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Only Adam Bertocci could take one of the oldest and tritest riddles in the book (it dates to 1847, I discovered in writing this post) and transform it into a compelling work of literary fiction.  I mean, really, in this very short story he manages to weave together feelings of romance, fate, heartbreak, and dark comedy. I’ve read novels that didn’t have as much going on in them as this book does.

It’s the story of a chicken named Bertram, and the reasons that he decides to flee the farm life and go to… the other side. But, like many another literary crossing, this is more than just a literal crossing. It is a spiritual transformation.

This is somehow both very moving and deeply funny. I’m reminded of Paul Graham’s essay “Taste for Makers”:

The confident will often, like swallows, seem to be making fun of the whole process slightly, as Hitchcock does in his films or Bruegel in his paintings– or Shakespeare, for that matter.

That’s Bertocci to a “T”. He crafts something that is simultaneously a parody of the literary short form and a magnificent example of it. And he does it while staying true to the source material. The same cannot be said of many another modern adaptation.

And while I’ve never been as good at writing to prompts as, say, my friend Mark Paxson is… this made me wonder: what other hackneyed jokes or riddles could be repurposed as fodder for literary works? Knock, knock… who is there?

Well, I’ll leave that up to the rest of you. In the meantime, if you’re in the mood for a quick and clever literary experiment, pick this up.

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When the history of our era is written, what will they say about our literature?

I can’t help asking this sort of question. I read about Weimar literature and fin de siècle literature and Victorian literature and all other sorts of literature categorized by historical period. Each one has some pithy one-line summary associated with it: Weimar was “experimental”, fin de siècle was “decadent”, Victorian was “sentimental”, and on and on. These words can hardly be expected to do justice to vast numbers of books written by countless people over periods of years, and each one represents only a general consensus of literary critics and historians. But, you know, you’ve got to start somewhere.

So, again: what are they going to say about our era? You know they’ll say something; they have to. What they say is going to depend on which books they read.

Well, for those future historians writing about “Early 21st century literature”, the works of Adam Bertocci are not a bad place to start. I’ve reviewed many of them already, but since he is not incredibly famous and wealthy thanks to the massive success of his books, clearly I have not reviewed enough of them yet.

Confessions of an Off-Brand Princess starts with a Bertoccian staple: a young woman named Sydney who is working her way through grad school as an employee of her step-mother’s company, which provides rent-a-princess services for children’s birthday parties. Sydney has played versions of all the recognizable fairy tale princesses, albeit with enough plausible deniability so as not to be sued by a certain mega corporation that owns the rights to many of their likenesses.

Sydney likes her job well enough, and her step-sisters are anything but wicked. Still, even though she enjoys her work, she can’t help feeling a sense of malaise as well as loss: her memories of her mother’s early death haunt her, perhaps more than she cares to admit.

The book blends deeply-felt human emotions with the superficial and banal tropes of commercialized princess culture. This, I finally realized, is why I love Bertocci’s work so much. I’ve occasionally heard critics complain that he undercuts the raw human emotion of his stories with superficial jokes and pop culture references, but this misses the point: the life experience of anyone born in the 1980s or later has involved searching for genuine expressions of real humanity, now obscured in a techno-decadent jungle. Like Diogenes of Sinope, we are all searching through this mass of ephemera for something true.

What becomes apparent only rather late in the story, is that it is a retelling of a classic fairy tale. Fairy tales are a tradition which reflects the changing state of culture. Most of the famous ones emerged from the dark forest of German Romanticism only to be sanitized by aforementioned mega corporation into mere trite caricatures.

And yet, as Sydney learns over the course of the story, it all springs from the same well of human desire. And so, Bertocci crafts a retelling for the 21st-century, where concerns like social media and paying for college and not being taken to court by a company known for a cartoon mouse occupy our time and mental energy.

Beneath it all lies something more important, but it takes a while to emerge. But when it does, it’s like the beam of a headlight piercing the dark of night.

When they go to write the history of 21st-century literature, they will have to include Bertocci. Few authors currently going understand our era as well, and even fewer have the gift of translating it to the page as he does.

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They call him the Bard for a reason. Shakespeare took the English language and used it like he owned it, constantly inventing memorable turns of phrase. He was so good at it that by now it actually works against him. You’ll be watching a Shakespeare play and somebody says something and you roll your eyes and go “oh, that old cliché… oh, wait,” suddenly remembering that it wasn’t a cliché back then.

