Subject: Critique of Jonathan Carroll's work

From: [email-masked] (Glen Cox)
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1992 17:39:46 GMT

=== Jonathan Carroll: The Importance of Detail 
=== A Critical Summary of the Writing of Jonathan Carroll 
=== Originally copyright (c) 1990 by Glen E. Cox, from 
       NOVA Express, v.3 #2, Summer 1990
    Additions copyright (c) 1992 by Glen E. Cox

INTRODUCTION
   One of the ways a horror novel works is it takes people 
who we can relate with (they are like us or someone we know) 
and puts them into situations we have lingering fears of 
(from childhood or from the anxiety of modern life).  This 
is self-evident in the novels of Stephen King, the acknowledged
master of modern horror.  In books like THE SHINING, King 
spends the first half of the book just familiarizing the reader 
with his characters, their hopes and goals, and, most of all, 
their fears.  Because he is willing to spend so much time 
*before* unleashing the horrific elements, these horrors gain 
intensity--from foreshadowing, from the anxiety of the
reader anticipating bad things (it *is* a Stephen King book, 
after all), and from the identification of the reader with 
the characters.
   Although Jonathan Carroll is not writing horror novels 
*per se*, he uses much the same method.  Carroll's mastery 
lies in his deft description of the everyday events and 
people that inhabit the real world.  But he also has a 
wonderful sense of the absurdity of life, the strangeness 
of what we take for granted.  He is able to describe these 
commonplace activities and make us look at them as if we had
never seen them before.
   Carroll's imagination resides one step off the beaten path, 
which, because of the ideas and pictures it conjures for people, 
I can call none other than The Twilight Zone.  But Carroll is 
interested in much more than just a simple twist--the reality 
of his worlds dissolve and crumble like the best of Philip K. 
Dick (in particular, such novels as THE THREE STIGMATA OF 
PALMER ELDRITCH and UBIK).  Cause and effect become important 
aspects of many of Carroll's stories--do the characters cause
their fates, or are their actions an inevitable descent into 
the maelstrom from which they cannot escape?  Is there free 
will, Carroll asks, or are our lives ruled by something that 
we cannot see?
   Most of Carroll's narrators are what would be classed as
"unreliable," meaning that because of who the narrator is or
what has happened to him or her, the reader is suspicious of
any "facts" related by such a character.  This device is very
dangerous in practice because of the inherent trouble of 
alieniating the reader.  But Carroll avoids this disaster 
time after time, chiefly because even his unreliable narrators 
are so much more interesting, so much more realistic than the 
standard stock that you're willing to forgive them their 
eccentricities even if they turn out bonkers.
  Most of all, Carroll, like King, has the ability to weave 
his story around the reader with such subtletly that until 
you've come to that last period, you are unaware of the webs 
that held you firmly in place.  You can call it good plotting, 
steady buildup and mastery of tension and release, or a talent 
for setting up and following through--I just call it genius.

** SPOILER ALERT:  I give away the stories.  I try to avoid it 
**********  where I can, but sometimes it just wasn't possible.  
**********  If you have yet to read these stories and novels, 
**********  and plan to (which you should, oh my yes!), be 
**********  forewarned. 

