The Art of Friction

In the post–James Frey era, readers of fiction and nonfiction alike find the once-crisp genre divisions beguilingly vague. The Art of Friction suggests that many writers grapple with these issues, too. “It’s when we…write the hell out of an idea, paying little attention to form and implication and social issue and who’s holding the latest pen of contention, that the writing—fiction and nonfiction alike—comes alive, really starts to happen,” says Chicago novelist Blackstone, the anthology’s coeditor.

Blackstone’s assertions are borne out by the volume’s 19 contributions, which tend to blur the lines between fiction’s elaborate artifice and memoir’s tweaking of unvarnished experience. As Chicagoan Achy Obejas notes in her tart introduction, “Art is rather borderless; it’s a place of mayhem and disorder.” Both experimental and more mainstream heavy hitters have their say here, including Junot Díaz, Jonathan Safran Foer, Ronald Sukenick and Terry Tempest Williams. Open City coeditor Thomas Beller weighs in with “Great Jews in Sports,” a rueful exposé of the sexual and social tensions surrounding New York bar mitzvahs. Underrated Michigan-based, German-born fiction writer Stefan Kiesbye contributes a bizarre journalistic look at “Hitlertown.”

Other Chicago-area writers offer strong contributions, including Cris Mazza’s deadpan narrative of the go-go 1980s, “Trickle-Down Timeline,” and blogger Wendy McClure’s “Seven Stories About Being Me.” It’s a provocative anthology overall, one of the first to address these vexing questions.

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