Emporium: Stories

this is a fine debut by a writer we're all going to have to watch closely. Most short story collections have one or two zingers, and the rest of the pieces are so-so or just plain filler. There stories crackle with wit and linguistic energy. Perhaps Mr. Johnson might come off as a bit paranoid--or at least the characters in his stories seem to be--but I'll read another collection as finely written as this in a heartbeat. Bravo.

Adam Johnson's signature style sets his stories apart from anything that's being written today. With each piece, the reader is instantly immersed in a brilliant reality drawn with frightening clarity. The voices are distinct, memorable, impossible to forget. The language is stunning, each sentence layered with meaning. Here is a book that rewards multiple readings, that forces us to re-examine the world in which we live.

The stories in this collection will stay with you long after you have finished it. After reading such great stories as The Death-Dealing Cassini Satellite and the Cliff Gods of Acapulco you will find the characters unforgettable and haunting. Mr. Johnson's apparent talent is to put his characters into situations that are unique, teetering on bizarre, all the while amazing you with moments of humanity handled with insight that will leave your heart pounding after the last word. A great collection. Mr. Johnson is THE best new writer around...remember his name!

Emporium delivers a vision that produces a profound and immediate sense of rightness. More than just a glimpse into the future of our baffling world, Johnson provides a preview of where fiction itself is heading. Prepare yourself for characters more real than your mother, language that demands to be read aloud, images that will delight and haunt. This book soars in the same rarified air as the best collections of our time: The Night in Question, Birds of America, Poachers, Dogfight, CivilWarland, Hotel Eden. I'll end with my own prediction; years from now, you'll be having a drink with friends arguing about who read Adam Johnson first. Count on it.

I thought this book of stories was about as good as it gets. The stories, which are strange as hell, were also deeply insightful. How Adam can tell a story about a ma and pop bullet proof vest shop and turn it into a story about a girl leaving home, is beyond me. But he does it. He starts with these wild premises, like a teenage sniper working for a Silicon Valley Police Department, and turns them into moral fables about the pain of growing up, of first love, the push pull of parents and their children.In some ways he's writing about the most basic things, fathers who don't understand their sons, adolescent love stories. It's just that he's doing it all in such a new and original way. To find a comparison I would probably have to go to Kurt Vonnegut's Welcome To The Monkey House. But in technique he's much closer to Raymond Carver or Tobias Wolff and their clean, determined prose.It's really hard to imagine a short story lover not enjoying this book. If nothing else, and if you're too poor to buy a book in hardcover, grab it off the shelf at the bookstore and read the second story, Your Own Backyard.