THE LAND OF LAUGHS, Viking, 1980 (Ace, 1981)
   Thomas Abbey and Saxoney Gardner take a trip to Galen, 
Missouri, the home town of their favorite author, the late 
Marshall France, writer of the wonderful children's books 
THE GREEN DOG'S SORROW, THE POOL OF STARS and THE LAND OF
LAUGHS.  Thomas, a schoolteacher, has taken a year's 
sabbatical leave to write a biography of France.  Given to 
believe by France's former agent that they would receive a 
cold reception in Galen, Thomas and Saxoney are surprised at 
the friendliness that they encounter.  But that's not their
only surprise.  As they delve deeper into France's life, certain
parts seem odd.  For example, his interests seem to have
strangely influenced not only their own, but those of the
townspeople as well, and then Thomas notices the dog at
the end of the bed *talking* in his sleep....
   THE LAND OF LAUGHS is an amazing first novel.  Provocative 
in its imaginary realm, Carroll is able to make you actually 
believe there was a Marshall France who wrote children's 
stories (in fact, I'm sad there wasn't, or that Carroll hasn't 
written the wonderful stories he describes).  There is also an 
inevitability here, as the events pile upon each other and the 
characters feel like they have no control.  But the shocker, 
intentional or not, is that one character *does* have control.  
One character turns out to be the writer of the world, the 
definer of Reality for the other characters.  Whether this 
character always had that power, even unto the invention of
Galen and France, remains a puzzlement.
   THE LAND OF LAUGHS also reveals Carroll's greatest weakness
as a writer: an inability to provide a satisfactory ending.  This
is one problem that continues to plague his later works.  His 
build-up is flawless, as the characters learn successive elements 
that piece together an astounding answer.  Then Carroll stops his 
story abruptly, avoiding the realization of the "truth," and 
gives you an after-climax, an epilogue hinting at what the main 
character has done with the "truth."  Some feel the epilogue
provides a logical conclusion to the novel, saying that the 
main character's recreation of a dead parent adds deeper meaning 
to what has gone before.  They feel the book is that character's 
search for a parent he never knew, that it is a message to
those who never knew one of their parents.  If so, Carroll's 
audience is extremely limited.
   This isn't to say that THE LAND OF LAUGHS is bad.  Quite the
opposite.  It overcomes even its weak ending through Carroll's
skillful delivery and imagination.  Perhaps the abrupt ending
is designed to avoid giving readers any easy answers.  Perhaps
Carroll is forcing the reader to direct his pent-up imagination
elsewhere -- from the author's imagination to his own.  Perhaps.  
My feeling is that this method is ultimately unsatisfying.

VOICE OF OUR SHADOW, Viking, 1983 (Ace, 1984)
  VOICE OF OUR SHADOW is many things:  to the reader, it's 
the name of the book itself; to the characters, it's the name 
of a play adapted from the narrator's short story; but Carroll's
main definition is that the voice of our shadow is our "Jiminy
Cricket," the little angel on our shoulder, our conscience.  And
our conscience can be a strong voice, speaking to us in such 
terms as guilt, indecision, and fear.  Carroll's second novel is 
much darker in tone than THE LAND OF LAUGHS.  What seemed 
whimsical in his first novel becomes dangerous even from the 
beginning of this one.
   Joe Lennox is plagued by the memory of his older brother, 
Ross, who died at age 15 on a railroad crossing.  But Joe knows 
the complete story of that day and this knowledge haunts him, 
manifesting first as a short story called "Wooden Pajamas" 
which he writes in an attempt to exorcise his demons.  The story 
is good enough to attract the attention of a Broadway director, 
who turns it into a hit play.  This gives Joe enough money 
to travel comfortably (specifically to Italy), yet gives him only
fleeting fame.
   Drawn into a conversation between a couple in a movie theater,
he is recognized and befriended by the two.  Although Joe is
attracted to both Paul and India Tate, he soon discovers his
attraction to India is as much sexual as intellectual.  After a
period of bliss in the beginning of a friendship between the
three, things start to turn nasty.  Paul, after having been away
for a weekend, returns and accuses Joe and India of sleeping
together.  Although they hadn't, Joe and India discover that
each wanted to when talking together about this incident later.
The inevitable happens, and Paul, who was always a little strange,
loses control.
   Like THE LAND OF LAUGHS, VOICE OF OUR SHADOW gives a nod
to THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE.  In these novels, the 
characters are strapped by their emotions to a carnival ride 
that can only end up in unhappiness.  Joe is a tragic figure,
and by involving himself in Paul and India's marriage, he dooms
it.  Once again, the ending is ambiguous and confused, this time
because it is filtered through the perceptions of Joe.  The
only thing obvious to the reader is that the voice of Joe's 
shadow is screaming at him and he, like Paul, has lost all
control.

