I’m not usually a fan of book trailers, which are generally more slipshod than your average piano-playing cat video and considerably less entertaining. But this one — for a new short story by Jim Shepard (Project X) titled “Your Fate Hurtles Down at You” — caught my attention. It’s included in a new ‘zine called Electric Literature, a bimonthly anthology of short stories that’s available in a unique multi-platform distribution system: You can pick up a paperback edition via print on demand ($9.95 from Amazon); or download a copy to your iPhone or Kindle ($4.95); or just read it online as an e-book ($4.95). The debut issue includes an excerpt from The Hours author Michael Cunningham’s forthcoming novel, Olympia, as well as stories by Lydia Millet (My Happy Life), T Cooper (Lipshitz Six, or Two Angry Blondes), Diana Wagman (Skin Deep). The trailer for “Your Fate Hurtles Down at You” captures all the intrigue of a good NPR narrative piece and the spare wit of really strong animation.
This is about as cool as it gets. The trailer’s illustration, music and narrative synthesize in a way that I can’t help but want to buy this book!
I just love Jim Shepard, I feel he is a completely underrated writer for unfathomable reasons (Love and Hydrogen is one of my favorite short story collections of all time), so thank you for alerting me to this.
One nit to pick, the town in Switzerland is pronounced Dah-vos, not Dave-oss. But at least the readers didn’t try to do corny Swiss German accents. Nice stuff.