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Love and Hydrogen: New and Selected Stories
I’ve been a problem baby, a lousy son, a distant brother, an off-putting neighbor, a piss-poor student, a worrisome seatmate, an unreliable employee, a bewildering lover, a frustrating confidante and a crappy husband. Among the things I do pretty well at this point I’d have to list darts, re-closing Stay-Fresh boxes, and staying out of the way.
This is the self-eulogy offered early on by the unwilling hero of the opening story in this collection, a dazzling array of work in short fiction from a master of the form. The stories in Love and Hydrogen —familiar to readers from publications ranging from McSweeney’s to The New Yorker to Harper’s to Tin House —encompass in theme and compassion what an ordinary writer would seem to need several lifetimes to imagine.
A frustrated wife makes use of an enterprising illegal-gun salesman to hold her husband hostage; two hapless adult-education students botch their attempts at rudimentary piano but succeed in a halting, awkward romance; a fascinated and murderous Creature welcomes the first human visitors to his Black Lagoon; and in the title story, the stupefyingly huge airship Hindenburg flies to its doom, representing in 1937 mankind's greatest yearning as well as its titanic failure.
Generous in scope and astonishing in ambition, Shepard’s voice never falters; the virtuosity of Love and Hydrogen cements his reputation as, in the words of Rick Bass, “a passionate writer with a razor-sharp wit and an elephantine heart”—in short, one of the most powerful talents at work today.
This is the self-eulogy offered early on by the unwilling hero of the opening story in this collection, a dazzling array of work in short fiction from a master of the form. The stories in Love and Hydrogen —familiar to readers from publications ranging from McSweeney’s to The New Yorker to Harper’s to Tin House —encompass in theme and compassion what an ordinary writer would seem to need several lifetimes to imagine.
A frustrated wife makes use of an enterprising illegal-gun salesman to hold her husband hostage; two hapless adult-education students botch their attempts at rudimentary piano but succeed in a halting, awkward romance; a fascinated and murderous Creature welcomes the first human visitors to his Black Lagoon; and in the title story, the stupefyingly huge airship Hindenburg flies to its doom, representing in 1937 mankind's greatest yearning as well as its titanic failure.
Generous in scope and astonishing in ambition, Shepard’s voice never falters; the virtuosity of Love and Hydrogen cements his reputation as, in the words of Rick Bass, “a passionate writer with a razor-sharp wit and an elephantine heart”—in short, one of the most powerful talents at work today.
340 pages, Paperback
First published January 27, 2004
About the author
Jim Shepard
75 books288 followersJim Shepard is the author of seven novels, including most recently The Book of Aron, which won the Sophie Brody Medal for Achievement in Jewish Literature from the American Library Association and the PEN/New England Award for fiction, and five story collections, including his new collection, The World To Come. Five of his short stories have been chosen for the Best American Short Stories, two for the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, and one for a Pushcart Prize. He teaches at Williams College.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 110 reviews
April 19, 2019
Love and Hydrogen is thematically quite diverse: historical sketches, coming-of-age stories, retrospective recollections, dysfunctional families…
To my chagrin, in many stories form prevails over content so they seem to be somewhat unfocused and not convincing enough.
I truly enjoyed Astounding Stories about an amateur Antarctic explorer and the title tale of a zeppelin flight Love and Hydrogen.
Some people just live and some aspire to achieve something.
I’ve been a problem baby, a lousy son, a distant brother, an off-putting neighbor, a piss-poor student, a worrisome seatmate, an unreliable employee, a bewildering lover, a frustrating confidant, and a crappy husband. Among the things I do pretty well at this point I’d have to list darts, reclosing Stay-Fresh boxes, and staying out of the way.
To my chagrin, in many stories form prevails over content so they seem to be somewhat unfocused and not convincing enough.
I truly enjoyed Astounding Stories about an amateur Antarctic explorer and the title tale of a zeppelin flight Love and Hydrogen.
Some people just live and some aspire to achieve something.
July 7, 2017
I find myself constantly coming back to this collection of stories. When I am in a reading rut, it is there. When I am in a writing rut, it beckons from the shelf. When I have a friend that challenges me on my choice of short fiction as a favorite genre, I will have him/her read "Krakatau."
Yes, I am unfair about my love for his short fiction, but if one must have faith in the written word, isn't it only reasonable to follow the good Shepard?
Yes, I am unfair about my love for his short fiction, but if one must have faith in the written word, isn't it only reasonable to follow the good Shepard?
February 27, 2008
Glut Your Soul On My Accursed Ugliness: my new favorite story and new favorite title and a phrase I want to work into a conversation at some point. I'd give this book five stars if all the stories were as good as this one. Some are: "Spending the Night with the Poor," "The Mortality of Parents," "John Ashcroft: More Important Things Than Me," "Krakatau" and "Piano Starts Here" for example. Some aren't. Still, a good find.