BONES OF THE MOON, Century, 1987 (Arbor House, 1988)
   BONES OF THE MOON proved to be Jonathan Carroll's break-
through novel, since it established him as something other than
a one-shot wonder.  In America, it was his first novel to be
supported by advertising, the first to be brought out as a 'genre'
novel, rather than being lost in the mainstream, and the first to
have a significant hardback print run.  BONES OF THE MOON is more
consistent and mature than either THE LAND OF LAUGHS or VOICE
OF OUR SHADOW, but maintains the wild imagination that made
those two worthwhile.
   Cullen and Danny James are not your perfect couple, yet
they are perfect for each other--a real relationship revealed by
Cullen's reminiscences in Part I.  The description, the exactness of
events, the truth revealed in this beginning belie the words "set-
up."  A set-up implies falsehood, deception or trickery, none of
which apply here.  Stories such as Cullen and Danny's are the
stuff that *The New Yorker* should be made of--hell, *any* fiction
magazine.  Who cares that nothing otherworldly occurs?  Part I
made me laugh, sniff, and awakened my interest in life.
   However, there is no need to worry that Carroll's gone
Updike on us--I haven't even mentioned the reader-grabbing
first line: "The Axe Boy lived downstairs."  Part II introduces
Cullen's dream of Pepsi, a little boy who lives in the dreamland
of Rondua.  These recurring dreams quickly turn nightmarish as
they become more vivid until even another person in the "real"
world begins to experience the same dreams.
   The adventures in Rondua would make a fine fantasy novel 
on their own, but because Carroll inserts them into his realistic
overlay they become even stranger.  Jonathan Carroll has a knack
for picking imaginative names and describing unreality much
like that more famous Carroll, Lewis.  Jack Chili, the antagonist in
the dream world, is the epitome of chaotic evil, containing the
worst aspects of creatures like the Grinch, Sauron, and the
Heat Miser.
   Rondua illuminates as well as exasperates, giving us
glimpses not only of Cullen's subconscious (her guilt over the
abortion and her fears for her present pregnancy), but also events
in the "real" world without the filter of Cullen's narration.
Carroll again has camped on the beach between the worlds and
spends the novel wading in and out of the tide-pools.  The ending
is a shocker, a turn-your-knuckles-white this-can't-be-happening
page-turner.  In this book, Carroll finally got everything right.
   But (and there's always a but) Carroll revised the ending for
all later editions, allowing for more novels using these characters.
Although better than the endings to his previous books, the
revised ending doesn't come close to the shock or pathos of the
original, only available in the 1,500 copies of the British first
edition.

"Friend's Best Man," The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 
      January 1987 (reprinted in The Year's Best Fantasy, First
      Annual Collection, Datlow and Windling, eds., St. Martin's, 
      1988)
   This story was my introduction to Carroll.  Although I enjoyed
it enough to get BONES OF THE MOON, I wasn't convinced it could
beat sliced bread.  On rereading it recently, I acquired a new-
found appreciation for its structure, clarity, and, most of all,
its ending.
   While saving Friend, his dog, from being hit by a train, Egan
Moore loses a leg.  In the hospital he meets Jasenka "Jazz"
Ciric, who is terminally ill.  Jazz can talk to Friend, or at
least thinks she can, and translates Friend's stories and
predictions for Egan.
   In this rare case of a reliable narrator, Carroll's abilities
in character development are prominent.  The relationships 
between Egan, Jazz, Friend, and Kathleen (Egan's next door
neighbor who falls in love with him over the course of the story)
intertwine.  While nothing overtly fantastic occurs, the
beauty of the story comes from what it suggests to the imagination.
Although Egan is a reliable narrator, the story hinges on Jazz.
In this case, Carroll puts his narrator in the same awkward
position as the reader--causing both to ask, "What is real?"
and "Who can you trust?"

