Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781555977597)

Bold new essays on how to craft a thrilling read--in any genre--from the bestselling author of The Dead Lands

Anyone familiar with the meteoric rise of Benjamin Percy's career will surely have noticed a certain shift: After writing two short-story collections and a literary novel, he delivered the werewolf thriller Red Moon and the postapocalyptic epic The Dead Lands. Now, in his first book of nonfiction, Percy challenges the notion that literary and genre fiction are somehow mutually exclusive. The title essay is an ode to the kinds of books that make many readers fall in love with fiction: science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, horror, from J.R.R. Tolkien to Anne Rice, Ursula K. Le Guin to Stephen King. Percy's own academic experience banished many of these writers in the name of what is literary and what is genre. Then he discovered Michael Chabon, Aimee Bender, Cormac McCarthy, Margaret Atwood, and others who employ techniques of genre fiction while remaining literary writers. In fifteen essays on the craft of fiction, Percy looks to disparate sources such as Jaws, Blood Meridian, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to discover how contemporary writers engage issues of plot, suspense, momentum, and the speculative, as well as character, setting, and dialogue. An urgent and entertaining missive on craft, Thrill Me brims with Percy's distinctive blend of anecdotes, advice, and close reading, all in the service of one dictum: Thrill the reader.

Author: Benjamin Percy
ISBN-10: 1555977596
ISBN-13: 9781555977597
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Language: English
Published: 10/18/2016
Pages: 160
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.40w x 0.50d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 05/15/2016 pg. 51
Publishers Weekly 06/27/2016
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/0001
Kirkus Reviews 08/15/2016
Library Journal 09/01/2016 pg. 106
Library Journal 05/15/2016