Altmann's Tongue: Stories and a Novella

by Brian Evenson, Alphonso Lingis (Introduction)

Twenty-five short stories and a detective novella, The Sanza Affair, present a chilling collection of tales in which social institutions and human relationships dissolve without warning and with mayhem. A first collection.

Brian Evenson has added an O. Henry Award–winning short story, "Two Brothers," to this controversial book and a new afterword, in which he describes the troubling aftermath of the book's publication in 1994.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Collections, Literary Fiction, Crime, American

278 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Brian Evenson is an American academic and writer of both literary fiction and popular fiction, some of the latter being published under B. K. Evenson.

Reviews

[Benoit Lelièvre · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the earliest and most famous works by Brian Evenson.

Does it live up to its reputation of being so violent and depraved it got its authors kicked out of its religion. No, it doesn't. But it addresses one of Brian Evenson's thematic obsession in a unique and fascinating way: boundaries. In this case, the oldest and greatest boundaries of them all : death. Or, as Evenson puts it himself in the afterwords of his collection: the sacred and the profane.

There is something so unsettling about how Brian Evenson writes, it's almost endearing. Whether it's characters who can't decipher messages that are clear as day (The Munich Window) or meaning that is constantly eluding a character's actions (Her Other Bodies). There's always something off-putting to the stories in ALTMANN'S TONGUE. Well worth reading, like all material by Brian Evenson.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 5 out of 5]

The majority of these stories involve killing. At certain points in my reading of this collection I laughed out loud. I did not laugh out loud at the moments of killing, though. In fact I am certain I winced once or twice. Brian Evenson comes up with some of the best character names I have ever seen on the page. Sometimes I just laugh at the names because they are so strangely apt. There is also a frequent shading of dark absurdity in his stories that can be quite comical.

Several of these stories are connected. Several of these stories are very short, not really even stories, per se, more fragments. I cared less for some of those, while others I enjoyed. One of these stories is inherently Biblical in nature and features a skeleton as the main character. A few of these stories (specifically 'Altmann's Tongue', 'The Munich Widow: A Persecution', and the novella 'The Sanza Affair') contain overt echoes of Thomas Bernhard—an influence I did not notice in the previous three Evenson collections I have read (namely, The Wavering Knife, Windeye, and Contagion and Other Stories). One of the stories in this book ('Two Brothers') I had already read because it also appears in Contagion and Other Stories. This story, which won an O. Henry Award, was added along with 'The Sanza Affair' to the second expanded Bison Books edition of Altmann's Tongue. I did not read it again in this book because the first time I found it rather excruciating, even by Evenson's standards, thereby precluding an encore reading.

This second edition of Altmann's Tongue also includes an illuminating Afterword written by the author in which he discusses the cultural context of the stories and some of his literary preoccupations, while sharing details of his life and the effects of the book's publication upon it, all of which was heretofore unknown to this reader. The title story of this book was also adapted into a short film, which my friend Bill kindly shared with me. Finally, I am satisfied with the order in which I have been reading Evenson's books thus far. I will likely read some of his novels next, although I admit to a certain wariness of them based on others' reviews. Recommendations would thus be most welcome.

[Chris Via]

Video now available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijku-...

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

WRITER CRUSH ALERT WRITER CRUSH OH MY GOD I MEAN OH MY GOD!!!!

Okay. So. I read a Brian Evenson story in the Library of America's "Fantastic Tales" anthology and sought him out immediately. Sadly, I couldn't get my hands on any of his work and so it was a while before I remembered his name and looked him up in the library. And Jesus. I mean, wow.

Violent, disturbing, poetic, eerie, haunting. It's smart horror. Maybe the smartest horror of all time? The opening lines were works of art. It's the kind of book that I enjoyed so much I felt bad about how much I enjoyed it, given the content (like saying "Seven" is one of my favorite movies - it's disgusting and creepy but SO GOOD). The nameless wasteland and the crazed inhabitants of a lone fortress; the little boy who finds his step-father's mouth sewn shut, crammed with bees; the trucker who drives from CA to TX, accumulating bodies he carves along the way. Terrifying and stellar, and written with a lyricism and ear that just makes the stories that much more unsettling.