We still have some creative users of the English language with us today, even as modern communication technology homogenizes speech patterns. Adam Bertocci is one of them, and his latest book shows off his skill at the playing of words.

It’s a simple enough story, about a teenaged girl named McKenna who is cast as Mercutio in her high school’s production of Romeo and Juliet. Now, I have to confess my ignorance: I’d forgotten there even was such a character in R & J, if I ever knew it. It’s not my favorite Shakespeare—give me Macbeth or better yet, Coriolanus, any day.

But anyway, McKenna is assigned the rôle, as people used to call it, and it’s a tough challenge for her, because Mercutio, in case you also forgot, is a male. So she has to get in touch with her masculine side, and she figures that the best way to do that is hang out with her brother’s friends, including the boy she has a crush on.

What follows is a typically Bertoccian mix of wit and philosophy. Because of the age of the characters, it’s less about the angst of figuring out life as an adult, and more about the experience of growing up in the first place. As a result, it has more of a carefree, breezy quality to it, which is exactly as it should be.

I could go on, but I’ve been rallying people to read Bertocci’s books for years now, and I have a mind to keep on doing it. So what are you waiting for? Get out there and read it already!

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Book cover for 'The Sorcery of White Rats' by Adam Bertocci, featuring a silhouette of a girl against a vibrant, magical background with decorative elements.

How many books have you read involving prophecies about magical young people destined to save the world? I know, I know; it sounds like the tiredest trope in the world. Seemed like every work of YA fiction in the early 2000s had a premise like that.

Yet Mr. Bertocci, whom long-time readers will know from his slice-of-millennial-life short stories, takes this well-worn premise and makes it his own. I admit, when I read the synopsis of his debut novel, I was concerned he might have abandoned his own unique voice in favor of something clichéd but marketable.

I needn’t have worried. After only a few pages, it was clear that this would be no ordinary magical adventure. Bertocci has not forgotten the things that make his short stories powerful, but has instead fleshed out his typical themes into fuller form.

The story follows two young women, Bristol and Monroe, who are in the awkward mid-twenty years and still trying to figure life out. That is hard enough, but when Monroe awakens one day speaking in a strange voice and relating a terrifying vision of the end of the world, well, it really harshes their mellow, as people used to say.

Bristol takes Monroe to see her former friend, Xochitl, a neuroscientist who answers with scientific rationalism which is probably correct and deeply unsatisfying. Still not knowing whether to expect the end of the world or not, they are unsure what to do with themselves. Actually, they already were. But, you know, now it’s more so.

Bertocci has a way of writing that’s unlike anything else I’ve ever read. His conversations don’t read like scripts; but evolve organically, hopping from topic to topic, and making unexpected callbacks to earlier subjects. Like real people talking, in other words.

Interwoven throughout the action of the story are interviews with the three leads, commenting on what they did in the moment and how it all culminates in the surreal rooftop finale. 

And what exactly was the rooftop finale? Well, I’ll give you a hint: shades of Majora’s Mask. Earlier this year, I reviewed a book about a man plotting to destroy the sun to escape the dreariness of his life. The Sorcery of White Rats is an inversion of that, in more ways than one. Just as the ancients regarded the sun and moon as somehow opposite, so Awful, Ohio by Jeff Neal and this novel are similarly opposed. And yet, like the yin and yang, each contains a drop of the other, and their apparent opposition is in fact a system in perfect, harmonious cosmic balance.

More than that, I cannot say. Let’s just say that Bertocci does a great job of making it all feel real. I’ll leave it to you to discover how  far his commitment to the bit goes.

Now if you’re like me, you’re probably asking: “is this a book I can read during the Halloween season?” After all, October 31st is right around the corner, and one naturally hesitates to read, watch, or do anything that distracts from the Halloween spirit for even a single minute of this most excellent season. (At least I do. Everyone else does that too, right?)

Well, I’m glad to say that the author of that great Halloween short story Samantha, 25, on October 31 did not disappoint.  It is not a Halloween story per se, but it is certainly weird and magical enough to fit the mood of the season. So, hesitate no longer! Get thee to your preferred purveyor of fine literature and nab thyself a copy of The Sorcery of White Rats.

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What is creativity? What is art?

