A man wakes up mid-flight to find the plane empty of people - except for the cockpit where all he hears is quiet weeping. A street-level vigilante is interviewed in the woods at night. An escort shares the harrowing story of her dead friend with a middle-class couple looking for a threesome. And the fallout from the real-life Sony hack during the release of the 2014 movie The Interview starring James Franco and Seth Rogen is told from the perspective of James’ fictional(?) assistant.
Tom Bissell’s Creative Types and Other Stories is the best short story collection I’ve read in years (the last one being 2017’s The Relive Box by TC Boyle, in case anyone was wondering).
That said, the first couple of stories are a bit underwhelming. A Bridge Under Water is about a couple on their honeymoon in Europe and you can already start to see cracks in their relationship that indicate the marriage probably won’t go the distance. My Interview with the Avenger, about a man interviewing a famous vigilante who’s been off the grid for a few years, is a fun premise but rather weak story about… something? Both are sort of about identity, I think. But they’re also not boring stories and even within them are moments to appreciate - clever dialogue or an interesting observation, always delivered via accessible prose - that speaks to the uniqueness of the writer.
Punishment is the first story that really impressed me. It’s about two childhood friends reuniting as adults and the protagonist realising that they’re not really friends and moreover decides to find out just why they bullied kids when they were much younger. It’s a story I’ve never read before about the difference between childhood and adult friendships and trying to understand childhood behaviour and reconcile the things you did later on down the line. The ending is a bit obvious in what it’s going for, but I get it, endings are tough, and it’s still a powerful, compelling and relatable story.
Love Story, with Cocaine is about a rich Estonian girl falling for a rich American boy as they do drugs and meander around Estonia. I’m not totally sure what the point was - I got the impression it was circling something meaningful, though only that - but it’s entertaining, unpredictable and I still enjoyed it.
The Fifth Category is probably the best story here. It’s also the first of two stories (that I’m aware of) that features a real person as the protagonist - in this instance it’s John Yoo, the legal counsel to George W. Bush during the early years of his first term, where he made torture, like waterboarding, seem legal. I wonder if Bissell chose Yoo deliberately as a sort of wish-fulfilment for how he would like to see the man treated, given what he put so many other men through thanks to his work.
The mystery of a man waking up on a plane in mid-flight that’s empty of people is immediately gripping and builds beautifully, before Bissell introduces the elements that tells you who the protagonist is, and why it’s all happening. I initially felt it was underdeveloped - there remain some unanswered questions that you can more or less resolve yourself - and rushed but, thinking about it some more, it’s actually quite a brilliant finale. And I’m sure Yoo deserves that kinda thing too, along with Bush and his (surviving) cronies.
Creative Types, about a couple who are newly parents and looking to enliven their sex lives by hiring an escort for the evening, has a very unexpected and gripping story in its centre. I’m getting a feel for Bissell’s style of storytelling and sometimes these left turns don’t totally work - like in Bridge and Avenger - but it definitely did with the title story.
The Hack is the final story and, like with The Fifth Category, features a real person - though, because Bissell leaves off their surname again (probably for legal reasons), it takes you a minute to realise “James” is James Franco. (I also wonder if Bissell knows Franco in real life given that he co-wrote The Disaster Artist, which was later made into a movie starring Franco.)
It’s a fun story that reminded me of when a bunch of unreleased Sony movies and private company emails got leaked online and the fallout surrounding that debacle while Sony were releasing Franco/Rogen’s controversial comedy movie about the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un (it’s implied the hack was retaliation by North Korea for making fun of their leader).
Bissell convincingly portrays the life of a harried assistant to a megastar like Franco as well as capturing the frantic, exciting world of live television, as Franco prepares to host Saturday Night Live later that day, the monologue being rewritten to the last minute to exclude any references to the Sony hack.
This collection is a wonderfully imaginative and creative mix of inspired and original short fiction by an undeniable talent. I was frequently awed by the writing and confident, memorable storytelling and had a lot of fun reading this brilliant collection. I highly recommend Tom Bissell’s Creative Types and Other Stories to all fans of short fiction.
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