SLEEPING IN FLAME, Century, 1988 (Vintage, 1990)
   Although SLEEPING IN FLAME uses some of the same characters
as BONES OF THE MOON, it is a thematic sequel that stands by
itself.  All of Carroll's books seem to be variations on the
theme of reality versus un-reality, and the Rondua novels are
actually only separate from Carroll's other novels because of
their recurring characters.
    Like BONES OF THE MOON, SLEEPING IN FLAME starts out very
realistically.  We are introduced to our narrator, Walker
Easterling, as he tells us of his marriage, divorce, and his
subsequent fascination with a young Austrian girl named Maris
York.  Carroll shows us another wonderful yet marred relationship,
different from the ones in his previous books, but just as true
to life.  Like Cullen, Easterling has strange dreams, although
his are about growing up as the child of a Rumplestiltskin-like
gnome.  Mysterious things keep happening to him, like when old
women refer to him as "Redaexnala" for no apparent reason,
then deny having done so.
   The story is basically a mystery about Walker trying to
discover his own past, as this same past is returning to haunt him
(shades of VOICE OF OUR SHADOW).  The strange ways in which 
these pieces are revealed make up the majority of the novel,
stemming from Walker's role as an actor (he plays the part of Mr.
Pencil in director Weber Gregston's *Wonderful*), to Maris' use of
computers as design tools, to the old style storytelling of fairy
tales.  There's also Venasque, the type of shaman that makes sense
in this world, one whose affinity with animals is somewhere
between Dr. Doolittle and James Herriott, and who likes nothing
better than old movies on cable television.
   Here, Carroll is in full command of his style, weaving in and
out like a champion boxer, throwing well-timed punches into the
reader's face.  There are no slips, trips or falls here, just an
intoxicating bout of verbiage from someone with a story to tell
and a unique way of telling it.
   SLEEPING IN FLAME's climax serves well as a culmination of
what came before.  In this ending, Walker faces two elderly
German ladies who plan to tell him the story of his father,
but Walker has the true power in this story, and he is able
to change it to suit his needs.  Yet, with power comes great
responsibility and even greater possibility for harm.  
Unfortunately, Carroll ends this novel on an ellipsis, leaving
the reader to imagine....

A CHILD ACROSS THE SKY, Century, 1989 (Doubleday, 1990)
   This novel focuses on Weber Gregston, who we first met in
BONES OF THE MOON (he was the other person to experience the
Rondua dreams with Cullen).  Another great opener: "An hour
before he shot himself, my best friend Philip Strayhorn called
to talk about thumbs."  That opening lets you in on the set-up;
instead of a male-female relationship, Carroll looks at the 
relationship of two male college roommates with similar 
interests, who have gone slightly separate ways since school.
Gregston became a widely respected director of art house
films; Strayhorn became "Bloodstone," the "hero" and writer
of the Midnight series of horror films.  Though addicted,
both have become disenchanted with movies.  Gregston has
turned to theater while Strayhorn is putting the finishing
touches on the fourth (and last) Midnight movie.
   Strayhorn commits suicide, sending Gregston a videotape
of his last requests.  Strangely, the videotape will only
play so much before showing white noise--revealing new
portions each succeeding time it is played.  Strayhorn 
requests that Gregston finish the last Midnight movie and 
close Strayhorn's business in L.A.  Interspersed in this
narrative are comments from Strayhorn himself, who has
entered the larger world (the "afterlife"?) and become
a postmodern fiction character--someone who both
participates in and comments on the action of the novel.
   While finishing "Midnight Never Leaves," Gregston is
visited by Pinsleepe, who is either Strayhorn's unborn
daughter or an angel.  Pinsleepe explains to him the
importance of finishing the movie, something to do with
the evil that Strayhorn had released into the world.  But
there are may types of angels, and what the dead want isn't
always the best for the living....
   A CHILD ACROSS THE SKY contains a lot of punch, yet
most of the blows are only glancing.  For readers familiar
with Strayhorn and Gregston from the previous novels, this
is an interesting addition and complication to their stories.
Readers unfamiliar with them or Carroll's work in general
will find themselves lost and unsure in this new realm of
unasked questions and unaddressed possibilities.