Anyone who creates art must at times ponder why we are driven to do it. Even to read, as someone once pointed out, is an act of staring at a page and hallucinating. The line between artistic endeavor and insanity is very fine, perhaps finer than we would like to admit. Which may be why the unreliable narrator concept fascinates me so.

Do fictional characters exist? Of course not, they’re fictional! Yet, if I asked you about Sherlock Holmes, you probably know what I’m talking about. He “exists” as a shared understanding in our minds, drawn from the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle and a thousand spinoffs. He exists as a concept even if not in actual corporeal form, and we can make reference to him, and even, if we so choose, make decisions based on words Doyle gave him to say.

Sherlock Holmes the character is thus, in a way, more real to us than Jerome Caminada, an actual police detective of the era. In Victorian England, Caminada existed, and Holmes was fiction. Nowadays, however, neither of them exist in the physical form, but Holmes’s “presence” is still felt.

Now, this is the part where you’re probably like, “I thought this was a book review?” Or possibly even “sir, this is a Wendy’s.”

Well, you see, even talking about this book requires you to be in a certain frame of mind. This sense of discombobulation you feel is necessary to relate to the story of Ilona Miller, the protagonist of Winter Journeys.

The story is told in interwoven form, alternating between Ilona’s time as a college in student in 1987, and her later life, 20 years later, as she struggles with being laid off from her job, leading her to reflect on her past, and that critical winter of ’87-’88, when her life took a dramatic, unhappy turn, as she became obsessed with Franz Schubert’s composition Winterreise, until her fascination with it came to override everything else in her life, including her own mental stability.

Ilona is one of the most tragic characters I’ve ever read about. Her fixation on the German romantic epic, combined with her obvious empathy and thoughtfulness, gradually override everything else in her life, destroying her relationships with those who care for her the most.

And, as we soon realize, she has never really recovered from this sad episode, even 20 years later. She has tried, no doubt, but in the end it is questionable whether in her heart she ever truly wanted to recover, or if what she wanted all along was to disappear into the wintry world of Schubert’s music. She reminds me of Eleanor Lance, the tragic heroine of The Haunting.

Which brings me to another important point: unlike Driscoll’s other novels, this is one is purely literary, with no supernatural elements.

Or is it?

All right, some of you might be getting tired of this constant second-guessing and ambiguity act that I am running. If so, you are probably in the wrong place, but nevertheless, let me try and explain what I mean: there are no ghosts, monsters, demons, Lovecraftian entities, or other demonstrably non-natural phenomena in this story. That much may be taken as certain.

However, due to the hallucinatory and unreliable-narrator aspects of the story, there is certainly a feeling of the unreal about much of it. Probably the best way to categorize Winter Journeys is as fantastique. Bizarre and inexplicable things happen. Why do they happen? Well, if we knew that, they wouldn’t be inexplicable, now would they?

This is one of those books you’ve got to experience. And the best way to experience it is the way I did: reading it on a frigid January night when it’s too cold to go anywhere, after a few shots of rum, and while having recently been reading about Baudrillard. And of course, listening to Winterreise is an absolute must.

Of course, in my hemisphere anyway, Sumer is icumen in, or at least, we’re moving out of the dead of winter. But rum and Baudrillard are still available; and even if neither is your depressant of choice, my point is that this is the kind of book you want to lose yourself in. Only not too much. Curiously, after finishing the book, I was left more than anything with a feeling of warning against connecting too closely with any work of fiction, lest the abyss should gaze back…

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I wanted to be sure and review a romance book for Valentine’s Day. But—and I don’t mean to hurt any feelings when I say this—most romance books just put me right off. They’re either too cutesy or else too hot and heavy for my taste. The latter type are what my mother calls “bodice-rippers” and Kevin Brennan calls “naked torso” books, after the typical cover art. We will discuss this more later.

There’s nothing “wrong” with either type of book, of course. But I like to seek out the strange, the esoteric, the bizarre… something that defies easy categorization by genre.

In Love With Eleanor Rigby was exactly what I was looking for. One way I could tell this was from the reviews on Amazon, most of which are from baffled fans of “normal” romance books who aren’t sure what they just read.

Well, I can see why. It’s ostensibly about a romance between a man named Joe and a woman named Tabitha. Already, you can see where the confusion sets in. “Eleanor Rigby” is not a character, but is a reference to a song of that name by the Beatles. If you know the song, it gives some idea of the tone of the book. I didn’t know the song and only listened to it as part of my research for this review.

