Stranger than fiction
In The View from the Seventh Layer, Kevin Brockmeier pulls off stories of realistic characters in bizarre premises — and makes you believe it
By J. Neil Otte
Published: March 21st, 2008 | 1:50pm
Kevin Brockmeier’s second novel The Brief History of the Dead was a widely acclaimed 2006 bestseller that made him into a household name. A city inhabited by disappearing ghosts, a world succumbing to an epidemic, and a heroine left alone in an arctic research station came together in a page-turning, ethereal thriller whose prose was so exquisitely evocative that genre terms like Fantasy, Horror, and Thriller were jettisoned for that coveted category: Literature.
Returning with a collection of short stories, Brockmeier’s The View from the Seventh Layer is the kind of genre-transcending follow-up you would expect from this talented writer. This latest series of short stories involve space ships and high-school sweethearts, mute ornithophiliacs, terrestrial Gods, and troubled philosophers.
While The View may not encompass any definable literary genre, there are some general themes in its story. The title story is typical of Brockmeier’s fixation on subjective fantasy and reality. A young woman living a lonely life on an island recounts her failed attempts at dating, her absent mother, and the “Entity.” Never fully explained, the Entity appears rarely in the story but remains a background source of consternation. At one point, the Entity reveals to the protagonist that it comes from the seventh layer, a place where the past and the present cannot be distinguished and nothing can ever be truly lost.
Stories like the surprisingly touching retelling of a classic Star Trek episode, “The Lady with the Pet Tribble, or an imagined biography of Sharbat Gula —National Geographic’s “Afghan Girl” — are replete with moments that flower in the mind long after the book has been breezed through.
Throughout the collection, Brockmeier grants all his characters a kind of sweetness and warmth, each showing a palpable vulnerability while searching after a loved one, a bit of personal validation, or answers in a world brimming with elusive meanings. Together with his unique ability to invoke a powerfully realized image at the climax of a scene, Brockmeier’s craft is reminiscent of classic American authors like Sherwood Anderson, though unlike Anderson, Brockmeier rarely obliges the reader to wade through a tedious morass before getting to the good stuff.
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ABOUT THE BOOK
The View from the Seventh Layer (Pantheon)
By Kevin Brockmeier
288 pages
List Price: $21.95
The View from the Seventh Layer
Issue #35
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