The Review of Contemporary Fiction
Endorsed by Jack Chapeau by Theodore PeltonTrevor Dodge
Theodore Pelton. Endorsed by Jack Chapeau. Starcherone Books, 2000. 80 pp. Paper: $7.95.
Theodore Pelton’s first collection of short stories explores an America plagued by media misinformation, conspiracy theories, academic sociopaths, and pubic-hair fetishes, where televisions have replaced fireplaces as the warming-yet-disaffected glow in our collective homes and hearts. Pelton’s seven short fictions problematize the reality of postwar America by asking us to think beyond what we’ve come to know as numb spectators of the electric box and bored participants in the theater of our own absurd lives. In “Friendly Fire” Pelton examines the rhetoric of the Persian Gulf War as a spaghetti Western starring Dr. Seuss, George Bush, and Tonto, separated from his Lone Ranger. “Pawns” depicts Bobby Fischer as the sad, deflated character he has become in the post-Cold War era: a corporate shell hawking chess timers to a world that no longer has any use for him. “From Comboria” posits the possibility that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier actually contains a surveillance camera which records the serious expressions and morose contemplations of the Tomb’s passersby. And while yellow-ribbon conspiracy (“Where did the yellow ribbons come from?”) and technophobic paranoia (“twenty-eight people were killed yesterday by a glitch”) are certainly on Pelton’s mind throughout the collection, he’s realistic in his assessment that “most people think of conspiracies as hazy dreams which probably occurred but no longer fit their current lifestyles.” In our United States of Apathy we may acknowledge that the buffalo will not come back and J. Edgar Hoover probably did have something to do with JFK’s death, but ultimately these realities are more annoying entries on a to-do list than inspirational calls to action and reform. [Trevor Dodge]