Anyhow, Joe loves Tabitha, and hopes that Tabitha loves him back. But Joe has a secret: he’s a recovering alcoholic, and for some time he’s reluctant to tell Tabitha this, and when he finally works up the courage to do so, it is a tense moment in their blossoming relationship.

And that, in a nutshell, is the story. It’s a short story, and you might even suggest that not much happens. That’s because it’s really all about how the story is told. In other words, it’s literary fiction. The phrasing is intricate, philosophical and rambling. Joe, the narrator, is given to over-intellectualizing, as his AA therapist frequently reminds him. At times, he calls the nature of reality into question.

This is probably why a lot of the reviewers were flummoxed. And then there is the matter of the cover, which you’ll notice I didn’t post at the top like I normally do. Well, that’s because I think it’s important to know what the book is before seeing the cover. But now we need to talk about this:

So, it’s not exactly one of the “naked torso” books, but as you can see, a more southerly portion of the anatomy is highlighted. And given that there is only a passing reference to a beach in the book, it’s fair to say that this cover, while in some sense eye-catching, does not accurately reflect what kind of book it is. It’s rather like this early poster for Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

On one hand, it’s probably not a good idea to market a work of literary fiction about struggles with addiction and loneliness with a cover that looks like a sexy romp. On the other hand, everyone I know who writes literary fiction tells me it’s basically impossible to sell it, so it’s hard to blame someone for resorting to such methods. Better to have a thought-provoking book marketed like tawdry pulp than a trashy story marketed like it’s something profound, don’t you think?

Well, I think so. But, it may be that the Venn diagram of people who read serious literary fiction and people who read books with swimsuit-clad posteriors on the cover are simply two non-intersecting circles. Which can lead to misunderstandings. For example, some reviewers claimed the book is full of typos. Believe me, I have read books that were full of typos. In fact, I may have even written books that were full of typos! And I don’t think most of the oddities in this text are typos. Rather, they are deliberate attempts by the author to convey a stream-of-consciousness.

Personally, I enjoyed the book, and I sympathized with the protagonist. This may come as a shock, but I too tend to over-think things. I think anyone else who does that will be likely to enjoy this story as well. I recommend checking it out. Whether you also choose to check out the models on the cover, I leave to your discretion.

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The setup: it’s Thanksgiving Break, and two students, Claudia and Marnie, are the only ones in the dorm. They decide to watch the traditional TV airing of It’s a Wonderful Life together to pass the time. As they watch the classic film (and the commercials) they do a bit of bonding, as well as reflecting on their own lives.

As is typical of Bertocci, he uses his deft knack for dialogue and his ability to blend cynicism and sincerity, often in the same sentence, to paint a vivid picture of two young women both starting out in life. It’s a very short sketch, but it’s effective all the same.

It’s probably even more effective if you’ve actually seen the movie. But, I confess, I, er, haven’t. I suppose I should fix that one of these days. Especially since the whole point of Bertocci’s story is how the film has the power to bring people together. Which is of course one of the great things about fiction generally, not just that specific movie. Although I suppose sweet, uplifting stories are the best for this sort of thing.

Anyhow, this book is a quick and pleasant way to get into the spirit of post-Thanksgiving. i.e. sitting around having eaten too much and watching whatever is on TV. Which may not sound all that interesting, but in the hands of a true king of the craft like Bertocci, it can be the basis for strong literary fiction.

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As a critic of sorts, it is my business to traffic in opinions. As a result, I sometimes encounter people who disagree with my opinions. To steal a line from P.G. Wodehouse, probably most of them have been eaten by bears, but just in case, I regret to inform you that there are those who will take issue with my admiration for Adam Bertocci’s books. The chief complaint I hear from these people is that his books have “too much irony.”

Paraphrasing The Lion in Winter: “We all have too much irony! It’s 2024 and we’re millennials!”

Srsly, people! These books are by and for millennials. Having a book for millennials with no irony would require a trigger warning, at least.

Another thing I’ve heard people say is that the characters are “too self-absorbed.” Well, this is because they are usually young people on journeys of self-discovery.  I feel that most Bertocci characters are less self-absorbed by the end than they were at the beginning. And even if they’re not, the class of books which are called “literary fiction” frequently feature self-absorbed characters, and people fawn over them and heap accolades upon them and force innocent students to read them. Do I even need to say it?

