The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Blood Lake and Other Stories by Jim Krusoe
Christopher Paddock

Jim Krusoe. Blood Lake and Other Stories. Boaz, 1997. 158 pp. $18.50.

This is the first collection of stories from the founding editor of the Santa Monica Review, publisher of many excellent authors, including Rikki Ducornet, Ron Sukenick, Curtis White, and Gordon Lish. But more than any of these writers, Krusoe resembles Mark Leyner—if he resembles anyone at all. Krusoe bombards the reader with the outrageous in a most consistent and offhanded tone. But make no mistake: Krusoe has his own style, and it is a finely honed and riotous one at that.
Most stories here follow a similar pattern: Krusoe draws the reader in by implying that a “story” is to be told, only to break off into hysterically absurd tangents, leading one to believe that the narrator (usually named Jim, sometimes Mr. Krusoe, one time a bear) is serving as something of a foil after having been rendered hilariously unreliable. In the title story, where the narrator’s old friend has suddenly died on the car ride back from their annual fishing trip at Blood Lake (where it’s best to get to fishing early before the lake’s surface turns into a “clotted crust, impossible to penetrate with all but the heaviest of lures”), our narrator decides it’s best for all if he simply buries Marvin and tells his wife he had drowned: “she’d be upset, but would save a lot of money, and I wouldn’t have to drive back with him slumping there next to me. I knew that’s what Marvin would have wanted.”
Before dying, Marvin had related his experiences in the mind mazes at Cornell University, where he tried to duplicate exactly in his mind a just-electrically stimulated memory from his past. These “mazes” are emblematic of the narrator’s attempt to re-create the story of “Blood Lake” as he wanders off (taking the reader with him) into the marvelously disparate thoughts he had conjured during the evening of the event that prompted his narrative. “Blood Lake” is representative of this fine collection, which fittingly ends with what I feel to be Krusoe’s best piece, “Another Life.” But I’ve saved that one for those who seek out this wryly ingenious book. [Christopher Paddock]


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The Review of Contemporary Fiction Blood Lake and Other Stories by Jim Krusoe Christopher Paddock Jim Krusoe. Blood Lake and Other Stories. Boaz, 1997. 158 pp. $18.50. This is the first collection of stories from the founding editor of the Santa Monica Review, publisher of many excellent authors, including Rikki Ducornet, Ron Sukenick, Curtis White, and Gordon Lish. But more than any of these writers, Krusoe resembles Mark Leyner—if he resembles anyone at all. Krusoe bombards the reader with the outrageous in a most consistent and offhanded tone. But make no mistake: Krusoe has his own style, and it is a finely honed and riotous one at that. Most stories here follow a similar pattern: Krusoe draws the reader in by implying that a “story” is to be told, only to break off into hysterically absurd tangents, leading one to believe that the narrator (usually named Jim, sometimes Mr. Krusoe, one time a bear) is serving as something of a foil after having been rendered hilariously unreliable. In the title story, where the narrator’s old friend has suddenly died on the car ride back from their annual fishing trip at Blood Lake (where it’s best to get to fishing early before the lake’s surface turns into a “clotted crust, impossible to penetrate with all but the heaviest of lures”), our narrator decides it’s best for all if he simply buries Marvin and tells his wife he had drowned: “she’d be upset, but would save a lot of money, and I wouldn’t have to drive back with him slumping there next to me. I knew that’s what Marvin would have wanted.” Before dying, Marvin had related his experiences in the mind mazes at Cornell University, where he tried to duplicate exactly in his mind a just-electrically stimulated memory from his past. These “mazes” are emblematic of the narrator’s attempt to re-create the story of “Blood Lake” as he wanders off (taking the reader with him) into the marvelously disparate thoughts he had conjured during the evening of the event that prompted his narrative. “Blood Lake” is representative of this fine collection, which fittingly ends with what I feel to be Krusoe’s best piece, “Another Life.” But I’ve saved that one for those who seek out this wryly ingenious book. [Christopher Paddock]

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