"Florian," Weird Tales, Vol. 51 No. 1 (Whole No. 294), Fall 1989
   Painters do "studies," small sketches in practice for what
they plan to include in larger works.  Writers have a similar
practice in that sometimes they will do a short story that 
they later rewrite on a much larger canvas.  But for the painter
there is no analogy to the writer's occasional goal of condensing
everything into a brief theme, almost idea alone, that makes
some short stories worth much more than the number of words on
the page.  One of the best practitioners of this idea-laden,
dense prose is the Latin American writer Jorge Luis Borges, who,
in stories such as "The Library of Babylon," posits incredible
ideas as a library that contains an infinite number of books,
presenting to the reader the entirety of the idea, and then 
abandoning it--the ultimate test of the imagination.  In
"Florian," Carroll takes what could be considered the theme
of his Rondua books (particularly BONES OF THE MOON), and 
expresses the same in a brief but poignant story of a father
and son.
   Carroll's story begins from inside a structure of recursive
boxes, wherein Florian[1] is "the most beautiful child in the
world."  Surrounding that box is Author[1]'s story about
Florian[1], while his own son, Florian[2], is dying of
pneumonia.  As we close that box, we discover Author[2] and
his story about Author[1] writing a story about Florian[1].
Author[2]'s son, Florian[3], is healthy and normal, neither
magical like Florian[1], nor sickly like Florian[2].  Of
course, there lies that last box, Jonathan Carroll himself,
or Author[3].  By the structure, the reader is left 
wondering if Carroll has a Florian[4] as his own son.  Like
Philip K. Dick's TIME OUT OF JOINT, the reader discovers
that a new world could be as close as the hot dog stand
on the corner or the next paragraph in the story.

"Tired Angel," Fear, No. 12, December 1989
   This epistolary story (if you can call one letter epistolary), 
is a prime example of Carroll's skill with unreliable narrators, 
as well as his understanding of the fears of modern living.  
Basically a letter to the reader from a psychopath, "Tired Angel" 
relates the identification, observation, familiarization, and 
victimization of a young woman by the unidentified narrator.  
Detailing every step in this process, the narrator lectures as 
if giving a course in "How-to-Be-a-Psycho."  Although patently
disturbing, it achieves its effect through the gripping tale of
a young woman slowly driven mad by the anonymous narrator.
   Why is the narrator unreliable?  Is it because he doesn't 
give correct information to the reader?  Although that is a 
possibility, it is doubtful that he is lying given the 
accounting of events.  But because we realize by his very 
actions that the narrator is not "normal," because of his 
clinical detachment and lack of emotions, he is inherently 
untrustworthy.  By the end of the story, the question of trust
(a major aspect of the story, considering the narrator's 
"betrayal" of the young woman) is emphasized, forcing us to 
look askance to friends and neighbors.
   This is the true type of horror that goes beyond tales of the
supernatural, much like Lansdale's "Night They Missed the Horror 
Show" or the novels of Thomas Harris.  There is nothing in the 
story that could not have happened.  Because we know such things 
*do* happen, and because we read about them and see them on TV, 
we know they are  real.  And reality is always more horrible 
than fiction.

"The Panic Hand," Interzone, No 33, January/February 1990
   "I'm sorry if you're unsatisfied."
   That sentence ends one of the last paragraphs of this 
story, and was like a slap in the face to me.  
   "The Panic Hand" is the story of an unnamed narrator who 
meets a young girl and her mother on his weekly visit to his 
lover in the country.  This shy, young girl has a stuttering 
problem which seems to cloud her entire world.  The narrator, 
first attracted by both females, finds himself opening up more 
and more to the daughter, finding the mother vain and talkative.  
But, like other Carroll stories, things aren't as they seem.  
The mother is just a projection of the daughter's dream self,
anxious for the attention of men.
   Although the story suggest a Lolita-like relationship, it
avoids comprehension even on that level.  The narrator (and 
presumably the author) has no idea what this story is about, 
if it is truly *about* anything at all.  Is this a story about 
children and their miscomprehension of the acts of adults?  Is 
the narrator instead a child mongeror, anxious for a quick feel 
of nubile flesh (an idea given weight by the story's last 
sentence in which the narrator is excited by the presence of 
his lover's daughter meeting him at the station)?  Or is his
lover a projection of her own daughter?
   There are some worthwhile sections of text: the beginning 
description of the narrator's ennui; the three paragraphs 
describing the entrance of the mother and daughter; the way 
some people can attract waiters.  All interesting, yet almost 
tangential to the story, bits and pieces worthy of being put 
to print, but wasted in this nonsensical fashion.
   The text of the story, the way it's written, implies that 
something important is afoot, yet when finished I seemed to 
have missed the punch line.  I re-read it, thinking some minute, 
telling detail had eluded me in my hurried reading, yet I was
still unable to fathom the story.  I felt duped, as if someone 
yelled "Penguin!" and I was the only one not laughing.  "The 
Panic Hand" is the title story of Carroll's collection available 
only in German.  Maybe it's a joke that lost something in the 
translation.

