True False: Stories

by Miles Klee

Klee’s last book, his first, was variously hailed as “sharply intelligent” (Publishers Weekly) and “harsh, spastic” (Justin Taylor): we like to think of True False as intelligently spastic, or sharply harsh—disquieting and funny. A collection of stories that range from the very short to the merely short, these forty-four tales evoke extraordinary scenes in an understated manner that’s marked Klee one of today’s most intriguing writers. From the apocalyptic to the utopic, from a haunted office building to a suburban pool that may be alive, a day in the mind of a demi-god Pythagoras to a secret race to develop artificial love, True False captures a fractured reality more real than our own.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

264 pages, Paperback

First published September 10, 2015

About the author

Miles Klee was born in Brooklyn and grew up in South Orange, New Jersey. He is the author of the novel IVYLAND (OR Books 2012) and the story collection TRUE FALSE (OR Books 2015). He lives in Los Angeles.

Klee graduated from Williams College, where he studied with Jim Shepard, Andrea Barrett and Paul Park. His essays, articles, satire and short stories have appeared in Vanity Fair, Lapham's Quarterly, Guernica, Unstuck, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, 3:AM, The Awl, The Village Voice, The New York Observer, Salon, Electric Literature, Terraform, Hobart, and MEL Magazine.

Reviews

[M. Sarki · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is hard work to be a writer, especially if fame, recognition, glory, money, or a date is what you’re aiming for. It is more difficult just to sit down to it everyday, be disciplined to the degree you eventually get something scribbled down onto the page, and severe enough in your tyrannical self-editing to throw it all away. And harder yet there are others of us who write and care little about publishing. They save the stamps and envelopes and paper for more important correspondence than sending manuscripts out to be rejected or even published in less-than-desirable literary rags in print and those hovering out there on the web.

None of the stories collected in True/False by Miles Klee would have been previously read by me in any litmag for the simple reason I no longer subscribe to even one of them. The few mags I still might publish poetry in would not find me reading any of the short stories. I hate feeling disappointed. I am nothing short of an idealist when it comes to reading fiction. I want to know on very good intelligence that I will like the work before I ever sit down to read it.

But, here I went and broke my rule and agreed to read this book because it was free and it was the least I could do. You know, give it a try. And Miles Klee I suppose is a capable writer for no other reason than Gary Lutz said so. But I should have known better. Lutz enjoys and respects too much the clever turn of phrase. Especially more than I do. I actually hate that clever shit. Call me old fashioned. If you want your literature saying stuff like, I tripped into awareness of carpet, or The months melted by, or perhaps The pool was bleeding then this book is for you.

[Nate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review #21 of "Year of the Review All Read Books"

Soundtrack: Poor Places by Wilco. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiunR...

The Set-Up
Not that there's a tremendous sample size but Miles Klee is probably a better short story writer than novelist. Even Ivyland was a kind of confluence of various vignettes, shorts and broken novellas. I've followed Klee's career closely. I think I'm mostly waiting for him to revive his Hate the Future blog. It's not happening, I'm not accepting it, circle of life. Along the way I've read a bunch of his weird stories that appear in True False.

I Heard He Had A Style
In a general sense it's always compact. He seems allergic to reuse verbs more than a self-prescribed amount of time so the reader's brain is always exercising to see the weird impressions he's smudging on the page. Much of the information exists in implication, the margins, subtle hints as it does in the actual storytelling. Probably he gets beat up for it, how else to explain the fact that Ivyland is under 3 stars right now? He's underexposed and overly talented. But given that novel, it's understandable that True False would be better. His pacing is quick. Stories like Drone sprint along at a cardiac pace. His microfictions are written like jokes, sometimes hovering in a weird not-quite-fictional-not-wholly-social-commentary/blogpost haze.

While there's still a fair amount of "dystopia" (crude word) in the collection, it's not something that can umbrella the whole collection. Stories about Pythagoras, Depression era bank robbers, turn of the century suburbia, a milkman, Ben Franklin's illegitimate son have none of the jazz hands that cool tech and Big Pharma have. And that's not to mention the more metafictional and story-errata (Ibid is a half-gallon can of energy drink for literary nerds). If there's a unity to it, it's the Compactness (with Disunity running a close second). We typically associate this kind of claustrophobia and senselessness with the modern age ("hyperurban" as William Gibson blurbs), but regardless I think most attention will be paid to the stories that have a definitive future/dystopia bent. That said...

What Of The Future?
A permanent blackout in New York City
A company trying to perfectly engineer the emotion of love
Comatose president and suicidal VP
A man-made island in the middle of the ocean (A Whites Only kind of establishment)
"Cures" for defecation and waste in the human body.

The Punchline
Klee's at his most appealing when he's being funny. The book reminds me a lot of the Barthelme I've read. Conversation tends very quickly to the acerbic, cynical and cutting. Vonnegut's Rule 6: Be a Sadist is in fool effect. If there's empathy with characters it's often with their anxieties, the things that make them jumpy, annoyed, exhausted. Again reiterating something that seems quintessentially authentic to the Now and About To Come. The stories really are wide-ranging, but the humor is graciously ever-present.


Betamax Extras
Get To Know Him

Favorites: Pythagoras Too and Drone

Inexplicably absent short story of his that I love

Interview I did with him over at Full Stop

[Gina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received this book as a first read. It's the best short story collection I've read in a long time and deserves a permanent spot on the bookshelf to be reread again. The stories are funny, dark, dystopic, satirical, irreverent, and existential. The collection is a good exploration of human nature in all of its absurdity. Fans of Kurt Vonnegut's Welcome to the Monkey House or Etgar Keret's The Nimrod Flipout will like this story collection. Brilliant writing and a solid collection where each story is as good as the next.

[Mattschratz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a weird book in every positively valued sense of weird, a book in which the linguistic power of the sentences do not work as embroidery but as a genuine site of engagement and something like argument between its ideas and its language. I especially like the one with the milkman.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

super diverse collection of largely excellent stories. hints of coover, shirley jackson, barthelme, and others but it's really strong enough to escape tracking by influence or borrowed ideas.

[Chris Roberts · Rating 1 out of 5]

The aspirant writer
who self-expresses via fiction
is instantly an "artist"
no matter the clarity or lack thereof
in his or her work.

The mentally ill
automatically "blessed" via lunacy
a writing ability and
types a ten-thousand word screed
a blazing two hour jag,
the absolute impossible flight of words.

Oh yes, the bipolar writer
will take you to the reaches, stratospheric
and drop down, the drifting agony of a cloud,
the sub-sub depths of despair, minds are lost
now a statue, in the inanimate, eternity reigns.

Chris Roberts

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

A wide scattering of tiny writing prompts, observations, and intricately clever or hallucinatory speculative stories. The weaker bits aren't exactly chaff as much as koans, but overall they take away from the polish of this collection.

[Shraddha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to return this book before I was able to finish it. I really enjoyed the strangeness and the ambience of the stories. I will likely pick this up when I'm ready for short stories again.

[Ryan Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Whereas most writers try out different voices, Klee tries out different worlds. The voice is persistent, sometimes to a fault: an intelligent destruction and self-aware deductivity of and with language, all at once. The influence and style is truly one of contemporary means, a collage so dense that it becomes wholly original itself. Pieces of Barthelme and Lipsyte and Lutz and Hempel and so many more are everywhere, and Klee's imagination glues it together in the biggest of ways."

FULL REVIEW FORTHCOMING AT HEAVY FEATHER REVIEW