January 27, 2013
Jim Shepard’s collection of stories is a unique mix of heavily flawed characters, dysfunctional families, early twentieth century military and engineering feats, classic horror movies, and dark humor. His stories take unconventional approaches to a variety of taboo and uncomfortable subjects, of which I am focusing on the stories portraying the protagonists or cast of characters near death.
A self-deprecating husband tells the first story in the collection, “The Gun Lobby,” in the present tense as his gun-crazy wife holds him hostage during a standoff with law enforcement. The scene is a catalyst for the protagonist to reflect on his marriage and his personal failures with a strange sense of calm and humor, in which they can watch themselves on the local news shortly before meeting their probable demise:
As the story reaches its climax, the seriousness of the situation is down played with lighthearted metaphors and observational wisdom:
The title story “Love and Hydrogen,” set in the Hindenburg over the last few days of its final voyage told in the present tense, follows the homosexual relationship between two crew members: Meinert, a German war vet who took pride in his bombing raids on England and France, a Gnüss, who is much younger, jealous, and infatuated with Meinert. The tension displayed from Gnüss’s perspective of their relationship is filled with fond memories of their love and Meinert’s war stories. As the drama plays out the dark humor creeps in at unexpected moments juxtaposed against the reader’s relentless knowledge that the Hindenburg would soon meet its fate:
Ultimately, Gnüss’s despondency and jealousy brings down the zeppelin and everyone aboard:
The final story of the collection, “Climb Aboard the Mighty Flea,” follows a small squadron of German soldiers during World War II who stopped caring about the war. Their job was to fly the “Messerschmitt 163 [the Komet], the first manned rocket-powered aircraft, the first aircraft in the world to exceed a thousand kilometers an hour in level flight, and in statistical terms the most dangerous aircraft ever built in a series.” (Kindle Loc. 4593-4595) They were intended as a line of defense to take down Allied bombers over Germany, albeit with poor effectiveness. Their lives were built around the high risks in piloting these rockets during testing and training exercises:
As the story goes, a number of pilots die horrible deaths or experience grave injuries. Yet, it carries on in Shepard’s light-hearted and sometimes grotesque manner:
The collective psychology of the squadron enters a mix of depression and isolation. They adopt a gallows humor to cope with the near-death risks of their job while celebrating their love for the Komets:
In conclusion, I could discuss this collection for endless hours, as the stories are rich in vivid content and unusual circumstances. I highly recommend Love and Hydrogen to anyone who enjoys the art of short fiction.
A self-deprecating husband tells the first story in the collection, “The Gun Lobby,” in the present tense as his gun-crazy wife holds him hostage during a standoff with law enforcement. The scene is a catalyst for the protagonist to reflect on his marriage and his personal failures with a strange sense of calm and humor, in which they can watch themselves on the local news shortly before meeting their probable demise:
“Here” is Waterbury, Connecticut, which is right now the main show in terms of the cutaway news, because of the standoff. You can see Stephanie or me, the Hostage, at the windows every so often on TV. We watch ourselves. (Kindle Loc. 89-91)
I’ve been a problem baby, a lousy son, a distant brother, an off-putting neighbor, a piss-poor student, a worrisome seatmate, an unreliable employee, a bewildering lover, a frustrating confidant, and a crappy husband. Among the things I do pretty well at this point I’d have to list darts, reclosing Stay-Fresh boxes, and staying out of the way. (Kindle Loc. 147-150)
As the story reaches its climax, the seriousness of the situation is down played with lighthearted metaphors and observational wisdom:
I have a hold of Stephanie’s ankle. For the longest time I’m not hurt. Her rate of fire is spectacular. The ordnance coming back at us sets everything in the kitchen into electric life. Our overhead fixture’s doing a tarantella. (Kindle Loc. 228-229)
There are events in which every second can be taken out of line, examined this way and that, and then allowed to move along. This is one of them. (Kindle Loc. 230-231)
The title story “Love and Hydrogen,” set in the Hindenburg over the last few days of its final voyage told in the present tense, follows the homosexual relationship between two crew members: Meinert, a German war vet who took pride in his bombing raids on England and France, a Gnüss, who is much younger, jealous, and infatuated with Meinert. The tension displayed from Gnüss’s perspective of their relationship is filled with fond memories of their love and Meinert’s war stories. As the drama plays out the dark humor creeps in at unexpected moments juxtaposed against the reader’s relentless knowledge that the Hindenburg would soon meet its fate:
Egk is a fat little man with boils. Meinert considers him to have been well named. (Kindle Loc. 277-278)
