It had been over 25 years since I’d read anything by Mark Leyner, when I was tempted by a publicist’s email promoting “A Shimmering, Serrated Monster!: The Mark Leyner Reader.”
I was taken aback to realize that I’m now old enough that when something happened to me 25 years ago, I was an adult, not a wee child. I was also surprised because there was a period 25 years ago when I had a month-long stretch when just about all I was reading was Mark Leyner.
Leyner is the author of numerous collections of short stories and novels, perhaps best known for his cult classic, “My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist.” I’d “discovered” Leyner via a May 1996 episode of Charlie Rose where he, David Foster Wallace and Jonathan Franzen were collectively interviewed about “the future of American fiction.”
I knew Franzen from his debut novel, “The Twenty-Seventh City,” a post-modern, DeLillo-esque conspiracy quasi-thriller set in St. Louis. Eventually, Franzen would pivot toward a more realist approach and find significant readership with 2001’s “The Corrections,” but at the time, he and Wallace seemed to be kindred spirits as explorers of the boundaries of American fiction.
At the time of the panel, Wallace had only recently published “Infinite Jest,” which I had not yet read, but I’d tuned into the show because of my previous deep connection to Wallace’s 1989 story collection, “Girl with Curious Hair.”
I was in graduate school for fiction writing, absolutely desperate to try to figure out what fiction was supposed to do, and then how someone would do that. These three guys, all about a decade or so older than me, seemed to have at least some of those questions figured out.
I did not know Leyner, even though he was in some ways the most established of the three at the time. I sought out “My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist” at the McNeese State University library, and promptly dropped into a period where I was convinced Mark Leyner was the greatest writer ever.
I was smitten, and while ultimately, the intensity of the infatuation wore off, it was with great pleasure that I reacquainted myself with Leyner’s work via the interesting and well-appointed package of “A Shimmering, Serrated Monster!”
At the core of the book is Leyner’s work, excerpts from all of his published books, arranged chronologically, with some helpful bullet-point style biographical notes about Leyner’s life prefacing each section. But in addition to the original works, we have short pieces — interviews, remembrances, critical essays — providing background and context for Leyner’s work.
One of the common themes of these ancillary pieces is that Leyner’s fiction is not so much to be understood as experienced.
This brought me back to the mid-1990s when my brain was sent aswirl by stories like “I Was an Infinitely Hot and Dense Dot” and “The Suggestiveness of One Stray Hair in an Otherwise Perfect Coiffure” from “My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist,” both included in “A Shimmering, Serrated Monster!”
Some Leyner stories read like riddles, others like free associations barely tethered to the world. They don’t make sense, but also, they do. They are often witty, but almost always with an undercurrent of darkness that leaves you unsettled by the end. Under the sway of Leyner, I tried (and failed) to write stories like them myself and realized what he was up to was no joke and no easy thing.
Not too long after, I moved on to hoover up some other writer who captured my eye. This was my time of crushes.
But you never forget the ones you loved no matter how briefly.
John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “Thunder Bay” by William Kent Krueger
2. “Lonesome Dove” by Larry McMurtry
3. “Remarkably Bright Creatures” by Shelby Van Pelt
4. “Holly” by Stephen King
5. “Tender is the Flesh” by Agustina Bazterrica
— Fern J., Wilmette
This recommentation is more out there than usual, but something tells me Fern will connect with it, “Fever Dream” by Samanta Schweblin.
1. “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck
3. “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens
4. “Ulysses” by James Joyce
5. “King Lear” by William Shakespeare
— Robert M., Chicago
Robert is trying to read “the classics,” so I’m going to respect that wish while still trying to point him toward something he might not have gotten to himself: “Babbitt” by Sinclair Lewis.
1. “Little Fires Everywhere” by Celeste Ng
2. “The Women” by Kristin Hannah
3. “First Lie Wins” by Ashley Elston
4. “The Wedding People” by Alison Espach
5. “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” by John Boyne
— Amy P., Chicago
Francine Prose’s “Blue Angel” should have the mix of interesting characters and human intrigue Amy is drawn to.
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com.