Class struggle. Infirm secondary superheroes. Suicidal sheep. And sex that literally knocks you into a different time zone. It’s all in Jonathan Lethem’s new collection of short stories, “A Different Kind of Tension” (Ecco).
But why would we, at Streetsblog, care about a writer who has bent literary genres for three-plus decades as he’s bounded between California and Brooklyn with nary a thought for the car culture against which we rage daily? Why would we care about the author of two acclaimed novels — “The Fortress of Solitude” and “Brooklyn Crime Novel” — that are among the greatest in American literature when they don’t even offer a morsel of a subplot about how cars ruined our cities and distorted land use across our nation?
Why? Because we’re just flat-out fans of the 61-year-old author. So when the new collection came out, we rushed to the library (come on, we’re fans, but paying for a book? We were born at night, but not last night!) and couldn’t believe our eyes: An entire short story, “Program’s Progress” (1990) devoted not just to car culture, but to the velvet handcuffs of autocracy, all in one delectable bon-bon.
So with permission from Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, we offer it (for free!) to our readers. But do us a favor: go out and buy the book (we promised Lethem the excerpt would move copies).
Read that at the link below, and take a gander at today’s news headlines before you go on to a restful holiday weekend:
A Trump administration proposal recommends massive cuts to popular programs – and it will cost American communities more than they can afford, Senate Democrats say.
Until you can feel it (gas prices, that is). But you don’t really need it (suspending gas taxes).