[Gnüss] goes below and stops by the crew’s quarters. No luck. He listens in on a discussion of suitable first names for children conceived aloft in a zeppelin. The consensus favors Shelium, if a girl. (Kindle Loc. 411-413)
Ultimately, Gnüss’s despondency and jealousy brings down the zeppelin and everyone aboard:
Inside the hangarlike hull, they can feel the gravitational forces as Captain Pruss brings the ship up to the docking mast in a tight turn. The sharpness of the turn overstresses the after-hull structure, and the bracing wire bolt that Gnüss overtightened snaps like a rifle shot. The recoiling wire slashes open the gas cell opposite. Seven or eight feet above Gnüss’s alarmed head, the escaping hydrogen encounters the prevailing St. Elmo’s fire playing atop the ship. (Kindle Loc. 475-478)
The fireball explodes outward and upward, annihilating Gnüss at its center. More than 100 feet below on the axial catwalk, as the blinding light envelops everything below it, Meinert knows that whatever time has come is theirs, and won’t be like anything else. (Kindle Loc. 479-481)
The final story of the collection, “Climb Aboard the Mighty Flea,” follows a small squadron of German soldiers during World War II who stopped caring about the war. Their job was to fly the “Messerschmitt 163 [the Komet], the first manned rocket-powered aircraft, the first aircraft in the world to exceed a thousand kilometers an hour in level flight, and in statistical terms the most dangerous aircraft ever built in a series.” (Kindle Loc. 4593-4595) They were intended as a line of defense to take down Allied bombers over Germany, albeit with poor effectiveness. Their lives were built around the high risks in piloting these rockets during testing and training exercises:
So? we said to ourselves. Everyone knew that learning to fly meant little more than learning to land.
But pilots are taught to land by flying alongside instructors. There was no room for two in these things. So we’d have to be told, rather than shown.
“Does the landing,” Ziegler asked in a classroom session, “have to be perfect?”
“No,” Wörndl shrugged. “You could die, instead.” (Kindle Loc. 4663-4667)
As the story goes, a number of pilots die horrible deaths or experience grave injuries. Yet, it carries on in Shepard’s light-hearted and sometimes grotesque manner:
The cockpit was filled with a black-and-red-and-yellow soup. The yellow looked like chicken fat. The fuel cells had shattered and the fuel had poured into the cockpit. Those who understood explained it to those who still didn’t: Glogner had been dissolved alive. (Kindle Loc. 4724-4726)
The next Komet exploded on the flight line. When we reached the spot, there was only a blackened and steaming stain. Medical personnel found a bone fragment, and brought it in on a stretcher. (Kindle Loc. 4733-4734)
Rösle’s Komet flipped on landing just before the perimeter. It didn’t explode and he was pulled from it just conscious, but pints of the fuel had run over his back while he hung there, and when they tore off the flight suit, the skin underneath was a jelly. He was on enough painkillers to last until April. (Kindle Loc. 4827-4829)
The collective psychology of the squadron enters a mix of depression and isolation. They adopt a gallows humor to cope with the near-death risks of their job while celebrating their love for the Komets:
My turn came next. “Come come come, Baby Bird,” Uhlhorn said as I held up my straw. “Your one-six-three-B is steaming and ready to blow. We need to put you in it or it will blow up for no reason.” (Kindle Loc. 4735-4736)
We are all insomniacs. We are, as a group, a picturesque compendium of physical tics. (Kindle Loc. 4779)
WHEN I WAKE there’s an impromptu celebration and meeting around my bunk. It transpires that Wörndl’s Komet caught fire right above the field. He had to bail out forty meters from the treetops and his parachute caught the upper branches of a big pine, insuring he only cracked his ankle. He tells everyone that it was like jumping off a church steeple with an umbrella. (Kindle Loc. 4823-4826)
In conclusion, I could discuss this collection for endless hours, as the stories are rich in vivid content and unusual circumstances. I highly recommend Love and Hydrogen to anyone who enjoys the art of short fiction.
December 12, 2018
I love fictional portraits of real people, the author revealing the truth behind the facts. Robert Olen Butler does this amazingly. Jim Shepard pulls it off here with stories told by John Entwhistle of The Who and the assassins of Rienhard Heydrich. The Who story was very satisfying (I love their early music). His love and knowledge of them is clear.
“John Ashcroft: More Important Things Than Me” was amazing, though I have no idea how or why the author wrote it, and I don’t know if it’s all the author, some of the author and some John Ashcroft, or all John Ashcroft, artfully arranged. I first read it in Stumbling and Raging, which is how I heard of this author.
The title story I found kind of angering and revolting. The whole story felt very emotionally detached.
I didn’t read all the stories, but all of the ones I did read were sad. Only the first one, “The Gun Lobby,” was humorous, too.
Overall, this was an almost-despairing book of stories, and I understood very little of it but still enjoyed some of it.
