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Fortune Smiles: Stories, by Adam Johnson
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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his acclaimed novel about North Korea, The Orphan Master's Son, Adam Johnson is one of America's most provocative and powerful authors. Critics have compared him to Kurt Vonnegut, David Mitchell, and George Saunders, but Johnson's new book will only further his reputation as one of our most original writers. Subtly surreal, darkly comic, both hilarious and heartbreaking, Fortune Smiles is a major collection of stories that gives voice to the perspectives we don't often hear while offering something rare in fiction: a new way of looking at the world.
In six masterful stories, Johnson delves deep into love and loss, natural disasters, the influence of technology, and how the political shapes the personal. "Nirvana", which won the prestigious Sunday Times short story prize, portrays a programmer, whose wife has a rare disease, finding solace in a digital simulacrum of the president of the United States. In "Hurricanes Anonymous" - first included in the Best American Short Stories anthology - a young man searches for the mother of his son in a Louisiana devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. "George Orwell Was a Friend of Mine" follows a former warden of a Stasi prison in East Germany who vehemently denies his past, even as pieces of it are delivered in packages to his door. And in the unforgettable title story, Johnson returns to his signature subject, North Korea, depicting two defectors from Pyongyang who are trying to adapt to their new lives in Seoul, while one cannot forget the woman he left behind.
Unnerving, riveting, and written with a timeless quality, these stories confirm Johnson as one of America's greatest writers and an indispensable guide to our new century.
- Sales Rank: #5858 in Audible
- Published on: 2015-08-18
- Released on: 2015-08-18
- Format: Unabridged
- Original language: English
- Running time: 498 minutes
Most helpful customer reviews
69 of 72 people found the following review helpful.
Fortune Grimaces
By Ann Elliot
When this book appeared on the list of Vine possibilities, I jumped on it. The way my life has been going recently, I could use a little hope and cheer. The title sounded like just what I needed.
That will teach me to choose a book without doing any research first.
In the book, Fortune Smiles is the name of a rigged North Korea-based lottery game.
The six stories feature a woman paralyzed and in the throes of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a man fighting his compulsion to molest little girls, a woman with breast cancer, a UPS driver dealing with personal crises and the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a former Stasi warden of a notorious prison for political prisoners in what was East Berlin and two men who rather accidentally defected from North Korea to South Korea, where they trade a totalitarian regime for the equally not-subtle indoctrination of glitzy capitalism and proselytizing Christianity.
Fortune hasn't smiled on any of these characters, unless she is enjoying some very cruel pranks.
I avidly read all the stories anyway. Johnson is a highly skilled writer who pulls the reader into unfamiliar territory and unfolds a good bit of social commentary.
I even finished the story about child molesters, although my stomach was churning as I read.
One of my favorites was "Interesting Facts," the one narrated by a woman with breast cancer. It was deftly written--so much so that I stopped part way through and reread to see how Johnson had led me down the path he wished without my seeing what he was doing.
I also enjoyed "Hurricanes Anonymous" because, really, who could not like a young Cajun UPS driver who keeps delivering packages while accompanied by his 2-year-old son Geronimo in spite of the ravages of hurricanes Katrina and Rita? His deliveries to the zombielike refugees living in a former Chuck E. Cheese stayed with me for days.
The writing kept me reading. This is not a book everyone will want to read. In fact, I'm not sure I wanted to read it, but I'm glad I did.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Short stories admittedly aren’t my favorite thing to read
By Jessica Weil
Short stories admittedly aren’t my favorite thing to read. I often find they are anticlimactic or that they feel unfinished, and I can’t help but have a difficult time pouring myself into a story that I know will end so quickly. But Adam Johnson’s short story collection, Fortune Smiles, won the National Book Award, so I had a feeling I was in store for something special, and I was anything but disappointed.
The stories – distinctly melancholy, darkly funny, bleak and sometimes surreal – are thematically consistent: they’re about lonely people facing extraordinary challenges.
In Nirvana, a man’s wife has been stricken with Guillain-Barre syndrome, her entire body paralyzed for the past nine months. Struggling with his wife’s illness and her threat of suicide, he develops a program that allows him to speak to the hologram of a recently deceased president, and takes solace in his new confidant.
In Hurricanes Anonymous, a directionless young father takes care of his son in post-Katrina New Orleans.