"The Sadness of Detail," OMNI, Vol. 12 No. 5, February 1990
   The title may think it sad, but it is the details that are 
important, as Carroll shows to great effect in this short story.  
The narrator is a wife and mother given to visiting the Cafe
Bremen, sketching and humming.  Her problem is an old man who 
invades her table with photos of her family--as they will be 
in the future.  Confronted by these pictures--her son 
handicapped, her marriage in divorce--she stubbornly forces 
questions on the old man, What does he want?  The answer is simple: 
a drawing.  For happiness and the future, a drawing.
   But, as in any good episode of *The Twilight Zone*, it is more 
than just one drawing, for the one drawing is a test--a 
pre-employment questionnaire, if you will--and the old man has 
need of her ability to remember and draw details so that God 
himself might remember.  Although the reader is well caught up 
in the idea (think of it!  God as senile, the hosts of Hell 
determined to be forgotten as well, so that true chaos may reign...
James Blish, move over!), Carroll ends it abruptly, leaving any story
beyond her continued drawings for God to the reader's imagination.
   In this case, such incompleteness is understandable.  Not only 
is Carroll limiting himself to a short story, but the very fact 
that his strengths lie in a realistic setting, on a down-to-earth 
level, precludes him from branching out into an all-out Good vs. 
Evil battle to decide the fate of humanity.  No, Carroll is quite 
happy to leave such epic tales to those inclined to mega-volume 
series.  He has told the part that interests him, that little slice
of one woman's recruitment into the everyday battle for the forces 
of good.  Anything more just wouldn't have been Carroll.

BLACK COCKTAIL, Century Legend, 1990
   This smallish and flawed novella concerns Michael Billa, whose
tales mirror Carroll's own: funny, interesting, but yet about
the mundane.  Clinton Deix, a purported school chum of Billa's,
tells the main character, Ingram York, that all of Billa's stories
are lies.  Ingram has trouble deciding who to believe: Michael,
who's stories are so fantastic as to be lies, or Deix, who Ingram
finds hard to be a schoolmate of Billa, when Billa is in his
thirties and Deix is fifteen.  Then we 'learn' that Billa has
the ability to 'freeze' people at a certain development/age.
   Confusing?  Easily, because Carroll is trying to write at a
shorter length what he usually spends pages on.  Ideas and 
characters are thrown at the reader willy-nilly, until--BANG!
The End.  What happens?  I can't tell, but I liked some of the
words, even the longer ones.  Although not quite as bewildering
as "The Panic Hand," BLACK COCKTAIL is a drink best sipped for 
its style, rather than for any final refreshment.

OUTSIDE THE DOG MUSEUM, Macdonald, 1991
   Another "Venasque" novel, named after the only character
that appears in all of them (including BONES OF THE MOON, 
SLEEPING IN FLAME, and A CHILD ACROSS THE SKY), OUTSIDE THE
DOG MUSEUM centers around another artist type, Henry Radcliffe.
Radcliffe is an architect at the height of his powers and
popularity, and is being pressured by the Sultan of Saru to
design and build for him the museum of the title.  The Sultan,
in spite of his religon which says that dogs are unmentionable
creatures, feels that his life has been guided and saved by
them, and that he must build a museum to honor them.  Radcliffe
refuses until an earthquake hits LA, and he and the Sultan
are both saved by Venasque's dog.
   Radcliffe met Venasque after recuperating from a mental
breakdown.  Coupled with the seeming unreality (or disreality)
or the Sultan's world, Radcliffe's tenuous grip on this side
of the sanity of genius informs the majority of the novel.
An interesting subplot is Radcliffe's rocky relations with his
two girlfriends, and their subsequent reactions regarding his
infidelity.
   Carroll is in fine form with this novel, yet there also
seems to be something missing in the final reading.  Perhaps
I am starting to become accustomed to his themes, or perhaps
he is only repeating himself.  The localized stories and 
subplots remain as fresh and intriguing as anything Carroll
wrote before, but the novel itself seemed lifeless.  And again,
the ending is an ellipsis, and not a fulmination of what
went before.