“John Ashcroft: More Important Things Than Me” was amazing, though I have no idea how or why the author wrote it, and I don’t know if it’s all the author, some of the author and some John Ashcroft, or all John Ashcroft, artfully arranged. I first read it in Stumbling and Raging, which is how I heard of this author.
The title story I found kind of angering and revolting. The whole story felt very emotionally detached.
I didn’t read all the stories, but all of the ones I did read were sad. Only the first one, “The Gun Lobby,” was humorous, too.
Overall, this was an almost-despairing book of stories, and I understood very little of it but still enjoyed some of it.
August 11, 2007
Short stories are not always my cup of tea, but if someone does them well (and Jim Shepard does them very, very well) I think they can pack more of a punch than a novel; there's a tighter focus, a read-it-in-one-sitting kind of potency, and, when reading an anthology of short stories, the cumulative effect of story arc following story arc, the whole becoming greater than its parts.
It's hard to pinpoint this guy's style, but he certainly has a flair for coming at stories in very unexpected angles -- the example that springs readily to mind is a story about a swamp creature, written from the perspective of the swamp creature. The resulting story is not quite sci-fi, not quite science documentary, not quite parody, not quite horror, not quite comedy, but a mix of all five that succeeds in being a very human and beautiful thing.
It's hard to pinpoint this guy's style, but he certainly has a flair for coming at stories in very unexpected angles -- the example that springs readily to mind is a story about a swamp creature, written from the perspective of the swamp creature. The resulting story is not quite sci-fi, not quite science documentary, not quite parody, not quite horror, not quite comedy, but a mix of all five that succeeds in being a very human and beautiful thing.
October 19, 2008
Brilliant short fiction collection. One of my favorite collections of the past ten years.
November 17, 2021
THIS WAS SO GOOD WHAT?! this whole story was soooo intriguing; the language was hard at times, but it was overall very accessible and made it really easy to follow. i loved the main characters and their dynamics with one another (especially being queer!!) and i think it's so interesting to explore the ideas of the hindenburg in this particular way; more as people and lives than history and facts. i'm seriously so happy i was forced to read this (lmao) and don't let the whole "nazi/reich" thing turn you away - this was such an enthralling persepective that i seriously enjoyed so much. it actually reminded me a lot of the novel "salt to the sea" - if you liked this story, i seriously suggest that book because it is SO GOOD UGH. but this story - MWAH MWAH
January 10, 2020
Where's that extra half star when you need it? It's a showcase of short story virtuosity, each one near on pitch perfect across the selected style, none of them overwrought. A particular favorite is 'Piano Starts Here', but they're all good, even the ones designed to irritate, and many are excellent.
December 12, 2018
This is wildly disparate, uneven collection. Of its 23 entries, I really liked nine, and five of those are almost consecutively placed within the final 100 pages. For me, the best-written and most enjoyable story here is "Batting Against Castro," about three sad-sack scrub baseball players who decide to play in the Cuban league during the U.S. off season just as Castro is gaining national popularity; if you, too, like this one, you'll really like the even more accomplished novel Castro's Curveball by Tim Wendel.
The melancholic, atmospheric "Piano Starts Here," a story of unrequited (or barely requited) love, has what might be the collection's best sentence: "I had the patience of a coral reef."
The odd story "Krakatau," with its effectively extended metaphor of the narrator's psychologically troubled older brother and the titular volcano that wiped out a city, has maybe the best opening sentence: "I was twelve years old when I figured out that the look my brother would get around his eyes probably meant that there was a physiological basis for what was wrong with him."
"Won't Get Fooled Again," a sort of homage to The Who, told from the band's least and really only non-colorful member, bassist John Entwhistle, is amusing.
Possibly the funniest entry--but also one of the most trenchant and disturbing for what it reveals about the un-self-awareness and empty rhetoric/double talk behind U.S. political leadership--is "John Ashcroft: More Important Things Than Me." I'm not sure if any or all of the vignettes presented in piecemeal fashion here throughout the story's 20 pages (feels not right to even call it a "story") are actual or made-up Ashcroft quotations, but together they make for a sort of tour de force, and the one with the line "more important things than me" is downright sad.
"The Creature from the Black Lagoon," about a lonely, homicidal monster, while certainly no "Shape of Water," is entertaining and good.
"Runway," the sixth story in the collection, starting some 70 pages in, is the first of the bunch with something resembling a happy family, except for the fact that the husband/father has an inexplicable death wish. Memorable imagery, though.
And coming in with easily the best title, "Glut Your Soul On My Accursed Ugliness" tells the sad tale of Anson, a very troubled seventh-grader and the parental units behind his self-loathing.
September 21, 2011
I think Isaiah Berlin’s classification of writers as hedgehogs (those who have one great theme) and foxes (those who have many themes) can be a useful classification of writers. Jim Shepard is definitely a fox. In this collection, Love and Hydrogen, much like last year’s Pulitzer Prize nominated collection Like You’d Understand is a dizzying array of original and inventive stories. There are quirky tales of dysfunctional families: “gun lobby,” “Runway,” and “The Morality of Parents.” He has a number of sports related stories, some of which infuse historical events into them like “Batting Against Castro” (about baseball and politics in pre-revolution Cuba) as well as “Ajax Is All About Attack” (which is about 60s politics in The Netherlands and soccer). One of Shepperd’s greatest strengths is the adolescent coming of age story: “Mars Attacks,” “Glut Your Soul On My Accursed Ugliness,” “and “Spending The Night With The Poor.” It is also apparent that Shepperd often infuses his stories with scientific or historical research: gay Nazis in love in a zeppelin (“Love and Hydrogen”), WWII battles behind occupied lines (“The Assassination of Reinhard Heydad”), deep sea exploration (“descent into Perpetual Night”) and exploration of uncharted lands (“Astounding Stories”) to name a few of his forays into history and science. I’d like to read one of his novels and see how he manages to sustain a story into a longer narrative.
May 29, 2012
I've become a Shepard 'shipper, really. He's just so, so good.
Many of my favorites from Batting Against Castro are reprinted here: Piano Starts Here, Messiah, Runway, Krakatau, Spending the Night the Poor. But there are lots of newer, wonderful stories included.
I find Shepard most compelling when he's way deep up inside the dysfunctional family. The Gun Lobby, in which a husband is taken hostage by his arms aficionado wife, is a winner from beginning to end. I also really enjoyed The Mortality of Parents, and Glut Your Soul on My Accursed Ugliness.
In a collection as eclectic as this, it's probably normal that not every story will float everyone's boat. I'm less keen on the, to my reading, more "researched" stories, like the one about John Ashcroft. (The boldest exception is Love and Hydrogen, a story about two male lovers aboard the Hindenburg. It was the first Jim Shepard story I ever read, in Best American Short Stories 2002.)
I read all the stories anyway. It's exciting, watching Shepard's depth of feel widen and sharpen into what it will become with Like You'd Understand Anyway.
Jim Shepard is a smart, smart man, and a fantastic writer. One of the best. Go see him read.
Many of my favorites from Batting Against Castro are reprinted here: Piano Starts Here, Messiah, Runway, Krakatau, Spending the Night the Poor. But there are lots of newer, wonderful stories included.
I find Shepard most compelling when he's way deep up inside the dysfunctional family. The Gun Lobby, in which a husband is taken hostage by his arms aficionado wife, is a winner from beginning to end. I also really enjoyed The Mortality of Parents, and Glut Your Soul on My Accursed Ugliness.
In a collection as eclectic as this, it's probably normal that not every story will float everyone's boat. I'm less keen on the, to my reading, more "researched" stories, like the one about John Ashcroft. (The boldest exception is Love and Hydrogen, a story about two male lovers aboard the Hindenburg. It was the first Jim Shepard story I ever read, in Best American Short Stories 2002.)
I read all the stories anyway. It's exciting, watching Shepard's depth of feel widen and sharpen into what it will become with Like You'd Understand Anyway.
Jim Shepard is a smart, smart man, and a fantastic writer. One of the best. Go see him read.
Read
March 4, 2013The stories of 'Love and Hydrogen' by Jim Shepard are among the best I've ever read, hands down. The title story is just one of many gems in this collection by my favorite author. 'Love and Hydrogen' chronicles the misadventure of two German mechanics ono the last voyage of the Hindenberg. His short story 'Climb Aboard The Mighty Flea' is an incredible account of the last days of a special branch of prototype testing of the Luftwaffe. We are experiencing in this story the treacherous missions of the test pilots for a prototype Messerschmidt jet fighter that might have altered the course of WWII. It is written as if by an engineer or an actual test pilot and the details really pull you in. 'Won't Get Fooled Again' follows the destructive path of legendary Who drummer Keith Moon. It is like being a roadie along with the band as Moon spirals out of control taking the hearts of loved ones along with him. I have read and re-read this collection over and over and I am constantly entertained by Shepard's lazer sharp prose.
August 12, 2015
"Look how snappy I am! I can reference soccer and historical events! Emotions and character depth? Who needs that?"
The ones about the Mars collectible cards, the piano lessons, and the runway were fun.
Also, the title story has the greatest sentence I have ever read:
"Gnüss's most cherished toy for a year and a half was a clothespin on which his father had painted a face."
I had Jim Shepard himself sign that sentence.
The ones about the Mars collectible cards, the piano lessons, and the runway were fun.
Also, the title story has the greatest sentence I have ever read:
"Gnüss's most cherished toy for a year and a half was a clothespin on which his father had painted a face."
I had Jim Shepard himself sign that sentence.
June 8, 2024
Jim Shepard's "Love and Hydrogen" remains one of the most beautifully written collections of stories that I've had the pleasure of reading. His 2004 story collection wastes no time in reminding the reader of various brief, tragic, and oftentimes forgotten blips from the history of our world.
According to booksellers and critics, Jim Shepard writes "historical fiction." This is somewhat true, but it barely scratches the surface of what Shepard is actually committing to the page. Yes, his stories do pluck events from history. Yes, Shepard sometimes alters or embellishes the very details that he has meticulously researched. Ultimately, what Jim Shepard achieves with this collection is a transcendent aberration of what the short story itself can be. This collection serves as a representation of his staggering curiosity, imagination, skill and passion; that which would become the catalyst for each and every piece of short fiction that would follow.
These 22 tales cunningly push the reader to disregard all the pages of torn, worn and antiquated history textbooks. And in the regurgitative dismissal of said pages, Shepard's altered history remains just as important as the actual Fall of Rome or the first ascent of Everest or the final voyage of Europe's premier airship. Fuck it; Shepard's prose has the power to guide the reader through a memory of their first kiss or the death of a loved one or who knows what else.
Shepard examines humanity's history and plucks out events that initially appear arbitrary. Events that, even if forgotten or misremembered, are retold now with such astute care and such precise language. He has a gift, a perspective, a very special aptitude, to take a long ago and forgotten piece of the past and turn it upside down; sculpting a wondrous reimagining of the time and place and the characters involved, with the use of subtle, but well-studied turns of embellishment and wonder. He propels himself and the reader back into the past; and alongside such a master of effective prose, the story itself translates into a visage of the greatest importance.
The title story, "Love and Hydrogen," puts the reader on the Hindenburg during its final 1937 flight. In Shepard's surgical hands, we are thrust aboard as passengers on the formidable airship, that miracle of aeronautics. The main characters are two men whose responsibilities keep them hidden away in the bowels of the zeppelin; unseen by their cohorts and all of the passengers. We as readers are given the exact date on which the story takes place. Therefore, we know exactly what is going to happen. This knowledge, amazingly, does not in any way distract from the story itself.
History cannot be changed and Shepard respects and understands this. But he manages to show us that history can be tinkered with and the characters of history can be spun around and made different. Jim Shepard is always conscious of the inevitable tragedy that waits at the end of whichever historical narrative he has chosen. It's never about the end result, though. It's about the people and the places and the journey itself. In the end, Shepard is a fictionist.
In my opinion, Jim Shepard is more loving and sympathetic, more delicate, precise and wholly conscious of his characters than any short story writer since Raymond Carver. But what makes Shepard truly special is the way he manages to carefully grab readers and confidently insert them into the nightmarish complications, overwhelming chaos, and unimaginable devastation of a factual and proven history... A history that Shepard seems to understand (with or without research) better than almost any present-day writer.
There is fiction and then there is what Jim Shepard is doing. Grabbing the fragments of our past and creating characters and narratives that always seem to belong just there, in the exact place he has made a space on the page for.
I don't believe in prophets or wizards and I don't believe in soothsayers or time-travelers. But I do believe in Jim Shepard. He's a writer who doesn't ever appear in the literary spotlight, even though he knows he could command the world of the written word if he chose to. That's not his style, though. That's not his message and that is not his mission.
"Love and Hydrogen" is an incredible assortment of beautiful stories and heartbreakingly real characters, set against the backdrop of a past that may or may not be remembered and/or deemed significant. I suggest everyone who reads this book to continue on, without hesitation, to his other three story collections, which are all fantastic in their own ways.
These particular stories from "Love and Hydrogen" are those that truly seized my breath and made me reconsider what I knew about history, fiction, love, loss, grief, the written word, and the dazzling impact that stories can have on people. The stories listed below are arranged in the order that they appear in the book.
-The Gun Lobby
-Mars Attacks
-Love and Hydrogen
-The Creature from the Black Lagoon
-Astounding Stories
-Descent into Perpetual Night
-Krakatau
-Climb Aboard the Mighty Flea
According to booksellers and critics, Jim Shepard writes "historical fiction." This is somewhat true, but it barely scratches the surface of what Shepard is actually committing to the page. Yes, his stories do pluck events from history. Yes, Shepard sometimes alters or embellishes the very details that he has meticulously researched. Ultimately, what Jim Shepard achieves with this collection is a transcendent aberration of what the short story itself can be. This collection serves as a representation of his staggering curiosity, imagination, skill and passion; that which would become the catalyst for each and every piece of short fiction that would follow.
These 22 tales cunningly push the reader to disregard all the pages of torn, worn and antiquated history textbooks. And in the regurgitative dismissal of said pages, Shepard's altered history remains just as important as the actual Fall of Rome or the first ascent of Everest or the final voyage of Europe's premier airship. Fuck it; Shepard's prose has the power to guide the reader through a memory of their first kiss or the death of a loved one or who knows what else.
Shepard examines humanity's history and plucks out events that initially appear arbitrary. Events that, even if forgotten or misremembered, are retold now with such astute care and such precise language. He has a gift, a perspective, a very special aptitude, to take a long ago and forgotten piece of the past and turn it upside down; sculpting a wondrous reimagining of the time and place and the characters involved, with the use of subtle, but well-studied turns of embellishment and wonder. He propels himself and the reader back into the past; and alongside such a master of effective prose, the story itself translates into a visage of the greatest importance.
The title story, "Love and Hydrogen," puts the reader on the Hindenburg during its final 1937 flight. In Shepard's surgical hands, we are thrust aboard as passengers on the formidable airship, that miracle of aeronautics. The main characters are two men whose responsibilities keep them hidden away in the bowels of the zeppelin; unseen by their cohorts and all of the passengers. We as readers are given the exact date on which the story takes place. Therefore, we know exactly what is going to happen. This knowledge, amazingly, does not in any way distract from the story itself.
History cannot be changed and Shepard respects and understands this. But he manages to show us that history can be tinkered with and the characters of history can be spun around and made different. Jim Shepard is always conscious of the inevitable tragedy that waits at the end of whichever historical narrative he has chosen. It's never about the end result, though. It's about the people and the places and the journey itself. In the end, Shepard is a fictionist.
In my opinion, Jim Shepard is more loving and sympathetic, more delicate, precise and wholly conscious of his characters than any short story writer since Raymond Carver. But what makes Shepard truly special is the way he manages to carefully grab readers and confidently insert them into the nightmarish complications, overwhelming chaos, and unimaginable devastation of a factual and proven history... A history that Shepard seems to understand (with or without research) better than almost any present-day writer.
There is fiction and then there is what Jim Shepard is doing. Grabbing the fragments of our past and creating characters and narratives that always seem to belong just there, in the exact place he has made a space on the page for.
I don't believe in prophets or wizards and I don't believe in soothsayers or time-travelers. But I do believe in Jim Shepard. He's a writer who doesn't ever appear in the literary spotlight, even though he knows he could command the world of the written word if he chose to. That's not his style, though. That's not his message and that is not his mission.
"Love and Hydrogen" is an incredible assortment of beautiful stories and heartbreakingly real characters, set against the backdrop of a past that may or may not be remembered and/or deemed significant. I suggest everyone who reads this book to continue on, without hesitation, to his other three story collections, which are all fantastic in their own ways.
These particular stories from "Love and Hydrogen" are those that truly seized my breath and made me reconsider what I knew about history, fiction, love, loss, grief, the written word, and the dazzling impact that stories can have on people. The stories listed below are arranged in the order that they appear in the book.
-The Gun Lobby
-Mars Attacks
-Love and Hydrogen
-The Creature from the Black Lagoon
-Astounding Stories
-Descent into Perpetual Night
-Krakatau
-Climb Aboard the Mighty Flea
December 22, 2017
This book was recommended for its "weirdness." I went into it, accordingly, ready for some crazy shit to go down, but that mostly didn't occur. A few of the stories did have some fantastical elements, or dip into obscure historical nooks, sure. Most of the stories, however, didn't lodge themselves in my heart or mind.
Except for one, which was about a series of collector's cards telling a comic-book story about an alien invasion. That story slams lowbrow collection kitsch, pulp science fiction, and brotherly relations into a really interesting stew. It was a little weird.
I feel like, if I had gone into the work with different expectations -- not specifically looking for "weird" -- I may have come out with a different impression. Alas, I was disappointed.
Except for one, which was about a series of collector's cards telling a comic-book story about an alien invasion. That story slams lowbrow collection kitsch, pulp science fiction, and brotherly relations into a really interesting stew. It was a little weird.
I feel like, if I had gone into the work with different expectations -- not specifically looking for "weird" -- I may have come out with a different impression. Alas, I was disappointed.
November 14, 2017
So I really liked the present or near present time stories that seemed more personal. The ones where the 1st person narrator inserted themselves into this historical situation or that - with the exception of the gay Hindenburg crew members - were kind of stupid really. I don't know if historical fiction is a good short story genre, I doubt it....comes across way to contrived. "So I was talking to the Babe the other day about his base stealing" that kind of bullshit. It the book would've been more of category one and maybe one of category two I would've given it a 4 probably. There are good stories in here that's for sure.
January 19, 2018
I should have liked this collection of short stories better -- the title piece about the Hindenburg is fantastic, the various classic scifi-esque stories worked for me, and the variety of characters and settings is amazing. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling as I went on that for all the diversity in the setups, there is basically a single tone in the conclusions throughout, about 1 part "Aha!" and two parts cute turn of phrase. By the end of the story, I was waiting for the inevitable ramp down to the largely anticlimactic finish, ruining even the better beginnings since you could feel the energy dissipating as they go.
June 21, 2018
Got a heavy recommendation on this from a good buddy, it is a lot of short fiction all very well executed but a few really stand out like "Glut Your Soul on my Accursed Ugliness", "The Creature from the Black Lagoon", "Spending the Night with the Poor", most of the sports stories too. Shepard has a knack for the vernacular and moves into these different worlds executing class studies with wit and irony. There were just some kind of lit fiction tropes that get a bed tired, I think I have read like five stories about dogs being or not being killed at shelters, etc. but that is a small bone to pick.
February 23, 2019
The writing is strong and interesting in these stories but too many of them end as cliffhangers. Cliffhangers are enjoyable in serials and from one novel chapter to another. With a stand alone story? What's the point? These were written in era when closure in short literary fiction was in dispute, so maybe a pass. For me, these clearly miss because the broad affect is nebulous, so without an ending, closure is doubly who cares. If that's the point, then it's been done better and many, many years previously. Aside from this formal critique of how most of the stories end, the writing prior to these non-endings is strong.
December 29, 2023
There are 22 short stories in this collection and I didn't like most of them. Not for being poorly written, because they weren't, but for being extremely depressing. The stories were a strange mix of random people and hyperspecific historical fiction, written from the perspective of real people.
"Descent Into Perpetual Night" was by far my favorite, about real-life deep-sea explorer/pioneer William Beebe. I also liked the one about John Ashcroft. "Batting Against Castro" is good too, even if the anecdote it's based on never really happened. "Won't Get Fooled Again" was written from the perspective of The Who's bassist, also interesting.
Overall I liked about 5 of these.
"Descent Into Perpetual Night" was by far my favorite, about real-life deep-sea explorer/pioneer William Beebe. I also liked the one about John Ashcroft. "Batting Against Castro" is good too, even if the anecdote it's based on never really happened. "Won't Get Fooled Again" was written from the perspective of The Who's bassist, also interesting.
Overall I liked about 5 of these.
January 22, 2018
I don't know. Shepard is a writer who folks have been gushing about for quite some time now, but this collection left me a bit cold. Shepard manages genre-twisting and historical/quasi-historical fiction very well, but I'm lacking characterization here. The writing is effective and clear, but overall I'm not sure who most of these stories are about--and for me that is as important as what a story is about. Enjoyed "The Gun Lobby" (strong story) and "The Creature from the Black Lagoon," but many of the others did not grab me.
December 14, 2019
This is a fantastic collection of stories based on historical fiction. I guess my only critical note on the stories is that often there was too much going on in a story for the plot to be cohesive. Usually, a really interesting premise is told by an unreliable narrator, which creates too many symbolic threads, none of which necessarily wrap up. Also, "Glut your soul on my accursed ugliness" is one of my favorite quotes now.
April 7, 2024
Largely forgettable stories with the exception of fictional musings that somehow make John Ashcroft interesting and imbued with a charisma he didn't have in real life. Really weird alternative reality that made my head swim for a minute after reading it.
Shepard can write good prose and he prefers to fictionalize things that have happened. The problem is that these accounts lack any real punch or point besides it seems creating a weird sense of confusion or disquiet.
Shepard can write good prose and he prefers to fictionalize things that have happened. The problem is that these accounts lack any real punch or point besides it seems creating a weird sense of confusion or disquiet.
January 30, 2021
My favorite short stories were Eustace, The Immortality of Parents, & John Ashcroft: More Important Things about Me.
The others...well, many bored me and I skimmed them. Others just weren’t that interesting to me.
That said, for the three I mentioned, especially John Ashcroft, I am super grateful to have read this book.
The others...well, many bored me and I skimmed them. Others just weren’t that interesting to me.
That said, for the three I mentioned, especially John Ashcroft, I am super grateful to have read this book.
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December 9, 2019Standout stories:
Love and Hydrogen (gay Nazis in a doomed Zeppelin)
Creature from the Black Lagoon (POV of the creature)
Astounding Stories (the hunt for a Megalodon)
Batting Against Castro (Cold War politics on the baseball diamond)
Love and Hydrogen (gay Nazis in a doomed Zeppelin)
Creature from the Black Lagoon (POV of the creature)
Astounding Stories (the hunt for a Megalodon)
Batting Against Castro (Cold War politics on the baseball diamond)
August 10, 2017
I can scarcely believe I only just recently heard of Jim Shepard.
July 24, 2018
This collection contains my favorite Jim Shepard story "Ajax Is All about Attack." I love how he combines the historical and the personal in this story, and others.
September 8, 2018
Another wonderful collection of stories from Jim.
June 25, 2019
It was fine.
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