{"id":9922,"date":"2022-08-08T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-08T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9922"},"modified":"2022-08-08T07:50:54","modified_gmt":"2022-08-08T11:50:54","slug":"reading-lessons-jacked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9922","title":{"rendered":"Reading Lessons: Jacked"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A crime fiction short story has to accomplish a lot in a compressed space. It of course has to describe the crime involved in enough detail that it makes sense to readers; it has to create believable characters whose fates you care about, at least enough to arouse your curiosity, if not your admiration; and the narrative has to move along briskly\u2014skirting the law isn\u2019t an occupation for laggards. The twenty-one crime stories in the new anthology Jacked<\/em>,<\/a> edited by Vern Smith, manage to do all this and then some.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of the stories are pretty dark indeed, and I was interested in how some of the authors managed nevertheless to produce a few laughs. A bit of humor is a welcome addition to what can be a rather bleak assessment of human frailty. Here\u2019s how the stories in this collection manage it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In several, the situation itself is innately funny. An example is Eric Beetner\u2019s \u201cFirst Timers,\u201d in which a pair of inexperienced teenagers steal the wrong person\u2019s car. The laughs end before the story does, you\u2019ll find. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A long story that closes the book is Ricky Sprague\u2019s \u201cThe Gryfters.\u201d Again, there\u2019s a wacky premise. The humor arises because all the characters (who are a motley group) play the situation straight, except the narrator Chris. He sees all the weirdness for what it is. His roommate, a young guy on the fringes of criminality, hits upon the bright idea of developing a ride-share service for criminals who need a fast getaway. You know you\u2019re in for an entertaining ride, when, early on, the roommates discuss possible names for the service. Gryft is the apparent choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chris\u2019s hesitant, stumbling conversation shows how swamped he is by fear and doubt. Still, he can\u2019t escape a rapidly deteriorating situation. He\u2019s doomed to be a passenger in the slowest imaginable trip across Los Angeles in a car so ridiculously crowded you\u2019ll envision a circus clown car. What makes the humor work is Chris\u2019s miserable awareness and the cinematic clarity of Sprague\u2019s descriptions. (No surprise then that he has two stories in the 2021 anthology of humorous mysteries, Die Laughing<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Jacqueline Seewald\u2019s \u201cWorst Enemy,\u201d the sister of a man accused of murder convinces a private investigator to try to prove her brother\u2019s innocence. P.I. Bob Harris doesn\u2019t want to take the case, because it looks like the brother is <\/em>the killer\u2014the police have DNA evidence\u2014and he was too drunk to remember anything that might provide an alibi. In fact, he even concedes he might have done it. Despite his original misgivings, Bob digs in, and his unease provides a few unexpected light moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading a collection like Jacked<\/em><\/a> is a good way to sample different authors\u2019 styles. Editor Vern Smith, himself an author, is an Arthur Ellis Award finalist. The three stories mentioned aside, the collection falls on the dark end of the spectrum, gritty and uncompromising, with a sense that the characters are teetering on the edge of something and may fly off at any moment. Strap on your seatbelt before reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking for Great Reading? You’ll get my best picks in a quarterly newsletter. Sign up here<\/a> and receive three prize-winning short stories!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A crime fiction short story has to accomplish a lot in a compressed space. It of course has to describe the crime involved in enough detail that it makes sense to readers; it has to create believable characters whose fates … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Even in the darkest stories, a ray of humor is appreciated. How authors in this dark short story anthology managed it.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,1821,126,120],"tags":[2007,2008],"class_list":["post-9922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime","category-humor","category-reading-2","category-short-story","tag-jacked","tag-vern-smith"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2A2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9922"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9927,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9922\/revisions\/9927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}