Container

by Derek Fisher

216 pages, Paperback

Published July 20, 2024

Reviews

[this_eel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simultaneously offputting and charming, grotesque and playful, very funny and bleak. I want this book to have so many more readers. While I think a couple of the stories fall short or misfire, this collection is overall electric. I found myself mesmerized by both the voices and the oddities, and fishers writing itself has a propulsive confidence. I didn’t expect it to be so pervasively funny and I honestly expected it to be a lot more splatter than vibe. It’s not a lot of splatter, but I don’t think it had to be, and the hints at how violent the world is are just as good with only occasional gristle. There is some gristle, don’t worry, he just doesn’t push as far into gore festivities as I misled myself into thinking he would. And the atmosphere is fantastic; it’s very high on vibe. The stories are all pretty different from each other but sit side by side in a pleasing fashion. From nonbinary noise divas to murderous parents to cannibalism, from elevators to bad places to toys in worse places. Almost all excellent destinations. The biggest weakness is a slightly amateurish tendency to write about the writing process, but this is maybe 5% of the book which is otherwise full of wonderful and much more interesting ideas. I am so glad I bought this on a whim, and then, also, read it.

[Brandon W. Teigland · Rating 5 out of 5]

New decay, fresh decline. Cruel while being emotionally regulating. An author to unmask to.

Favourite stories from this fiction-collection include (in chronological order): Bird Eating Glass, Rhino, I’ll Only Be Happy Once Everything Is Gone, Length, Scorch Earth.

[Joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of short fiction that spans a variety of genres: horror, weird, absurdist satire. Fisher's writing is tight and evocative. The stories span from bizarro flash fiction to long, winding surrealistic novelettes. There's tons of variety in this collection, but they're all clearly the creations of the same stylist.

None of the stories are weak but personal standouts for me:

"Container": The title story is something like a love story—grimy, streetlight-drenched, abstract.

"Bird Eating Glass": The biggest pop star in the world is Mantle, a harsh, experimental noise musician. A young journalist (who'd been purposely avoiding listening to their music) finds herself drawn into Mantle's world in unexpected ways.

"For Whom I Bare My Teeth": Another one that resembles a love story (if you squint), two lovers indulge their less than savory appetites. Bloody and horrifying with an entertaining, unpredictable third act.

"Progress": Two toys traverse a barren desert—one extremely verbose, the other hilariously only able to spout a few factory-programmed aphorisms—until danger strikes. A very funny capitalist satire in the vein of George Saunders.

"Scorch Earth": The longest story in the collection, a young girl (whose parents may or may not be serial killers?) begins an intense friendship with another young woman at school. Very unpredictable with a fascinating finale.

"Neon": A server is strangely enthralled by her brilliant, bizarre, and abusive head chef in a nightmare fine dining restaurant. Clearly the work of someone acquainted with the real-life nightmare that is the service industry.

Container is a highly-recommended collection for fans of weird and transgressive fiction. Not every story comes to a fully satisfying conclusion, but that's by design. They leave you questioning what happened, sometimes questioning reality. Followers of Jeff VanderMeer, J. Robert Lennon, Christi Nogle, and Mariana Enriquez will be right at home.

[David Kuhnlein · Rating 5 out of 5]

The publisher asked me to blurb this book. Here's what I wrote:

Reading Container feels like being stuck inside a luxury elevator that doubles as a trash compactor — bejeweled, carnivalesque, and ultimately crushing. In panoptic yet claustrophobic prose, with whiffs of Lovecraft and Borges, walls of impossible architecture cave in and floods fill the never-ending tunnels. Welcome to Derek Fisher’s elegant dream of annihilation.

[ThatBookMoth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is like reading a liminal space, each chapter is a different room in the space.
Fav story is Progress, I need a TurtlePhone in my life.