Description

Experimental Short Fiction and Essays: 1988 to 2012

A different view…

Medusa tells her own story… and it’s not the version you’re familiar with. Different newspaper stories depict the same person as both a hero… and a villain. A regular college student heads home for the holidays… on another planet. Many different peoples lives all intersect… on a street corner in downtown Portland. A mad scientist creates a universe in his basement… and gets annoyed by a certain species on a certain planet. An author creates a story about a student who writes a college paper… about an author who wrote a collection of short stories, each told from the perspective of different characters.

Today our society is falteringly undergoing an ongoing cultural moment of revelation about the importance of diverse perspectives: not just yours or mine or someone else’s, but everyone’s perspectives. We are beginning to understand that if we are to learn and grow in peace and relative harmony with one another, then it’s essential to be able to see the world from perspectives other than our own. That’s what Perspectives strives to do.

Each of the works in this collection explores a unique perspective.

One story is told from Medusa’s perspective (although it’s not exactly the canonical version of the story as you learned it from Greek mythology). Another considers different perspectives on a nonconformist character who is both a hero and a criminal at the same time. One of the “stories” is a fictional book report, written by a fictional college student about a fictional book which is itself a collection of short stories told from a variety of perspectives. Reading on through Perspectives, we hear from a mad scientist; we enjoy the adventures of a perfectly relatable character who just happens to live on another planet; and we imagine a conversation between the Buddha Gotama and the Jain holy monk, Jina Mahavira. And at the center of the collection is the title piece: an impressionistic story examining the perspectives of many individuals who differ by race, gender, age, and circumstances, but who all share a moment together at a singular point in space and time.

This collection of Jesse S. Smith’s surprising and wonderfully creative experimental short fiction in a variety of genres is rounded out by a lively series of essays considering unexpected perspectives on Eastern philosophies, early Christianity as a social movement, a modern adaptation of Shakespeare, and the use of humor in apocalyptic fiction.

So treat yourself to a glass of whatever it is you like to treat yourself to, and put your feet up, and enjoy these wild and crazy perspectives.

Table of Contents

Short Fiction

I, Medusa

The Punk

Nowhere

Perspectives

Think Big

Excerpts from the Diary of a Mad Scientist

At the Center (an earlier version of this story appeared in the Whitman College Blue Moon vol. 11 no 1, 1998)

Don’t Listen

Planet Earth: A Survival Guide

The Yellow Light

A Day at the Beach

The Instigator

A Snippet from the Life of Quaistro Frouzan

Love in the 90’s (this is the one that was originally written as part of Impure Fiction)

The Existence of Roommates

Thoughts from 1999

The Second Coming

The Realization

Essays

His Christmas wish is for world at peace (originally published as a letter to the editor of the local newspaper in 1988)

Part of a Conversation I Had with Owen over Christmas Break

Romeo and Juliet in “Yo” Face

An Unimpassioned Argument

Christianity: The Formative Years

What’s So Funny About Apocalypse?