Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories

by Kevin Wilson

Book Overview

A debut short story collection in the tradition of writers like Kelly Link, Aimee Bender, and George Saunders--strange, imaginative, and refreshingly original--now back in print as part of Ecco's "Art of the Story" Series, and with a new introduction from the author

Kevin Wilson's characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0061579025
• ISBN13: 9780061579028
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.3" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Superb, masterful writing...

"Tunneling To the Center of the Earth: Stories" should be in every short story fan's collection. This collection of eleven stories is outstanding, the only other short story collections I would rank right up with this are We're in Trouble: Stories & Refresh, Refresh: Stories! This is author Kevin Wilson's book debut and it's a grand slam! GOOD: "Grand Stand-In" "Birds in the House" "Mortal Kombat" "Go, Fight, Win" "Worst-Case Scenario" GREAT: "Blowing Up On the Spot" ** (my favorite of the collection) "The Shooting Man" "The Choir Director Affair (The Baby's Teeth)" "The Museum of Whatnot" Read these stories and you'll see that Kevin Wilson is a natural talent, very much looking forward to reading more stories & hopefully a novel from him. Enjoy~

A rare gem!!!

Great book. Funny, poignant, devious... a true original... an amusement park of fiction... what more do you want?

Magically Real

"Tunneling..." is an amazing collection of short stories by a young man with a great future ahead of him. Moving. Disturbing. Beautiful. The stories are all of these things. But most of all, they are magically human. Oddly, in a book with characters that spontaneously explode, and babies who are born with a full set of teeth, realism still rules the day. Not the popular notion of realism, which is much closer to cynicism or pessimism, but that realism which is embodied by the idea that things never work out as well as we might hope or as badly as we might fear. True to life, the stories are unpredictable and, mostly, uplifting. In the most disturbing story, "The Shooting Man," the protagonist allows himself to be seduced by the perverse, by what should truly be called "evil," when he insists--despite the revulsion of his girlfriend--on attending a freak show where a man will shoot himself in the face. Even after the horrifying spectacle, he cannot let go, and allows himself to be carried away from the light and love of his girlfriend to the darkness and deception of the traveling atrocity. No longer merely a spectator, he now watches the show in preparation for his own, imminent nightmarish performance. But this story is an exception, perhaps a warning. In most of Wilson's stories the characters discover something about themselves which, good or bad, helps them to grow as people. Wilson is as comfortable writing about men as he is writing about young women or adolescent boys (here, coming to terms with their nascent homosexuality). In his deft hands, things which might ordinarily disgust us--sucking on another person's hair, for instance--become beautiful images of unspoken bonds of love; and even "Worse Case Scenarios" (the title of another story) provide opportunities for love, discovery, and caring. A wonderful collection. Highly recommended for those who enjoy literary short stories, magical realism, or the surreal.

An Impregnable Debut

Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, the first short story collection by Kevin Wilson, is an impregnable force of fiction. It cannot be impregnated. By that I mean that it's very, very good. I haven't been able to put it down the last few days. Wilson is one of those authors who can seemingly effortlessly weave a tale without the use of fancy language or extra words. He barely even uses dialogue, and rarely a metaphor or simile (and when he does, it's perfect, i.e., when a character worries about the side effects of hair-loss medication, he muses, "My head could cave in like a rotten jack-o'-lantern"). Most of the stories have heartbreaking elements, but I was uplifted simply because I was given the chance to read them. Many of the concepts in the book have elements of humor to them, and I laughed out loud once. (Spoiler: In the titular story, a character avoids real life after college by digging tunnels under his town. When he accidentally breaks through the cinder-block walls of a neighbor's basement, startling some kids, he says, "Sorry, I must have the wrong house"). Of the eleven stories in the collection, only two miss the mark. The other nine are brilliant. My top four: 1. "Tunneling to the Center of the Earth" (as said about, three college grads avoid real life by digging. Like the new movie Adventureland, but with shovels) 2. "Grand Stand-In" (love and deception in a rent-a-grandmother service) 3. "Mortal Kombat" (two high-school nerds, in the absence of other young love, explore their blossoming sexuality with each other) 4. "Go, Fight, Win" (standard story: pretty girl moves to new town, becomes cheerleader at high school, spends free time making model cars, falls for a 12-year-old)

Shots from Broken Glass

I first learned of Kevin Wilson from a cover story for the OXFORD AMERICAN titled "Fear of Glass." His new short story collection has not revised my opinion that he is one of the most interesting--and potentially best--young writers in this country. Diann Blakely