Transgressions: The Iowa Anthology of Innovative Fiction

The American cultural tumult of the 1960s provided the impetus for fiction writers to break literary conventions by abandoning traditional plot structure, authorial voice and even the bedrock of English punctuation and grammar. Transgressions is one of the results of these pioneering efforts. Pulled together by past and present editors of the Iowa Review, it is a fairly comprehensive anthology of new experimental short stories that ranges from the lyrical to the ridiculous. John Barth and Robert Coover are represented, of course (both in peak form), as well as seasoned iconoclasts William Gass and Kathy Acker. But Transgressions gives a good amount of space to lesser-known authors and newcomers as well, most of whom typically prowl the pages of small presses and literary magazines. Unfortunately, the missing element here is a context to make sense of each author's particular brand of innovation. Patricia Eakins's ``The Shade Man'' and George Angel's ``From a Work in Progress,'' for instance, might fit snugly within collections of the authors' own work, where the reader has time to explore the particular themes and concerns of each; but placed within a territory where the ground rules vary from instant to instant, they're close to incomprehensible. (Oct.)