Author of the critically acclaimed collection of short stories, Torrents of Our Time, and the novels, The Fiddler in the Night, and LOVE, GUNS & GOD in America, in What I Know About the Human Race, Christian explores life and art through varying forms of writing: fiction, essays, poetry, reviews, and a one act play.
A writer’s playbook. A reader's unforgettable journey.
"Words used to be art. In their creation. In the act. And thus the words were art in their very being. Forget the reader. Just don't forget the impetus. Christian Fennell never did. One of the rare few." -The Prague Revue
Author of the critically acclaimed collection of short stories, Torrents of Our Time, and the novels, The Fiddler in the Night, and LOVE, GUNS & GOD in America, in What I Know About the Human Race, Christian explores life and art through varying forms of writing: fiction, essays, poetry, reviews, and a one act play.
A writer’s playbook. A reader's unforgettable journey.
"Words used to be art. In their creation. In the act. And thus the words were art in their very being. Forget the reader. Just don't forget the impetus. Christian Fennell never did. One of the rare few." -The Prague Revue
A boy sleeps, and he dreams: He dreams of fear and he dreams of hell and he dreams of where he lives now and will forever more, and he dreams of the faces of his family burning in the long nights of these days now, and he dreams, too, of past worlds, the faces of men; the faces of the sons of men, covered in furs and skins and painted in the death of others, their hollowed eyes of broken glory coming hard on wild mounts from hell, their devil hooves pounding the earth in the name of all that have come before them.
He wakes and he screams and his father tells him, it’ll be okay, and the boy, in his mind, backs away like some crab-like cave creature, his hands and feet scrambling amongst the scattered dreams of past plagues until backed against a weeping wall of fear and desolation.
He looks away—where? The blue of a dead screen, flickering, covering him, and he closes his eyes, and he says to himself, don’t dream.
Next to him, in the dark of that same night, his younger sister, fearful in her time and lost to it, knows she, too, will dream, in the warmth of that room, her father with her and holding her—trying to, and she cries, tears she knows, tears she can’t feel in these never-ending dreams of an echoing silence lost to the unforgiving vastness of a darkness everywhere. She wakes, a noise in the night, her brother next to her, and she looks to the window and her reflection there—falling, once again, into this endlessness of fear and desperation in the night.
The father, he covers her, his hand to her forehead, and he says, there there, now—now now, her fallen tears, the rattling of her fear chewing bones and soft tissue, coming to him and settling heavy upon him. He leans forward and he whispers, it’ll be okay, and she squeezes his hand and she closes her eyes and she waits—to flee, once again, a little girl on the back of duskywings.
And now the father, sitting upright next to his children, sleeps, and he, too, dreams, these dreams which are always dreams of long and empty streets in the night. Stopping, his heart pounding, resounding in his head, he watches thin pools of water gathered upon the road beginning to ripple. He looks behind him, an immeasurable distance back to the birthplace of darkness itself. He turns to run and a two-headed dog with massive jaws that foam and drip sink both sets of jaws deep into his face. He falls to the cobblestone surface of the road, his faceless head lulling forward, the dog’s jaws taking it, fighting to enter his red dark hole. They hollow him out. They rip and consume the skin from his bones and they eat the bones so all that remains of him is a scull dripping in blood from a scalp that is nothing more than a few splotches of dark hair.
The children sleeping, the man wakes, covered in sweat, and in the dark, he whispers to himself, it’ll be okay.
What I Know About the Human Race is a collection of various creative writing, from poetry to a one act play centering around human lives and stories. From a would be robber couple, to strangers on a train and their debate around the future of America. This is a complete mix of genres, styles, and ideas, so although it lacks cohesion, this is certainly a collection where disinterest is impossible, and you will find something for every mood.
It is hard to review and rate a work like this because invariably you’re forced into reviewing the overall product rather than the merits of individual essays, and favourites of the collection. A strength of this collection was that every story was imaginative and thought provoking in its own way, so although you may not have been a fan of the writing or the plot, there was still something to consider.Â
The essays were often cynical and political, the poetry invariably emotional, the writing on literature enlightening but short. Personally, this reader was not a fan of the more political works, they felt as if the author was trying too hard to force a message, even though this was a message that was right, it still felt forceful and out of place amongst the more lyrical work centering around humanity.
Perhaps that’s to be expected what with the loud title of knowing information about the human race, but it still came as a bitter aftertaste to be plunged back into the world of divisive rhetoric and politics, even if this was about specifically criticizing this divide. The jumps between a love story and a one act play that makes you daydream to a tirade about rights, was jarring and it was hard to know how exactly to read a collection like this. The work was divided into sections, but it could have been beneficial to group it by themes or style more so the flow was better within each section. This is a lovely piece showcasing the author’s style and opinions, so if you’re looking to be reminded of some ever relevant values, this one is for you.Â