In France, Eric Miles Williamson is known as "The Erudite
Bukowski." In America, he has been called "The Last Beat." Best
known for his internationally praised and stunning novels of the
blue-collar world, with the publication of 14 Fictional Positions,
Williamson now shows his readers he is much more than a chronicler
of the lives of workers and America's downtrodden. Williamson may
have triumphantly captured the blue-collar experience in his
novels, East Bay Grease, Two-Up, and Welcome to Oakland, but 14
Fictional Positions shows us that he, above all, is a painstakingly
careful author deeply entrenched in the history of his medium.
Former editor of Chelsea and Gulf Coast, now editor of American
Book Review, The Texas Review, and Boulevard, longtime member of
the Board of Directors of the National Book Critics Circle, and a
college teacher since 1984, Williamson may have humble beginnings,
but he is now a powerful force in America's literary establishment.
Each of the stories in 14 Fictional Positions snaps with precision
and intelligence. In "Hope, Among Other Vices and Virtues," we find
two men drinking "in manly tandem" whose women loathe them as much
as they love them. "I love you," says Agnes. "You are everything in
a man I want to change." "H A N G M A N," set evidently in Brazil,
weaves "a leaf-fringed legend" of two lovers whose lives are
dictated by the formal arrangement of words and literary
references. In "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young"
Williamson shows himself to be an aphorist of the caliber of George
Bernard Shaw, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Oscar Wilde, both witty and
erudite. "The Teachings of Don B." is a ghost story unlike any
other in the English language, humorous and sad, insightful and
playful, an homage to the foremost of Williamson's many prominent
mentors, who include Harold Bloom, Denis Donoghue, Ronald Sukenick,
Jacques Derrida, Edward Dorn, and, of course, the ghost of Donald
Barthelme. Twenty-five years in the making, 14 Fictional Positions
is a landmark short story collection, and confirmation that Eric
Miles Williamson is an author whose energy, talent, and wisdom
place him among the very best authors at work today in America.
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