But okay, let’s say you are one who doesn’t like the black cat’s lines at the end of Samantha, 25, on October 31, and are not charmed by the extremely meta dialogue in The Hundred Other Rileys. Well, perhaps this is the Bertocci book for you.

Ex Marks The Spot follows a typical Bertocci protagonist, high school sophomore Darian, who decides to dress up as a pirate for a Halloween party, which she is looking forward to as a way of forgetting about her ex-boyfriend Shane.

Unfortunately, she ends up being forced to take her little brother out for trick-or-treat night instead. And guess who they happen to bump into?

Like all Bertocci’s stories, the prose is witty and the theme is of a young woman finding her way in the world. All of us dedicated Bertoccioids, (whose numbers are swelling by the day) will find all the delights we expect.

But there is a little something different here, too: it captures the warm nostalgia of Halloween in an unapologetically fond way, and more to the point, Darian has to do a little growing up, and is certainly not self-absorbed. She comes into her own as a big sister, and that makes her all the more likable.

It’s got humor, it’s got romance, it’s got magic, it’s got spookiness, and–like Linus’s pumpkin patch–it’s got sincerity. Perhaps it can be the book that will make even the most ardent Bertocci non-enjoyer say cast aside their saber, fight no more, and say, “let there be commerce between us.“

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Anymore, when I review authors like Bertocci, I am reminded of the cut song from Gilbert & Sullivan’s Iolanthe about De Belville. I’m sure you all have it memorized already, but just in case, here’s an abridged version of the first verse:

De Belville was regarded as the Crichton of his age:
His tragedies were reckoned much too thoughtful for the stage;
His poems held a noble rank, although it’s very true
That, being very proper, they were read by very few.
[…]
And everybody said
“How can he be repaid—
This very great—this very good—this very gifted man?”
But nobody could hit upon a practicable plan!

Of course, being a W.S. Gilbert production, the story ultimately ends with a happy accident, by which De Belville gets a seat in the House of Lords.

Well, I would of course be all in favor of granting Mr. Bertocci a prominent seat in government. But until that day comes, I guess I’ll just keep trying to reward him as best I know how: namely, by writing rambling reviews of his books.

His latest short story is about a young woman named Kayla, a theater major starring in an ’80s pop-rock themed adaptation of Cinderella. The show isn’t going well, but the one saving grace is that it spares Kayla having to think about her future.

You know, normally I hate literary fiction about angst. Yet, that’s exactly what Bertocci writes, and damme, I enjoy it. I think mostly it’s because he doesn’t lose his sense of humor, even while writing about themes like the anxiety and uncertainty that all young people starting out in life face. He handles these motifs seriously, but always with wit.

In the comments on last week’s post, Anonymole pointed me to an article in The Guardian about a recent study on AI. The punchline: “Ideas generated by ChatGPT can help writers who lack inherent flair but may mean there are fewer unique ideas.”

Well, I can confidently say that Bertocci does not lack for flair, and he has plenty of unique ideas. That’s why I love his fiction. In a world increasingly awash in regurgitated AI media, his Bildungsromane stand out for their witty prose and relatable characters.

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Why, you ask, am I reviewing a winter-themed book in early Spring? Well, first of all, I live in Ohio, where seasons are a fluid thing. Two days ago, it was in the 70s with tornado watches. Today it was sleeting with a freeze watch. Winter and spring are as one here in the Buckeye state.

Second, this is a story I read a while ago, but for some reason I didn’t review it at the time. I forget why. But, better late than never.

Our narrator is one Whittaker Snow, a girl who loves winter and everything that comes with it. Actually, many of the characters in the story have names that correlate with their natures. This is something that our cold-loving protagonist comments on frequently. Whittaker has grand and romantic visions for her future, like any good high schooler. And, also like any good high schooler, she needs to learn to deal with disappointment when reality doesn’t match her dreams.

In addition to the arc of her story–which is short and sweet–the tale is punctuated with “fun facts” about wintertime. Like many another Bertocci tale, although the book is brief, it covers a lot of interesting territory and ideas. Bertocci has a gift for taking a simple, even mundane concept, and infusing with interesting philosophy and cleverly constructed wordplay.

Much of the other kind words I have for this book are the same things I’ve praised in other works of Bertocci’s. He is a genre unto himself, and his books deserve to be widely read.

As for me, I’m off to get ready for the solar eclipse–if we don’t get a snow storm first.