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In The Slipstream: An Fc2 Reader
In the last quarter century, the marketplace for serious fiction has been steadily co-opted by corporations, multinationals, and now publishing megaconglomerates that know no national boundaries. In this abyss, FC2 - one of the most unlikely projects in the history of American publishing, run by writers for writers - has created an enduring place for the pure devilish fun of play and change. Along the way, FC2 has introduced readers to the works of Mark Layner, Russell Banks, Raymond Federman, Ronald Sukenick, Eurudice, Gerald Vizenor and many more.
Table of Contents
Who do they think they are? : a personal history of the Fiction Collective / Jonathan Baumbach — Introduction / Ronald Sukenick & Curtiw White — Cyrano of the regiment from Take it or leave it / Raymond Federman — Death of the band from Stolen stories / Steve Katz — He had one of those arooooooga horns from I smell Esther Williams / Mark Leyner — from The talking room / Marianne Hauser — Out of Chemnitz's biography II (Chemnitz gets raped) from Three blones and death / Yuriy Tarnawsky — In flight from Crash-landing / Peter Spielberg — from Holy smoke / Fanny Howe — from Broadway melody / Robert Steiner — Obo Island from Griever: an American monkey king in China / Gerald Vizenor — The gourmand from When things get back to normal / Constance Pierce — Our perfect partners from Modern romances / Judy Lopatin — from Emergency exit / Clarence Major — from S&M / Jeffrey DeShell — In which Francesco Melzi discovers fiction from Leonardo's horse / R.M. Berry — from The alphabet man / Richard Grossman — from The lost scrapbook / Evan Dara — from f/32 / Eurudice — from The charnal imp / Alan Singer — Metamorphosis no. 80 : the pyramid builder from Uncle Ovid's exercise book / Don Webb — from Eve's longing / Deborah McKay — from Mabel in her twenties / Rosaire Appel — Between sighs from Revelation countdown / Cris Mazza — Jody and Annie on tv from New noir / John Shirley — Village tripping from The Kafka chronicles / Mark Amerika — from Hogg / Samuel Delany — Stil from Distorture / Rob Hardin — from The Mexico trilogy / D.N. Stuefloten — from Damned right / Bayard Johnson — More mental from Straight outta Compton / Ricardo Cortez Cruz — Broken spell from Trigger dance / Diane Glancy.
Table of Contents
Who do they think they are? : a personal history of the Fiction Collective / Jonathan Baumbach — Introduction / Ronald Sukenick & Curtiw White — Cyrano of the regiment from Take it or leave it / Raymond Federman — Death of the band from Stolen stories / Steve Katz — He had one of those arooooooga horns from I smell Esther Williams / Mark Leyner — from The talking room / Marianne Hauser — Out of Chemnitz's biography II (Chemnitz gets raped) from Three blones and death / Yuriy Tarnawsky — In flight from Crash-landing / Peter Spielberg — from Holy smoke / Fanny Howe — from Broadway melody / Robert Steiner — Obo Island from Griever: an American monkey king in China / Gerald Vizenor — The gourmand from When things get back to normal / Constance Pierce — Our perfect partners from Modern romances / Judy Lopatin — from Emergency exit / Clarence Major — from S&M / Jeffrey DeShell — In which Francesco Melzi discovers fiction from Leonardo's horse / R.M. Berry — from The alphabet man / Richard Grossman — from The lost scrapbook / Evan Dara — from f/32 / Eurudice — from The charnal imp / Alan Singer — Metamorphosis no. 80 : the pyramid builder from Uncle Ovid's exercise book / Don Webb — from Eve's longing / Deborah McKay — from Mabel in her twenties / Rosaire Appel — Between sighs from Revelation countdown / Cris Mazza — Jody and Annie on tv from New noir / John Shirley — Village tripping from The Kafka chronicles / Mark Amerika — from Hogg / Samuel Delany — Stil from Distorture / Rob Hardin — from The Mexico trilogy / D.N. Stuefloten — from Damned right / Bayard Johnson — More mental from Straight outta Compton / Ricardo Cortez Cruz — Broken spell from Trigger dance / Diane Glancy.
410 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
1 person is currently reading
21 people want to read
About the author
Ronald Sukenick
32 books32 followersRonald Sukenick was an American writer and literary theorist.
Sukenick studied at Cornell University, and wrote his doctoral thesis on Wallace Stevens, at Brandeis University.