Evenson himself I give all the possible stars, but this collection, his first, at times felt like he was literally fucking around. "Job Eats them Raw, With the Dogs," threw me for a loop and not in a nice way - there's a fine line between surrealism (weird, moving) and absurdity (ridiculous, nonsense).

Can't wait to read more of his stuff.

[David Peak · Rating 5 out of 5]

A first-rate collection of short fiction, published when Evenson was only twenty-eight (how?), and edited and published by Gordon Lish. Many of the stories here--most memorably "Killing Cats," and "What Boly Seed"--were also published in Lish's famed journal The Quarterly and bear a strong editorial influence. Though it's the stories that declare Evenson's dark originality that make this book something special. "Her Other Bodies: A Travelogue" channels McCarthy's Child of God in its crazed brutality, but Evenson never relies on violence for the sake of violence. There is a deeply embedded sense of morality in these stories that amplifies the powerfully clipped imagery and throaty sentences. The same can be said for the novella included here, "The Sanza Affair," which offers a totally fresh take on the police procedural by playing with branching perspectives afforded by the "detective" narrative, all slathered in the shifting lights of noir atmospherics. A great, great book--as good as anything Evenson would go on to publish throughout his long, rewarding career.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came here after not really liking his ‘Last Days’, but feeling that there was something there and I should explore further, I was determined to read ‘Altmann’s Tongue’. With no local bookstore carrying it, no copy available on Amazon, and, due to covid, no chance of getting my hands on it without waiting for lengthy sea freight delivery, I felt frustrated. As luck would have it, a friend found a copy on his shelves, and luck begat luck as he advised me to start by reading the afterword. It is a piece of advice that I pass on to potential readers as it really helped me to understand more about what Evenson was getting at. The book turned out to be so much better than I expected. The stories are fascinating and totally thought provoking, especially the very short ones like ‘Killing Cats’ or ‘Altmann’s Tongue’. They take just a few minutes to read, but they shake you up, leaving you unable to read on for the hour or so it takes to process them

[Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Particularly loved The Blank trilogy and the capstone novella.

[F.R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first heard about Brian Evenson years ago in an article in the London Times (well, I think it was the London Times. I’ve been hunting for it online with little luck). The piece detailed how Evenson was a Mormon who had published one collection, ‘Altmann’s’ Tongue, but unfortunately his fiction was deemed so extreme that the church had given him the choice to either leave the faith or stop writing. As his family were all Mormons, this was obviously one hell of a decision.

If memory serves the article was written before he’d made his choice (and a look at his website shows me he’s still writing, so we can see which path he went for) but it was a tale that stayed with me and so I tracked down this volume. Until now I’d just dipped into it, but I thought it was time I read the whole thing.

Evenson is undoubtedly a writer with a good literary sensibility and a strong stomach. It’s easy to see how these tales would offend those of a more delicate sensibility. Contained within are a number of tales of murderers and numerous instances where dead bodies are found. There is even more than one story where an aperture on a living person is sewn shut. If you’re a fan of horror then there is lot here that will appeal.

Unfortunately there are also a lot of short pieces, sketches, which at no more than a page or two pages long just paint a quick picture. A scene is laid out and then nothing, it goes nowhere – almost as if he had an idea in mind and then couldn’t think of any way to incorporate it into a large whole. Having said that, the longest story in this collection – ‘The Sanza Affair’ – I also found irritating and not as clever or as witty as it thought it was.

But the best stories – ‘The Father, Unblinking’; ‘Killing Cats; ‘The Munich Window: A Persecution’; ‘Stung’; ‘Hebe Kills Jerry’; ‘The Evanescence of Marion le Goff’; ‘Her Other Bodies: A Travelogue’ and ‘The Eye’ – I would recommend to all fans of darker fiction.

