Dave Eggers -- How We Are Hungary: Stories

Dave Eggers' fans wondered when the young master memoirist -- a reputation sealed with one memoir -- would morph into short story writer. Between that memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (AHWOSG), and a first novel, You Shall Know Our Velocity!, Eggers positioned himself as one of the most influential publishers and literary promoters in the industry, launching his own McSweeney's, which produces The Believer, a stellar literary magazine, and houses 826 Valencia, a literacy facility in San Francisco. Who couldn't be a fan? How Eggers has set himself apart from his writing and publishing peers is not accidental. He is brilliant in both capacities. He also has a charitable side unmatched in contemporary American letters. So, if his first story collection is a bit uneven and infrequently shares the electric language and voice of AHWOSG, do not be discouraged. Did I say Eggers is fearless? In fact, he raises that bar. The book cover itself is entirely black and hand-sewn inside is a bookmark. I respect his fictional experiments here, such as placing short-short stories between the longer fiction. But this strategy ultimately seems arbitrary, leaving the short-shorts to nudge the reader instead of gaining a bizarre cumulative power. The two best short-shorts really show Eggers' versatile imagination. "Naveed" integrates baking flour into a sexual fantasy, and in "She Waits, Seething, Blooming," a mother's fear and desperation for her runaway son to return is tonally perfect and felt. To appreciate Eggers' mostly comic voice, focus on the longer stories, and two in particular: "The Only Meaning of Oil-Wet Water," where a self-absorbed character named Pilar finds herself unable to deal with her surreal adventures in Costa Rica, and "Up the Mountain Coming Down Slowly," a very fresh mountain climbing story. When Eggers' narrators tone down narrative distractions, such as pointing out what to pay attention to, I'm mostly convinced he is extremely skillfull -- and comfortable -- with this form. I'd like to read his next collection to become fully convinced. (Jeffrey Hillard) Grade: B

David Thomson -- The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood

David Thomson -- The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood (Knopf)

To call David Thomson's latest book a "history of Hollywood" is a stretch. Like his intentionally and equally non-comprehensive Biographical Dictionary of Film, Thomson's "history" selectively examines Hollywood via a series of nonlinear essays. And like his highly opinionated, wildly entertaining and passionately rendered Dictionary (recently published in its fourth edition), The Whole Equation is as much about Thomson's own personal journey through movies as it is an official overview. (A chapter on his fascination with Nicole Kidman effectively -- if somewhat embarrassingly -- ruminates on the intoxicating nature of movies and their faux intimacies.) The book's title comes from F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel of Hollywood's inner workings, The Last Tycoon, and it's a telling inspiration. Fitzgerald's lack of success in Hollywood is a recurring subject: Writers, more than any component in the equation of moviemaking, have a tough go in an art form that depends on such large-scale collaboration. Thomson thoughtfully dissects Hollywood's rocky marriage of art and commerce as well as movies' psychological effect on its viewers, its town and its creators. His brief but illuminating portraits of early Hollywood figures Charlie Chaplin, Jean Harlow, Louis B. Mayer, Howard Hawks, David O. Selznick, Irving Thalberg and Erich von Stroheim deftly illustrate the sometimes rewarding, always treacherous waters of moviemaking. But, unlike his jaunty Dictionary, all is not easy going. A dense chapter looking at the business end of Gone With the Wind is immensely tedious yet ultimately useful in showing that there are those who care deeply about such things -- mostly producers and studios -- and is essential in understanding what and how movies get made. Ultimately, the book's lasting impression is a rather melancholic one: Thomson's concerns of a less vital contemporary movie culture -- from a film's creation to how we experience them -- are real. Few writers think or feel about movies as deeply as David Thomson, and fewer still write about them as elegantly. (Jason Gargano) Grade: B+

Gilad Elbom -- Scream Queens of the Dead Sea (Thunder's Mouth Press)

Gilad Elbom -- Scream Queens of the Dead Sea

Three-fourths of the way into Gilad Elbom's first novel, his narrator by the same name muses, "In this fast-and-furious, pedal-to-the-metal, six-lane highway we call life, who can afford to read lengthy, time-consuming books with too many pseudo-reflective asides, self-referential ruminations, and amateur linguistic interludes?" Cute. Has the reader been duped? Hard to say. For all of Scream Queens' quasi-academic bravado -- especially the inner aspiring Rock journalist babble on all things Heavy Metal -- and overly ironic odes to the mentally disabled, it's redeemed by hints at theological approaches to literature, foreign policy and spotlight on modern Middle Eastern culture. Gilad, the narrator, is one credit away from a degree in comparative literature and linguistics. He moonlights as an assistant nurse at a Jerusalem mental facility, whose inhabitants -- among them a porn star-obsessed religious poet, a woman who claims to be dead and a man suffering from Faith Deficit Disorder (who believes in nothing, not even nihilism) -- and their misadventures serve as fodder for most of the book. The other part belongs to Gilad's conspiracy theorist girlfriend, Carmel, a woman on deathwatch for her terminally ill husband, with whom Gilad shares the hobby of hardcore sex. While it teeters on the edge of pretentious, Elbom's unapologetic, self-deprecating writing delivers many laughs and a thirst for more. Waste of time? Certainly not. (Jessica Turner) Grade: B-

D.B. Wells -- Your Lolita: Stories (Livingston Press)

D.B. Wells -- Your Lolita: Stories

Writer D.B. Wells makes no secret that she has to help support herself by dancing. She tackles the subject head on in the title story that I assume is somewhat autobiographical ("I was on stage when he recognized me swinging around the old pole. He's greatly changed, Mitchell, having lost his teeth somehow, but there was no mistaking those pig eyes."). So often, the stories in this book seem to be about one thing, but they're really about something else -- something darker. "Jimmy in the City," at first glance, seems to be a purely comic piece about a poor guy suckered into going to one of those Amway-type meetings. But the story ends up with Jimmy finally confronting his own sexuality ("Jimmy Winter is a fag!" he shouts triumphantly). "The Fall" appears to be about a schoolteacher dealing with some of his difficult students. But we eventually learn that he's disturbingly sexually obsessed with one of them. When I first started reading the 12 stories in this collection, I felt like I was on a literary roller coaster -- not sure if I was going to enjoy the ride or not. But I did enjoy the ride. This is edgy, contemporary writing at its best and, to make it more surprising, this is D.B. Wells' first book. Simply put, it's outstanding. (Larry Gross) Grade: A