While his dad is in the hospital, a fifty-something record collector sets off for Paris to find the source of a mysterious Glenn Miller recording.

(from Black Clock issue 2, Fall ’04, Winter ’05)

I had trouble early on trying to determine whether this was a short story or some kinda first-person investigative adventure piece. What made me suppose it was the latter?
1. The mostly straightforward non-fictiony tone. Tangents pop up in ways more common in articles, particularly ones where the readers need to be taught some basics to understand the technical stuff that follows.
2. The curious details. Like, the narrator names which programs he uses to edit music files on his computer. Generally, short story authors shoot for something a little more timeless than that. This story is set in the now, or the recent then.
3. It’s very believable, or at least it is for many many pages.
4. I’ve never heard of Lewis Shiner. Maybe he does what this narrator does.
5. I don’t know anything about Black Clock magazine. It doesn’t tell you whether something is fiction, or fact, or fixed by a faction of fit fractions. Not a lot of front-of-the-book info. Mystery! Excitement!
6. Perhaps I wanted it to be real, because rediscovered musical gems and dusted off archives are limitlessly wondrous to me. Alan Lomax is Indiana Jones for music nerds.
But, after finishing “Perfidia,” I have concluded that, yes, I did read a short story today. And a good one. Because of the unpolished, untamed writing, I was engrossed by the action. I felt like I was in the hands of a writer untainted by artsy short story conventions. That there was no arc, no predestination, no promise that loose ends would be double knotted. Anything could happen.

Here‘s Lewis Shiner’s web site.

Walking, wounded, I went to Barnes and Noble to treat myself to some literature, even though I probably own enough unread stories to propel this site into the new year. I bought
1. Black Clock #2, as you know. I now know that Black Clock is a literary magazine. Here‘s a press release for the issue I bought. Here‘s the site for the magazine itself.
2. Night Train, issue #5. I don’t know much about it. It contains stories. Here‘s where we’ll all find out more.
3. Literary Review, Dec. 2004/Jan. 2005. It contains no stories. But it looked different. It is. Parts are all monocles and pinkies out, but mostly it’s smart and down-to-earth and British. Here‘s an article on their priceless Bad Sex Awards. It’s ribald, but not dirty. It’s possible, probable even, that a magazine this self-assured in its voice and purpose has no web site of its own. I couldn’t find one, anyway.