[Brent Legault · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bit of a mixed bag. But what a bag! Imagine it: orange velvet exterior, lined with crushed glass, brimful with tasty treats and tender traps. There's a bee hive in there, for one thing. Not to mention Altmann's slippery tongue. And...other things. Best not to worry the details. The better stories in this collection are good enough to give you an exotic venereal disease. The lesser stories, and there aren't many, are like the late-night infomercial that you can't make yourself turn away from. Enjoy!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

What if divine revelation created not prophets (sociable, want to persuade strangers, community above all) but perverted nerds (only capable of appreciating constellations of things, engineer-crusaders for a personal god, people as resources)?

The violence and depravity are accidental consequences, and it's because the protagonists are so unimpressed by them that they commit it to such great lengths. A sealed fortress surrounded by piles of executed inhabitants, two brothers struggling to make sense of themselves after their preacher father commits divine suicide, a construction worker nonchalantly covering up his hand nailed to the table. Evenson doesn't relish in the gory details; the opposite is often the case, the trajectories of carnage being understated and radiating outwards only through the lives of others trying to adapt themselves to it. Utterly alienating, intense and original.

[Leland Pitts-Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wholly original book. Evenson is writing the highest form of literature -- confronting identity and subjectivity on deceptively simple terms. It's horror artistry that's both fun and intellectually stimulating. He's one of a kind..

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Savage and disturbing little collection of stories. Most read like European translations others like Cormac McCarthy. Fans of Bernhard, Dino Buzzati, Beckett, Kafka, David Lynch, and Paul Auster will find a chilling feast inside this book.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Evenson’s first collection of stories is, like everything else of his I’ve read, brutal and surreal. Perhaps a bit more amateurish or unpracticed than his later writings, these stories are still fantastic, and worth reading.

[Signor Mambrino · Rating 3 out of 5]

some of these stories are tough to read. grim. some I didn't like so much.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

If an author is trying to convey some sort of emotion, then this dude is the greatest writer alive. Too bad he excels at making you sick to your stomach. I first read him years and years ago when I grabbed a book from a local author shelf (Utah) in a bookstore. The damned thing made me sick, but I couldn't stop thinking about it, to this day. And so I should have been ready for this, his first book, the book that got him kicked off the faculty of BYU ("Our academic freedom policy means OUR academic freedom") and his church. Seriously, how hard-core does a book have to be to get you both fired and excommunicated? Read to find out. Now, with that said, isn't it better to describe brutality, murder and violence the way Evenson does, or to glorify in a Hollywood way? Plus, from one story to the next, I wasn't sure if I was reading a translation of 18th century German, or word for word rendering of how Utah rednecks talk or if I was in some horrible dystopia. I'll take this, even though it made me sick. And I'll go ahead and say he's one of the most brilliant authors out there (even though no one has heard of him).

[Fabio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ho tradotto il secondo racconto di questa raccolta qui: https://www.pidgin.it/split/assassini...

[Ellis Hastings · Rating 3 out of 5]

I AM PLEASED TO SAY THAT A BRIAN EVENSON BOOK WAS MY 100TH BOOK OF THE YEAR! This was the first, and honestly will probably be the ONLY, year that I have read 100 books! It is largely thanks to audiobooks/podcasts that count as books, but still, I've read/listened to an unbelievable amount of content this year. Thankfully substitute teaching has allowed me to do all of my college coursework in Junior year and now the first semester of Senior year. This has left me with extra time to read! Evenson is my favorite contemporary short story writer, so I made sure I had an Evenson collection that I hadn't yet read (the only other two now are "A Wavering Knife" and "Din of Celestial Birds," the elusive and rare collection that I can't get my hands on). I have now read seven of Evenson's nine collections, and I have "A Wavering Knife" coming in the mail, so I'm nearing my completion of his collections! After AWK and the Din of Celestial Birds, whenever I find a copy, I only have his works under B.K. Evenson to read. Now, onto the review...

A bunch of super short stories, many of which don't really feel like stories but are more experiments. This was Evenson's first collection. I don't want to say it's his "weakest" collection, because it isn't bad and it was his FIRST. However, if you have read Evenson's beautiful later work and then read this collection, you'll definitely see the evolution of his work. This collection had a few memorable stories but most were forgettable as stories but still served to show the early seeds that would sprout into the more familiar and beloved Evenson collections like "A Collapse of Horses," "A Song For the Unraveling of The World," and his newest, "The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell."

