision booted a double. His real name was Adam Cressner, but he believed himself or anyway claimed to be the Vision: the brooding, superpowered android from Marvel Comics' Avengers. The comic-book Vision had the power to vary the density of his body, becoming a ghost if he wished to float through walls or doors, becoming diamond hard if he wished to stop bullets like Superman. Adam Cressner couldn't do any of this. This day he wasn't even wearing his cape or costume, but under black curls his broad face was smeared unevenly with red food dye, as it always was. I was fascinated. The Vision had come to be taken for granted at Public School 29, but I'd never seen him up close.
"Nice kick," I ventured, to Adam Cressner's back. The Vision had assumed a stance of readiness, one foot on the painted base, hands dangling between his knees Lou Brock–style. "Ultron-5 constructed me well," replied the Vision in the mournful monotone of a synthetic humanoid. Before I could speak again the ball was in the air, and Adam Cressner had scooted home to score, not pausing as he rounded third.
Now the Vision was a grown man in a sweatshirt moving an open Martini & Rossi carton-load of compact discs into the basement entrance of the next-door brownstone. I spotted Captain Beefheart, Sonny Sharrock, Eugene Chadbourne. I'd been returning from the corner bodega with a quart of milk when I recognized him instantly, even without his red face and green hood, or the yellow cape he'd worn in winter months. "Adam Cressner?" I asked. I made it a question to be polite: it was Adam Cressner.
"Do I know you?" Cressner's hair was still curly and loose, his eyes still wild blue.
"Not really. We went to school together."
"Purchase?"
"P.S. 29, fifth grade." I pointed thumbwise in the direction of Henry Street. I didn't want to say: You were the Vision, man! But I supposed in a way I'd just said it. "Joel Porush."
"Possibly I remember you." He said this with a weird premeditated hardness, as if not remembering but possibly remembering was a firm policy.
"Migrated back to the old neighborhood?"
Cressner placed the box at the slate lip of the basement stairwell and stepped around his gate to take my hand. "By the time we had a down payment we could barely afford this part of the city," he said. "But Roberta doesn't care that I grew up around here. She became entranced with the neighborhood reports in the City section."
"Wife?"
"Paramour."
"Ah." This left me with nothing to say except, "I should have you guys over for drinks."
The Vision lifted one Nimoy-esque eyebrow.
"When you get in and catch your breath, of course." You and the paramour.
I met Roberta at the border of our two backyards, the next Sunday. The rear gardens through the middle of the block were divided by rows of potted plants but no fence, allowing easy passage of cats and conversation. These communal yards were a legacy from the seventies that most new owners hadn't chosen to reverse. I had a basement renter's usual garden privileges, and was watering the plants which formed the border when Roberta Jar appeared at her back door. She introduced herself, and explained that she and Cressner had bought the house.
"Yes, I met Adam a few days ago," I said. "I know him, actually. From around here."
"Oh?"
I'd supposed he'd told of our encounter in front, mentioned being recognized by a schoolmate. Now I had to wonder whether to explain Cressner's childhood fame. "We were at grade school together, on Henry Street. Long before this was a fashionable address. Surely he's walked you past his alma mater."
"Adam doesn't reminisce," said Roberta Jar coolly and, I thought, strangely. The assertion which could have been fond or defiant had managed to be neither. I thought of how Adam had possibly remembered, the week before.
"Funny, I do nothing else," I said. I hoped it was a charming line. Roberta Jar didn't smile, but her eyes flashed a little encouragement.
"Does it pay well?" she asked.
Copyright © 2004 by Jonathan Lethem
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Jonathan Lethem's new collection of stories is a feast for his fans and the perfect introduction for new readers--nine fantastic, amusing, poignant tales written in a dizzying variety of styles, as Lethem samples high and low culture to create fictional worlds that are utterly original. Longtime readers will recognize echoes of Lethem's novels in all these pieces--narrators who can't stop babbling, hapless would-be detectives, people with unusual powers that do them no good, hot-blooded academics, and characters whose clever repartee masks lovelorn desperation as they negotiate both the stumbling path of romance and the bittersweet obligations of friendship. Among them: "The Vision" is a story about drunken neighborhood parlor games, boys who dress up as superheroes, and the perils of snide curiosity. "Access Fantasy" is part social satire, part weird detective story. Evoking Lethem's earliest work, it conjures up a world divided between people who have apartments and people trapped in an endless traffic jam behind The One-Way Permeable Barrier. "The Spray" is a simple story about how people in love deal with their past. A magical spray is involved. "Vivian Relf" is a tour de force about loss. A man meets a woman at a party; they're sure they've met before, but they haven't. As the years progress this strangely haunting encounter comes to define the narrator's life. "The Dystopianist, Thinking of His Rival, Is Interrupted by a Knock on the Door" is a Borgesian tale that features suicidal sheep. (This story won a Pushcart Prize when first published in Conjunctions.)
