Espresso Shots: The Nicotine Chronicles, edited by Lee Child

Small-sized reviews, raves, and recommendations.

The Nicotine Chronicles, edited by Lee Child, is another installment of the Akashic Drug Chronicles Series. Previous books have focused on cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and speed. The present volume, however, chronicles a legal drug. It should be noted that this anthology is about nicotine, not tobacco. As Lee Child, bestselling author of the Jack Reacher series, states:

“Food scientists have discovered a complex compound naturally present in, among other things, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. The compound offers us a number of benefits: it improves our fine motor skills; it improves our cognitive abilities; it increases our attention spans; it improves our long- and short-term memories; it lessens depression; it delays and possibly even prevents Alzheimer’s; and it decreases the risk of Parkinson’s. In and of itself, it has no real downside. It’s called nicotine. We should all get some.”

But there’s a catch: “The problem is the delivery system. […] The most efficient way [to get a beneficial amount of nicotine] is to burn dried tobacco leaves and inhale the smoke.”

The result to continued inhalation and consumption of tobacco products is pretty obvious to anyone. Lee Child takes us to Flavor Country with a varied array of contributors, including Eric Bogosian, Joyce Carol Oates, and Michael Imperioli.

The stories themselves also range widely and wildly. From the weirdly surreal “The Renovation of the Just” by Christopher Sorrentino to the Caribbean mysticism of “Yasiri” by Michael Imperioli. “Smoking Jesus,” by Eric Bogosian is a short internal monologue: a rant, a projection of the narrator’s conflicted psyche, and a snarling attack on the reader’s moral certitudes. He ends by saying about people with no money – in contrast to we, the reader’s, First World Problems – how they “Spend all their livelong day searching for clean water and firewood and hope they don’t trip over a land mine while doing it. These people don’t worry about sunblock. Or flossing after meals. Or whether there’s bacteria on the sponge. They don’t. They don’t worry about any of it. And if they get a chance to smoke a cigarette, they smoke it. Whenever they can.”

Lee Child’s “Dying for a Cigarette” is a small fable about a screenwriter’s love for cigarettes and artistic integrity. It chronicles his life of aesthetic compromises and the success it brings him. An attack on the Hollywood studio system, but also an unflinching look at human frailty.

“Deathbed Vigil,” by Jonathan Ames is a dark and heartbreaking story about a former cop and his dying aunt. Ames, an author and TV show creator, brings us into the head of someone not right in the head. Damaged, angry, memory-impaired, Sol takes an flight back to be at the bedside of his Aunt Lina. His extreme hatred for cigarette smoke leads him to a dangerous confrontation.

“God’s Work” by Bernice L. McFadden, focuses on a cop looking for missing children in rural Georgia. We enter the mind of a simple man with simple tastes, having no truck with big city types or interfering FBI agents. But McFadden, a storytelling master, turns the story from the relatively world of a Hercule Poirot “cozy mystery” into Jim Thompson territory. After a tame beginning, she paints a picture as disturbing as anything by Andrew Vachss.

What many of the authors do within this collection is create fiction where the hit of nicotine is a visceral and sensual thing. “Vaping: A User’s Manual,” by Joyce Carol Oates follows a teen’s dark descent into addiction. Vaping gets the teen high, one hit at a time, even as the teen voices his disgust at the smell of cigarettes. Hypocrisy, naivete, and hedonistic joy propel this dark tale forward until the inevitable aftermath.

Despite the bleak subject matter, these stories aren’t the simplistic and preachy variety. There’s no “moral decline” or “moral panic” narratives contaminating the stories with pearl-clutching or finger-wagging. These stories are what they are. Make up your own mind on the matter.

Full disclosure: I smoke cigars when I was younger, although I haven’t had any in many years. In terms of bias, I am the polar opposite of advocating any sort of “straight-edge” ideology.

https://driftlessareareview.com/2021/07/04/espresso-shots-the-nicotine-chronicle... ( )

"Food scientists have discovered a complex compound naturally present in, among other things, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. The compound offers a number of benefits: it improves our fine motor skills; it increases our attention span; it improves our cognitive abilities; it improves our short- and long-term memories; it lessens depression; it delays and possibly even prevents Alzheimer's; and it decreases the risk of Parkinson's. In and of itself, it has no real downside. It's called nicotine. We should all get some."