After Roland Barthes announced the "death of the author", Sukenick carried the metaphor even further in "the death of the novel". He drew up a list of what is missing: reality doesn't exist, nor time or personality. He was widely recognized as a controversial writer who, frequently humorously, questioned and rejected the conventions of traditional fiction-writing. In novels, short stories, literary criticism and history, he often used himself, family members or friends as characters, sometimes quoting them in tape-recorded conversations. He did stints as writer in residence at Cornell University, the University of California, Irvine, and Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. But his books were never best-sellers. Sukenick once commented that he had “only forty fans, but they’re all fanatics.”
He referred to his career as a university professor as his "day job". He taught at Brandeis University, Hofstra University, City College of the City University of New York, Sarah Lawrence College, Cornell University, the State University of New York (Buffalo), and l'Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier, France. His most prolonged teaching career was at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he was professor of English from 1975-1999.
He was actively committed to publishing and promoting the writing of other unconventional writers. He was founder and publisher of American Book Review, and a founder of The Fiction Collective (now Fiction Collective Two). Sukenick was chairman of the Coordinating Council of Little magazines, and on the executive council of the Modern Language Association and the National Book Critics Circle.
Sukenick studied at Cornell University, and wrote his doctoral thesis on Wallace Stevens, at Brandeis University.
After Roland Barthes announced the "death of the author", Sukenick carried the metaphor even further in "the death of the novel". He drew up a list of what is missing: reality doesn't exist, nor time or personality. He was widely recognized as a controversial writer who, frequently humorously, questioned and rejected the conventions of traditional fiction-writing. In novels, short stories, literary criticism and history, he often used himself, family members or friends as characters, sometimes quoting them in tape-recorded conversations. He did stints as writer in residence at Cornell University, the University of California, Irvine, and Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. But his books were never best-sellers. Sukenick once commented that he had “only forty fans, but they’re all fanatics.”
He referred to his career as a university professor as his "day job". He taught at Brandeis University, Hofstra University, City College of the City University of New York, Sarah Lawrence College, Cornell University, the State University of New York (Buffalo), and l'Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier, France. His most prolonged teaching career was at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he was professor of English from 1975-1999.
He was actively committed to publishing and promoting the writing of other unconventional writers. He was founder and publisher of American Book Review, and a founder of The Fiction Collective (now Fiction Collective Two). Sukenick was chairman of the Coordinating Council of Little magazines, and on the executive council of the Modern Language Association and the National Book Critics Circle.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 11, 2014
Oh dear. Seems I do not like sloppily written prose which seems to think detailed and graphic descriptions of violence and sex are the height of the cutting edge. I have no problem with the subject matter, nor am I remotely prudish, however when the sole point of your writing is to be "shocking" by repeatedly using the word "cunt", you aint gonna impress me none. Rabelais was cruder and funnier than you will ever be.
This is a little harsh, of course, and ignores some of the earlier pieces, which weren't half bad, but to be honest I can't be bothered to write anything more.
This is a little harsh, of course, and ignores some of the earlier pieces, which weren't half bad, but to be honest I can't be bothered to write anything more.
March 5, 2026
Published in 1999 to commemorate the first 25 years of Fiction Collective, In The Slipstream is a sampling of all that FC2 had to offer at the time. Ronald Sukenick and Curtis White compiled and arranged what is overall a really great chronology of the first writer’s collective in the United States. Along with Jonathan Baumbach’s introduction, the introduction by Sukenick and White, along with each author’s personal intro entries, is a great history of the press. As someone only recently made aware of FC2 and their legacy I found this collection to be quite enlightening and a fun way to preview many new to me authors.
This collection is split up into three sections; Fiction Collective, Fiction Collective 2, and Black Ice Books (a few Nilon Award winners are also included in the end). This sorts works chronologically through the collective’s history. As a publisher on the cutting edge this has much of the cultural tastes and trends on display throughout. While many of these works still feel very fresh you do get a dated sense to a lot of what is on display here. I quite enjoy revisiting these past eras in retrospect but others with more modern tastes may find this process difficult and lacking.
The excerpts on display here range from 5 to 20 pages each. Sometimes these pieces are short stories but often it is just a slice of a much larger work. This doesn’t always work for comprehension but it does give you a sense of each author’s style. Each piece is unique and wildly creative. While I didn’t enjoy everything on display, I never felt like something was undeserving of upholding the avant pop creative output that Fiction Collective is known for.
