April 30th, 2018 - Treatments

Dear TNY,

So, I just cruised through “Treatments” and I gotta say...wow.  I’ve got history with Coover. His work, the cohesiveness of it, is hit and miss.  Regardless of whether the stories hit or miss, though, his usage of language is just fucking delicious.  This story is a distilled version of that. It is so densely packed with gold of the highest luster. I cannot overstate how enthralled I was with each sentence.  Here are some examples of great writing:

“You ought to lay off that cactus pudding, Tonto. It’s melting your brain.”

“It’s a disease I caught from a woman of pleasure who was exciting herself on my nose.”

“I think this is going to have a bad ending,” she says to no one in particular, and with effort looks away.

“The scary part,” she says with a shudder, “is when you realize something truly horrible is happening—and you still want it.”

I could just copy and paste the whole story.  But I’m not. TNY, you knocked it out of the park here.

I do want to take a quick moment to talk about what we will call plot.  This motherfucker ain’t got one as far as I can see. The story is not the lesser for it, though.  This chaos is so beautifully rendered as well as ingeniously surprising that plot doesn't really matter.  This whole thing is some kind of wonderful abstract dream. The singing gangs? The crazy movie devolvement?  The Lone Goddamn Ranger? All of it, like a million details from left field, each out-crazying the next. None of it makes sense.

None of this makes sense.

Really.  No sense.

I loved this story.  And the only thing I can point to as to why is the language.  But that’s not why I love it. TNY, this is that kind of story there are no words for.  I’m shocked. Thank you for publishing it.

Until next time (please please please don’t disappoint),

Nick