An Agent of Utopia

Starred review from September 24, 2018
Zany and kaleidoscopic, the 12 stories in Duncan’s third collection draw on Southern traditions of tall tales and span time periods, continents, and the realm of human imagination to create an intricate new mythology of figures from history, literature, and American folklore. The title story is told in ornate, antiquated language from the perspective of an operative from Utopia who retrieves the decapitated head of Sir Thomas More and winds up haunted by his thoughts. Young Flannery O’Connor finds Jesus Christ in her chicken coop and trains him to walk backwards in “Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse.” Heavyweight boxing champion Jess Willard travels through time to the night he met Harry Houdini in “The Pottawatomie Giant.” In “Senator Bilbo,” Tolkien’s hobbit is cast as a racist, reactionary politician. Zora Neale Hurston, the folkloric figures Daddy Mention and Uncle Monday, the Devil himself, and all the inhabitants of the Big Rock Candy Mountain also make appearances. Duncan aficionados may be a touch disappointed that there are several stories in common with his 2012 U.K.-published The Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories, but anyone who lost track of Duncan in the 18 years since his last U.S. collection will be thrilled to rediscover him here. This is a raucous, fantastical treat.

September 15, 2018
Stories that borrow from American folklore, history, and a plethora of literary sources to forge fantasy worlds that are intimately familiar.Duncan (The Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories, 2012, etc.) reasserts his down-home voice in this new collection of Southern fabulist tales. Often told in the first person, the stories tease the reader with echoes of historical fact and biography that slowly unfold into sociopolitical commentary. In some tales, this cultural consciousness is overt. The title story, for example, sees an actual agent of Thomas More's fictional Utopia infiltrating 16th-century London in an attempt to rescue More from the Tower. When her mission fails, she becomes haunted by the profane voice of More's severed head and stays in England in an attempt to find the freedom offered by an imperfect society. Along the same lines, "Senator Bilbo" finds the many-times-great-grandson of Tolkien's Bilbo Baggins a powerful political figure in the Shire advancing his agenda of racial purity in the face of a globalizing Middle-earth. Other stories flirt more subtly with their themes. In "Zora and the Zombie," a fictionalized Zora Neale Hurston explores both the power and vulnerability of her femininity while researching her real-life ethnographic study of Haitian voodoo practices. In "Beluthahatchie," the African-American trickster character High John the Conqueror is blended with the scarcely less mythic personality of bluesman Robert Johnson to explore the dynamics of institutionalized racial oppression and resistance in hell. As lofty as Duncan's goals can sometimes be, the tenderness, humor, and sheer gumption of his voices make the collection both winsome and engaging. Of note, however, is the fact that the author uses racially insensitive language which, while historically accurate and appropriate to the voices of his characters, is not his to speak. Readers will have to decide for themselves whether Duncan's use of African-American folk forms and the stories' firm championing of the oppressed justify the employment of language that lands so harshly on the ear. Occasionally, the author loses his way in the maze of his references, and the stories suffer from a tendency to ramble, but even the most gabby of these tales has the power to startle the reader into realizations about their own time and place that are only possible when seen through the lens of make-believe.A rare book that blends fun with fury and tomfoolery with social consciousness.

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Starred review from October 15, 2018
This collection brings together a wide variety of Duncan's short fiction from a 20-plus-year career. Stories include evocations of folklore such as Big Rock Candy Mountain, in which a rail-riding hobo and a determined young woman journey out from the fabled paradise. Other stories revisit classic works of literature, like the title story, in which an agent from Thomas More's ideal land comes to England to attempt to save his life, or Senator Bilbo, about a descendant of Tolkien's hobbit who attempts to zealously guard the Shire from undesirables. There are stories with only a slight fabulist twist, such as Joe Diabo's Farewell, in which a 1920s Mohawk riveter is haunted not only by a dead workmate but also by the cultural and social representations of Native Americans of his time. There are also stories featuring real-life figures, such as Zora and the Zombie, in which Zora Neale Hurston encounters the supernatural in Haiti. Whatever the topic, all of Duncan's fictions are united by an evocative, playful, and deeply accomplished storytelling style. Highly recommended for fans of Kelly Link or other slipstream writers, and for any reader looking to lose themselves in an engaging and fun reading experience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)