In Interesting Facts, the ghost of a woman who died of breast cancer visits her family and worries about her husband moving on.
In George Orwell Was a Friend of Mine, a former Stasi prison warden is in denial about the atrocities committed under his watch, and eerily attempts to justify and rationalize torture as a necessary part of a functioning society.
In Dark Meadows – perhaps one of the most harrowing and disturbing stories I’ve ever read – a non-offending pedophile who himself was abused as a child helps the police track child pornography cases and finds himself looking after two neglected young girls in his neighborhood.
And finally, in Fortune Smiles, a man who defected from North Korea struggles to adapt to life in South Korea and dreams of returning to his home country.
The problem with many short story collections is that they are uneven. While some of the stories take hold of you, others are immediately forgettable. But with Fortune Smiles, almost every single story had me captivated – with the exception, perhaps, of Hurricanes Anonymous. If you enjoy short stories, don’t miss this collection. And even if you typically don’t, give it a try anyway.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Brilliant Treasure Trove of Short Stories
By William Capodanno
This was the first time I've read anything by Adam Johnson. I had downloaded "The Orphan Master's Son" when it was published but never got around to reading it. When this was released and after reading a few glowing reviews, I thought it would be a good introduction to his writing. Over the course of a couple of days, I devoured this treasure trove of 6 beautifully affecting short stories. While I began by reading "Nirvana", the first story in this collection, I chose to skip around rather than reading the stories sequentially. I don't really think that reading sequentially or choosing your own adventure should impact your enjoyment or reading experience.
While each of these stories are unique, well-written and thoroughly engaging, I do have personal favorites. Working in technology, I was absolutely gripped by "Nirvana", the story of husband whose wife suffers a debilitating neurological disorder rendering her without use of her body, listening to Nirvana on her headphones. He creates a virtual reality avatar of the President of the United State as an outlet and a mechanism to cope with this trauma. This is a great story about personal and societal loss as well as possessing elements of science fiction that really is more about a near future world where the lines of physical and virtual blur. This was gem and a great first story.
I read "Dark Meadow" next and found myself completely unnerved. The subject matter of a pedophile trying to get beyond his past by exposing and erasing digital forms of child porn is quite disturbing. Johnson does an amazing job of creating a morsel of empathy for the main character while still remaining distrustful and skeptical about his ability to ever overcome his demons.
"Fortune Smiles" takes us to familiar Johnson territory, North Korea, and two comedic characters, DJ and Sun-ho, adjusting to liberation from North Korea as they attempt to adjust to freedom and life in South Korea. This story works so brilliantly because of the deep contrast in an isolated and insular world of an authoritarian regime which prevents its citizens from any knowledge of the world outside its borders and the frenetic pace, lights and culture of Seoul. Sun-ho is a particularly unforgettable tragicomic character.
"George Orwell was a Friend of Mine" extends thematically from "Fortune Smiles", following a former prison warden during the totalitarian regimes of East German and their secret police, the Stasi. The character lives blocks from the former prison which now serves as a museum in united Germany where students come to learn about the dark side of Cold War East Germany. However, the former warden can't reconcile fact from fiction, truth from lies as Johnson explore individual complicity in a corrupt and evil system. This probably was my favorite story in the collection and created such vivid images of haunted and tormented character, covering events in the past that are still highly relevant in free and democratic countries today in a post 9/11 world.
My other favorite story was "Interesting Facts", a heartbreaking story of a mother dealing with breast cancer and the physical and emotional toll it exerts on her and her family --- haunting prose that rips your heart out slowly and methodically to devastating impact. Finally, "Hurricane Anonymous" is about a UPS driver, Randall, dealing with the physical destruction of Hurricane Katrina and Rita along with personal chaos in his personal life after his girlfriend leaves his young child in his truck and disappears.
It is always a challenge reading such a brilliant collection of stories, especially with such complex characters and exploring emotional themes. All of these stories stand on their own and hard to find fault. However, individually some speak in either more personal terms or just make a deeper connection with the reader. For me, "Nirvana", "George Orwell" and "Interesting Facts" stood above the other three, although "Fortune Smiles" and "Dark Meadows" were not far behind. For me, "Hurricane Anonymous" was my least "favorite" of the six. The tough subject matter and brilliant characters brought to life by Johnson leave me eager to finally pick up "The Orphan Master's Son".
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