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rosseroo's review
3.0
Indie publisher Akashic hit it big with its city-based "Noir" collections (D.C. Noir, Mumbai Noir, etc.), and looks to repeat that success with a new series of drug-themed collections. This one contains fourteen original stories about speed, which, the introduction asserts is "the most demonized -- and misunderstood -- drug in the land." (Although editor Mattson struggles mightily for a page or two emphasize the complexity of the amphetamine experience, that framing comes across as somewhat forced to someone who's never partaken.) In the broadest terms, the stories can be divided between those that aspire to impart some sense of the drug through their style or construction, those that place the drug use within the realm of the everyday world, and those that are positioned in a more conventional realistic crime milieu. And again, it may be the bias of the straight-edge kid within me, but I found the former (including stories by William Vollman, Jerry Stahl, Natalie Diaz, James Greer and James Franco) completely uninteresting, and borderline unreadable.
The second batch are moderately interesting, such as Megan Abbott's story of an angel of mercy doctor whose prescriptions are an attempt to provide relief and happiness; or Tao Lin's deadpan chronicle of New York hipsters schlepping around town on Adderall; Beth Lisick's first-person narration by a Martha Stewartish housewife prepping for a party; and Rose Bunch's description of another middle-class housewife's uneasy relationship with her sketchy meth-cooking neighbors. My favorite stories, however, were those that for better or for worse, hew closest to expectations. These are basically all tales of deals gone bad: Kenji Jasper's "Osito," Scott Phillips's "Labiodental Frictive," editor Mattson's own story, and Sherman Alexie's rez-set "War Cry." The best in the book is "Wheelbarrow Kings" Jess Walter's darkly comic story of two users struggling to get some cash together to score on the mean streets of Spokane.
As with most anthologies, each reader's individual results will vary and hopefully you'll be find a contributor or two you'll want to explore further. (In my case, I already like Jess Walter, and heartily recommend his book Citizen Vince, also set in Spokane.) And while the stories more or less manage to convey the diversity of experience amphetamines can provide, I'm not really sure they'll lead to greater understanding than watching a season or two of Breaking Bad.
The second batch are moderately interesting, such as Megan Abbott's story of an angel of mercy doctor whose prescriptions are an attempt to provide relief and happiness; or Tao Lin's deadpan chronicle of New York hipsters schlepping around town on Adderall; Beth Lisick's first-person narration by a Martha Stewartish housewife prepping for a party; and Rose Bunch's description of another middle-class housewife's uneasy relationship with her sketchy meth-cooking neighbors. My favorite stories, however, were those that for better or for worse, hew closest to expectations. These are basically all tales of deals gone bad: Kenji Jasper's "Osito," Scott Phillips's "Labiodental Frictive," editor Mattson's own story, and Sherman Alexie's rez-set "War Cry." The best in the book is "Wheelbarrow Kings" Jess Walter's darkly comic story of two users struggling to get some cash together to score on the mean streets of Spokane.
As with most anthologies, each reader's individual results will vary and hopefully you'll be find a contributor or two you'll want to explore further. (In my case, I already like Jess Walter, and heartily recommend his book Citizen Vince, also set in Spokane.) And while the stories more or less manage to convey the diversity of experience amphetamines can provide, I'm not really sure they'll lead to greater understanding than watching a season or two of Breaking Bad.
coffeeandink's review
Only read the Megan Abbott story, but that's all I wanted it for. A doctor is arrested for prescribing illegal and undisclosed drugs to his patients, after it all goes tragically wrong; his (remaining) patients are on his side. Not really about speed per se, I think, but that's not the point. The doctor is kindly and unreliable; the slippage between normal unreliable perception and drug-induced unreliability is well-done. Reminds me a lot of Elizabeth Hand. Not bad, but not one of my favorites.