To start, I’ll say that Ben Tanzer is a friend of mine. We’ve known each other for almost two years now, give or take. We’ve read together, drank together, critiqued each other stories, sent dozens and dozens of emails to each other, at once about everything and nothing, neither of each holding any more value than the other. I know him. I’m glad I do.
I start this way because on my blog I tend to promote my friends, to help them out with a nice post whenever they have something that deserves attention. And I start this way because what I’m about to say about Ben’s newest offering Repetition Patterns, an eBook from The Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, cleverly titled CCLAP, is not at all influenced by our friendship. The forthcoming praise would be due if I had no idea whole the hell Ben Tanzer is. That is to say, I’d love the book whether he’s bought me drinks or not.
The ’story cycle,’ as CCLAP publisher Jason Pettus calls it, is a series of six or seven somewhat interconnected stories, many of which take place in upstate New York and revolve around adolescence and childhood. The prose is starkly elegant, channeling Raymond Carver, and the themes and characters reflect the edgy, gritty stories of Junot Diaz. They center around, like most of Tanzer’s work, the idea of coping–of how people deal with events in their lives, both good and bad, strange and mundane.
My personal favorite is the ‘The Babysitter,’ which originally appeared in the renowed Chicago-based publication THE2NDHAND. ‘Pac-Man Fever’ is another solid story that reminds me of Ha Jin’s ‘The Day Cowboy Chicken Came to Town.’ Except ‘Fever’ has videogames. Videogames are much better than chicken.
One of the best parts of RP is that it’s free–sort of. Publisher Jason Pettus published the book online as a pay-what-you-like eBook, available for download in a number of different formats. Pettus has really found a interesting niche with this, and this book is ideal to have on your desktop for a quick read–these stories work best when sifted through, when you take ten minutes or so and ingest one a day, the true genius of this type of publishing.
Bottom line: buy Repetition Patterns. Pay for it, if you’re so inclined. Savor it. I’m telling you to do so.
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Dang! This most generous and most humbling. Thanks much. Also, please note that while video games may be better than chicken, Pac Men in general do in fact taste a lot like chicken, especially when deep-fried. Of course everything tastes better when deep fried, right? Sorry, I digress. Many thanks sir, you are a good friend, and if I may be so bold, a gentleman.