CONCLUSION
   Although he uses the same "formula" for success as Stephen
King, Jonathan Carroll's work has the possibility for being much
more rewarding.  Carroll's characters may not be as downhome
or humorous as some of King's, but their experiences are more
universal.  Carroll's description is more succinct, pertinent
and poignant than any of King's, especially his recent novels.
And Carroll doesn't have to fulfill the expectation of a horror
novelist, and thus has free reign to write that which King may
be reluctant to (this even though King is the bestselling author
of our time--great fame can bring about great limitations).
   By mixing the best of mainstream and genre literature, 
Carroll has unearthed a rich vein of material for years to come,
by giving us the most realistic people in the most unreal
situations.  He has the potential to attract a wide range of
readers if he can master the climax--not necessarily "finishing"
stories in a blaze of pyrotechnics, but rather achieving reader
satisfaction.  Although popular in England (and possibly the
rest of Europe), Carroll has yet to truly catch on in America.
   In C.S. Lewis' THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW, Digory discovers a
forest of trees and small pools--each pool a new world, and
the forest a way-station between them.  In Carroll's writing,
this station *is* the world, the setting of the entire story
rather than just a means of getting there from here.  Like the
Schrodinger's Cat experiment, his characters are frozen in the
moment between two worlds, and only observation can free them--
to life, or death.

%A   Jonathan Carroll
%T   The Land of Laughs
%I   Viking
%C   New York
%D   1980
%G   ISBN ??

%A   Jonathan Carroll
%T   Voice of Our Shadow
%I   Viking
%C   New York
%D   1983
%G   ISBN 0-670-49240-X
%O   US$13.50
%P   189 pp.

%A   Jonathan Carroll
%T   Bones of the Moon
%I   Century
%C   London, UK
%D   1987
%G   ISBN 0-7126-1504-0
%O   UK$9.95
%P   216 pp.

%A   Jonathan Carroll
%T   "Friend's Best Man"
%B   The Year's Best Fantasy: First Annual Collection
%E   Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
%I   St. Martin's
%C   New York
%D   1988
%G   ISBN 0-312-01851-7
%O   US$19.95
%P   43-58 pp.

%A   Jonathan Carroll
%T   Sleeping in Flame
%I   Doubleday
%C   New York
%D   1989
%G   ISBN 0-385-24957-8
%O   US$17.95
%P   273 pp.

%A   Jonathan Carroll
%T   A Child Across the Sky
%I   Century Legend
%C   London
%D   1989
%G   ISBN 0-7126-2588-7
%O   UK$11.95
%P   268 pp.

%A   Jonathan Carroll
%T   "Florian"
%J   Weird Tales
%V   51:1 (Whole No. 294)
%E   George Scithers, John Betancourt, Darrell Schweitzer
%I   Terminus Publishing Co.
%C   Philadelphia, PA
%D   Fall 1989
%O   US$3.50

%A   Jonathan Carroll
%T   "Tired Angel"
%J   Fear
%V   1:12
%C   London?
%D   December 1989

%A   Jonathan Carroll
%T   "The Panic Hand"
%J   Interzone
%V   1:33?
%E   David Pringle
%C   London?
%D   January/February 1990

%A   Jonathan Carroll
%T   "The Sadness of Detail"
%J   OMNI
%V   12:5
%E   Ellen Datlow
%C   New York
%D   February 1990

%A   Jonathan Carroll
%T   Black Cocktail
%I   Century Legend
%C   London
%D   1990
%G   ISBN 0-7126-3680-3
%O   UK$8.99 
%P   76 pp.

%A   Jonathan Carroll
%T   Outside the Dog Museum
%I   Macdonald
%C   London
%D   1991
%G   ISBN 0-356-19589-9
%O   UK$12.95
%P   244 pp.