Fantastic Metropolis

Jeffrey Thomas: The approach to fantastical or surreal fiction in the anthology is very wide ranging, from the almost mainstream stories of Tamar Yellin to the sheer madness of Brian Evenson and Stepan Chapman. With such diverse approaches, how would you define what makes a story a Leviathan story?

Forrest Aguirre: That’s a tough one. For Leviathan Three we were looking for what I call “darkly beautiful surreal” stories. Some would-be contributors mistook this to mean horrific stories or silly stories. No, this time around we were pretty serious, but not scare-your-pants off serious. We wanted works that showed a decadent influence. In some, such as Stableford’s “Face of an Angel” or Connell’s “A Season with Doctor Black” this is rather pronounced. In others, such as Yellin’s “Moonlight” it is less so. To more directly answer your question, though, a Leviathan story must be the pinnacle of wordsmithing. Elegant, though not necessarily dainty prose is our hallmark. We look for stories that blur the line between mainstream literary work and the more pulp-oriented genre work. In fact, we try to abolish that line altogether. This is why you will see Brian Evenson placing the outrageously bizarre “The Progenitor” with us, for example—a highly respected “literary” writer is cut loose (no pun intended—you’ll know what I mean when you read the story) to write a story that he would be unlikely to place in any venue to which he might normally submit. This is why Stepan Chapman feels free to send us works that have been rejected by “literary” markets as “too strange” and by “genre” markets as “too literary”. This is why we take works like Duchamp’s “The Fool’s Tale”—a decidedly academic text that is strongly infused with fantastical elements—or vice versa. Leviathan is that one place where there is no such thing as “genre” and “literary” boundaries. We reject this false dichotomy out of hand. We are, in essence, the step-parents of the literary world’s bastard children.

Jeffrey Thomas: So do you find that attempting to label or categorize genre-defying fiction as experimental, surreal, slipstream, dark fantasy, magic realism, and so on is pointless, or simply challenging?

Forrest Aguirre: Both. As I have so clearly articulated above (hah!) Leviathan stories reject these labels as primarily marketing ploys. However, these labels are somewhat useful, if only to define the over-arching atmosphere of a piece. For instance, Lance Olsen’s “The Village of the Mermaids” is clearly an experimental piece (and a rather successful one, in my opinion). As for the terms “surreal,” “slipstream,” and “magic realism”—people write dissertations on this stuff—I’m going to just bow out gracefully, smiling and nodding as I go, offering the mantra “Yeah, sure, what you said! Amen, brother!”, then flee in abject horror at the first opportunity. That’s a can of worms I’m not ready to open.

Jeffrey Thomas: Has reading for Leviathan Three changed in any way the selections of fiction you read for your own enjoyment? Whose work have you read recently?

Forrest Aguirre: Yes, it has. I have always enjoyed more experimental pieces and reading for Leviathan 3 has only focused that enjoyment. Recently I finished a great collection called Punktown by some freakish guy named Wakizashi Paxton, if I remember correctly. Also Rikki Ducornet’s The Jade Cabinet, which may be the greatest pseudo-Victorian feminist novel ever written. I’ve also become interested in the work of Ben Marcus (my next book purchase will be his Notable American Women) and an upcoming Indian writer by the name of Prakash Kona (his Streets That Smell of Dying Roses is second on my list of must-buy books). I have also been reading a fair amount of two students of Ducornet’s: Catherine Kasper and Joanna Howard. I understand that they are working on an immense collaborative effort with Ducornet and several other feminist surrealists (oh, damn, there are those labels again)! I’m very much looking forward to the results of that melange.