Coming Attractions 07.

R. Gordon Moyles is professor emeritus of English at the University of
Alberta, co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities: British
Views of Canada, 1880–1914, and author of The Salvation Army and the
Public.

This, the 28th edition of Coming Attractions, features three new (or at least relatively new) writers —Julie Paul, Fabrizio Napoleone, and Anik See— who, so the editor says, “are writers to watch, young and smooth and electric.” He also, rather exaggeratedly, states that all three writers “are brainy and yet accessible” and probe “the wistful mysteries of families and lovers, and [ride] the unpredictable roller-coasters of work and travel.” Perhaps there are many readers who would agree, and I would not want to dissuade them from reading these stories, but, in my opinion, they fall far short of being “vibrant and volatile.” They are, in fact, quite insipid and boring. In terms of subject matter, Napoleone’s fictionalized steel mill experiences at least have the advantage of originality, while Paul’s hormonal “fuck-ups” (as she calls them) and See’s sexual fantasies are banal in the extreme. If, as we might expect, the dullness of subject matter were redeemed by scintillating (or at least engaging) styles, we might be more positive. Unfortunately, on that level as well, these writers fail to live up to the past successes of Coming Attractions.