Though I gave this book three-stars, it is better than other three-stars. I just couldn't give it four-stars because it lacked consistency and continuity. If you haven't read Brian Evenson's work before, I would definitely NOT recommend this collection. If I had read this one as my first Evenson, I honestly probably wouldn't have read anything else by him, though the writing itself is still good. I recommend "Altmann's Tongue" for fans of Evenson who are completionists and want to see the beginning of his signature voice.

[Alex Rodriguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first exposure to Evenson was in a college writing course in which we read “Windeye”. Up to that point all the short horror fiction I had read was Stephen King, and what struck me about Evenson’s story was how it evoked terror through the surreal, rather than the explicit, as is the case in much of King’s work. I then came to learn that Evenson was once a professor at BYU, but, through some unclear controversy, left both his position there and eventually the Mormon faith. This controversy surrounded the publication of his first collection of stories, Altmann’s Tongue. While I’ve since learned that the controversy has less to do with the work itself and more to do with BYU’s history with suppression of academic expression, I was nevertheless excited to see what the fuss was about.

The book is concerned with violence, and it explores different relationships of those perpetrating it; as an attempted release or search of meaning in the wake of jilted love, as in “Her Other Bodies”; as a favor or transaction between two friends, as in “Hebe Kills Jarry”; or as a means of transformation, as in the titular story. My favorite of the collection, “The Blank”, describes a post-apocalyptic fortress, and its assumed leader’s descent into madness. The prose is beautifully grotesque - there’s one particular section called “The Underground Karst” describing a man’s desperate descent into a cavernous underworld as he starves to death. Some of the stories are such quick hits - only 1 or 2 pages - that it’s not always clear what is explicitly happening, but a common theme between them all (besides violence) is a disorder to reality, a sense of wrongness. Looking forward to reading more of Evenson’s work.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Altmann's Tongue collects some of Brian Evenson's earliest short fiction, and in many ways the reader can discern the artist still learning how to put his gifts to work. The grim violence that is ever-present within these stories is powerfully rendered, but gets a bit repetitive due to its ubiquity. The dark humor that Evenson has developed in more recent work is muted (and sometimes altogether absent) in these pages.

That said, it's undeniable that the title piece, despite its very short length, is as pure a distillation of Evenson's authorial voice as I've encountered:

We go through life at every moment making choices. There are people, Altmann among them, who, when you have sent a bullet through their skull, you know you have done the right thing. It is people like Altmann who make the rest of it worthwhile, I thought, while people like Horst, when killed, confuse life further. The world is populated by Altmanns and Horsts, the former of which one should riddle with bullets on the first possible occasion, the latter of which one should perhaps kill, perhaps not: Who can say?

The very good news is that Evenson has developed considerably as a writer in more recent years, and if the stories in Altmann's Tongue do not rank among his best, they are signifiant way-posts on the journey of one of the best living writers in English.

[Ryan Pidhayny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Besides a handful of short stories spread across a number of anthologies, the only Brian Evenson I've been exposed to was his masterful collection A Collapse of Horses. Being one of my favorite collections in recent memory, I was excited to dig into Evenson's earliest works. I wasn't expecting such a vast difference between the two collections however. Altmann's Tongue is plenty dark and disturbing, but it is far from the more well-defined horror of A Collapse of Horses. The stories here follow a more literary bent, with a heavy focus on style. I don't have much experience with literary literature, but these stories struck me as a stranger and more violent Raymond Carver. Almost every single character herein is incredibly interesting in the strangest of ways. So many of them are indifferently odd, going about their lives almost oblivious to the weirdness that surrounds them. My one gripe is that a lot of the short stories here are shorter than I'm used to. At a few pages long, and some not even a single page, I found some of them outside my preferences. That being said, there are a number of great stories here. The collection's lone novella 'The Sanza Affair', 'The Munich Window', 'The Evanescence of Marion le Goff', and the collection's title story were the highlights for me.

[Eduardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a variety of reasons, this book of short stories took me longer to get through than anything else by Evenson. Partly because we decided to start watching the first season of “The Wire” and partly because it is by far the most inaccessible set of stories I’ve read by the author.
There are some that are great on the first read and, having read some of his later work, of which one can see hints of future writing. Others are, as Evenson himself hints at in the afterword, perhaps “unknowable.”
Some standouts, from my perspective are “Killing Cats,” “The Munich Window,” “Her Other Bodies,” and “The Sanza Affair.”
These aren’t the only good ones, but serve as good stories without having to read into them a litany of metaphors.
The title story is great, but what does one make of it? There’s an entire series of stories that though listed individually, are obviously intertwined (The Blank, Slow Death, Usurpation, Extermination). A curious exploration of Bones Job. Sometimes I think I may be too dumb to get it all. Still worth reading, as I don’t find many authors whose work haunts the brain the way Evenson does mine.

[Graham Lau · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recall originally finding this book as I was exploring the realms of Dead Space and wanted to learn more about Evenson's writing. This first publication of his includes a variety of short stories, many of them touching on the realm of horror or having a blunt darkness to them. I appreciate Evenson's afterward on the impact the writing had on his career and relationship with the Mormon church, though I think for many readers it would have served better as a forward, so as to prepare them for what lies ahead. Some of the stories touch on realms of murder, incest, and gore in ways that a reader might not be prepared for if they hadn't read a bit about the book before picking it up. Still, even though some of the stories are pretty rough to engage with, they're told in a way that fascinates the reader.

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong collection. Very strong.

My complaint would be that the variability of the story-telling techniques works against the book as a whole, making it seem a little schizophrenic in it's curation. Since that is the case, it does not appear to have as strong a thematic link as his later collections.* I will never regret reading an Evenson collection, but this is one I will probably not revisit often.

*This edition happened to have "Two Brothers" at the very end. I actually considered not reading it with these stories reasoning that it would probably fit better with the stories in "Contagion", a collection I have not read yet. But I did. I read it here. That may have been a mistake. I guess I can read it again...

[Kin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rough read.
Not for the faint of heart. Not even enjoyable, really. I didn't find this spooky or horrifying in the fun way that I do a lot of Evenson's work, but I can tell it's going to stick with me longer. The Doloriad is the closest thing I've read with a similar effect--grotesque, wandering, distant.
Honestly, I was wavering on what I would rate this, but the afterword gave me a lot to think about. While I have mixed feelings on death of the author, in this case I was glad to learn his perspective on his work.
I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone simply on the basis of its content—I just wouldn’t feel comfortable.

[Jade Dove · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first books by Brian Evenson, a writer whose work I've just started diving into and exploring. I really liked some of the stories here but wasn't as impressed with some of the others. It's obvious from these early pieces that this is the work of an extremely talented writer just starting out and flexing his literary muscles. And while certain pieces shine, others don't quite live up to the standards of his later output. Still an interesting and deliciously weird and disturbing book for anyone who likes weird fiction though.

[Rumimi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"C'est l'année où mon père s'est fait descendre pour avoir donné de mauvaises directions. C'est l'année où ce qui constituait ma mère s'est mis à battre des ailes contre ses os en agonisant"

Lu dans les conditions adéquates (à toute vitesse pour le rendre à temps à la bibliothèque). L'horreur tous azimuts qui ne tient debout que tremblotante sur les pages ; drôles et terribles images de bourreaux qui doutent et de victimes qui se donnent.

[Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to enjoy this collection, but it left me flat. Very violent stories without the eerie, unsettling mood that I love in his later collections. Interesting to compare and contrast these to his newer stories, though.

[James Oxyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

Grim! Features some of the most acidic black humor I've ever read.

Faves:

The Father, Unblinking
The Munich Window: A Persecution
The "Bosephus" trilogy
Stung
Shift-Work
Hébé Kills Jarry
Her Other Bodies: A Travelogue

[José Pereira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evenson wants to go for style, and he neither fumbles it nor overdoes it. But the cost of abandoning gore, dread, and cliff-hangers ends up being somewhat ineffectual stories; forgettable, lacking force.
The novella and 2 of the stories are very good, nonetheless.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Challenging and dense, with an enlightening afterword that reinforces the feeling that this is my first of many visits to this bleak, violent world(s).