Much of what I read in this book was new to me. I had heard of a few authors, most of these recently in my research on Fiction Collective. The only author and work I was truly familiar with prior to reading this book was Samuel R Delany and his book, Hogg. I found this to be a great way to spark interest in authors, even if what was on display here wasn’t the most satisfying. Given how obscure and out of print many of these are it was almost frustrating that the limited preview I was offered was likely all I would be reading for a while.
As stated before much of this writing really captures the time period it was written in. The piece by Steve Katz offers a 70s postmodern noire, Judy Lopatin perfectly captures 1980s office life, and John Shirley’s entry is a timecapsule of 1990s edginess. I still enjoyed a lot of what I read here in a modern reading but it must be stated how of its time a lot of this writing is.
The Fiction Collective section was by far the strongest selection. This is where most of my interest in the publisher lies and the time period of writing I gravitate most towards. I felt like these selections and authors worked well for me.
The Fiction Collective 2 section feels like there is a major drop off. The clear standout is Evan Dara and the sampling from his debut The Lost Scrapbook. This is an author I was vaguely familiar with before but had never read anything from. It’s clear why they continue to receive hype. I will say I was intrigued by the Deborah McKay selection as well and will be checking that out, given the opportunity.
The Black Ice Books section picks things up again. While not my favorite entries by Cris Mazza, Mark Amerika, Samuel R Delany, and Baynard Johnson stood out to me.
Overall the best writing style as well as content provided in my personal opinion was from Steve Katz and Yuriy Tarnawsky. While maybe not a satisfying read on its own, I found the selections from Raymond Federman, Marianne Hauser, Peter Spielberg, Fanny Howe, and Clarence Major to interest me enough to want to check out their full work.
This was an interesting way to preview a publisher’s catalog. I think it would be enlightening for them to highlight what they have published since. I know they did another one of these ten years later in 2009 but to my knowledge they haven’t done it since.
This collection is split up into three sections; Fiction Collective, Fiction Collective 2, and Black Ice Books (a few Nilon Award winners are also included in the end). This sorts works chronologically through the collective’s history. As a publisher on the cutting edge this has much of the cultural tastes and trends on display throughout. While many of these works still feel very fresh you do get a dated sense to a lot of what is on display here. I quite enjoy revisiting these past eras in retrospect but others with more modern tastes may find this process difficult and lacking.
The excerpts on display here range from 5 to 20 pages each. Sometimes these pieces are short stories but often it is just a slice of a much larger work. This doesn’t always work for comprehension but it does give you a sense of each author’s style. Each piece is unique and wildly creative. While I didn’t enjoy everything on display, I never felt like something was undeserving of upholding the avant pop creative output that Fiction Collective is known for.
Much of what I read in this book was new to me. I had heard of a few authors, most of these recently in my research on Fiction Collective. The only author and work I was truly familiar with prior to reading this book was Samuel R Delany and his book, Hogg. I found this to be a great way to spark interest in authors, even if what was on display here wasn’t the most satisfying. Given how obscure and out of print many of these are it was almost frustrating that the limited preview I was offered was likely all I would be reading for a while.
As stated before much of this writing really captures the time period it was written in. The piece by Steve Katz offers a 70s postmodern noire, Judy Lopatin perfectly captures 1980s office life, and John Shirley’s entry is a timecapsule of 1990s edginess. I still enjoyed a lot of what I read here in a modern reading but it must be stated how of its time a lot of this writing is.
The Fiction Collective section was by far the strongest selection. This is where most of my interest in the publisher lies and the time period of writing I gravitate most towards. I felt like these selections and authors worked well for me.
The Fiction Collective 2 section feels like there is a major drop off. The clear standout is Evan Dara and the sampling from his debut The Lost Scrapbook. This is an author I was vaguely familiar with before but had never read anything from. It’s clear why they continue to receive hype. I will say I was intrigued by the Deborah McKay selection as well and will be checking that out, given the opportunity.
The Black Ice Books section picks things up again. While not my favorite entries by Cris Mazza, Mark Amerika, Samuel R Delany, and Baynard Johnson stood out to me.
Overall the best writing style as well as content provided in my personal opinion was from Steve Katz and Yuriy Tarnawsky. While maybe not a satisfying read on its own, I found the selections from Raymond Federman, Marianne Hauser, Peter Spielberg, Fanny Howe, and Clarence Major to interest me enough to want to check out their full work.
This was an interesting way to preview a publisher’s catalog. I think it would be enlightening for them to highlight what they have published since. I know they did another one of these ten years later in 2009 but to my knowledge they haven’t done it since.
June 20, 2009
FC2 publishes some of my favorite books. Good for Ronald Sukenick for gathering them together.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews