" The greatest moment in all of American literature occurs in chapter 31 of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when Huck says--- 'All right then, I'll go to hell.' And he tears up a certain piece of paper." *
*A letter he had written to Jim's owner, Mrs. Watson, revealing Jim's whereabouts.
Later, Denton says that that moment set the "literary high bar" for him as a writer, that henceforth his goal would be to give readers the same kind of epiphany he felt when Huck made his decision.
If you've read Denton's novels, you know that he usually meets this lofty goal. One Day Closer to Death, featuring seven previously published stories and one new novella, proves he also meets this standard in his shorter work. Composed of various milestones from his thirteen-year career, each story contains characters who face personal hells, some forced on them by circumstance, others self created.
The collection's strongest stories are three novellas, "The Territory", "The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians", and "Blackburn Bakes Cookies". "The Territory" (an alternate history that will surprise readers who think Howard Waldrop holds exclusive rights to this type of story), relates young Sam Clemens' experiences as a member of Quantrill's raiders, and the choice he is forced to make when that savage band decides to invade the abolitionist stronghold of Lawrence, Kansas. "The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians", features the controversial Lenny Bruce, who, after his tawdry death, discovers that the line between heaven and hell is very thin. "Blackburn Bakes Cookies", provides a fitting epitaph to the Jimmy Blackburn saga. Although not physically present (unless you count his ashes), Blackburn's presence pervades this twisted tale of family ties and hero worship.
Rounding out the collection are "Skidmore" (wherein the ghost of a serial killer accompanies the story's narrator on a grim trek), "Killing Weeds" (a story of the continuing ravages of the Vietnam War), "Captain Coyote's Last Hunt" (in which a sadistic hunter gets his comeuppance from the Trickster himself), "We Love Lydia Love", (a tale of obsessive love and self destruction which could have easily come out of Ellison's "Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Misspelled"), and "A Conflagration Artist" (about a woman shares her personal tragedy with others via combustible performance art).
The stories are arranged chronologically, so readers can, in Denton's words, "see his evolution as a writer". They show an author constantly refining his gifts, constantly improving, constantly pushing literary boundaries. At once sad and funny, lyrical and prickly, One Day Closer to Death demonstrates Denton's formidable talent, and attests to the ever increasing depth of his perceptive and beguiling work.
"All the stories in this book," Denton says, "harassed me into writing them, but some of them literally gave me nightmares until I set them down on paper." One Day Closer to Death: Eight Stabs at Immortality is about living in the face of death--the toll it takes, the jokes we make. Each story is a unique dark gem that can't be summarized by a list of phrases--a self-destructive performance artist, the coyote "Trickster" of legend, black-pajama-wearing demons in a field of sorghum, Lenny Bruce and John Belushi in the afterlife--but those snatches at least hint at the variety of themes. What makes the book, though, is how Denton's earnest tone, as flat as the prairies of his childhood, can deliver deadpan humor in one sentence, and a serious, disturbing question in the next.
You can bet on it: this collection is going to be a classic. --Fiona Webster