These are the opening words of editor Lee Child in his introduction to "The Nicotine Chronicles," a collection of short stories featuring you-know-what. Who knew all that (outside of food scientists)?? I certainly did not, and -- in the interest of full disclosure --I've been a nicotine consumer for over 50 years.

And I've often wondered how a collection like this gets put together. Did Mr. Childs contact his peers with a "hey, help me out here, I'm putting a nicotine stories collection together"? Did his peers feverishly concoct a story out of their creative juices? Or did they dust off a piece they hadn't been able to sell in decade, hastily insert some nicotine references, and send it off? Or did Mr. Childs, in a very friendly way, remind a colleague, "hey, I helped you out with your project, now it's your turn ...."

However this collection came together, it's a good read. The stories will take you all over the world and all over the place of the human condition. I especially enjoyed Ariel Gore's "My Simple Plan," Mr. Child's own "Dying for a Cigarette" (methinks it might be a shade autobiographical), Cara Black's "Special Treatment," and Michael Imperioli's "Yasiri."

To my nicotine-addled mind, the wisest words in this collection were penned by Eric Bogosian in his contribution, "Smoking Jesus." Apologies in advance for the lengthy quote that follows, I submit it to my non- smoking (and often highly judgmental) friends and acquaintances and you, kind reader:

"I mean, all us self-improvement people who spend all day obsessing about our own behavior, we're just tiny little segments of the world's population. Not even a majority in the United States. Just this thin, thin layer of humanity ..., like a layer of scum floating on top of a very big pond, who have either the time or the luxury to worry about whether we are eating too much cholesterol or not getting enough fiber. Or aren't reclining properly or aren't getting enough miles to the gallon in our SUVs.

"Whether we've booked our next Pilates session or yoga class or tooth whitening or colonoscopy. Most of the people in the world have no money.

"None. Zero. No bank account. No pocket change. No jar of pennies on the dresser. Nada. All they have are the flip-flops on their feet and the chicken clucking in the yard. Spend all their livelong day searching for clean water and firewood and hope they don't trip over a land mine while they're doing it. [They] don't worry about sunblock. Or flossing after meals. Or whether there's bacteria on the sponge.... They don't worry about any of it. And if they get a chance to smoke a cigarette, they smoke it. Whenever they can." ( )

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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I've tried to stop smoking.

I know it's important not to smoke. In fact, it's stupid to smoke. I smoke, but I try not to smoke. Every time I light a cigarette I think, I should not be doing this.

I want a better life. But it's an uphill battle, it is an uphill battle because I try to do the right thing, but I don't do the right thing. And...I smoke anyway.

Fuck it, I don't smoke that much. The chances that something really bad will happen to me as a consequence of my smoking habit are slim. In fact, the chances that something else might happen to me for other reasons are far greater. Something will happen to me, though.

Sooner or later. That's guaranteed.

WHAT'S THE NICOTINE CHRONICLES?
This is an anthology of stories centered around nicotine—users, their delivery system of choice, and how it shapes their thinking/lives. (you can read an excerpt from Child's Introduction here to flesh this out a bit). There's one or two that discuss cigars, vaping only shows up once, the rest of these focus on cigarettes (oh, I can think of one mention of a pipe, too). If you care about things like that.

Some of these sixteen stories would fit under the "Crime Fiction" umbrella, one is sort of speculative fiction, and the rest would be "General Fiction." Not all wax rhapsodically about nicotine or tobacco—in fact, it's usually portrayed as a pretty negative habit/substance—actually, I think it's a positive thing only once (and not directly). So even non-/antii-smokers can read this without having to put up with a celebration of smoking or anything.

THE NAMES I KNEW
On the whole, these authors were new to me, with four exceptions.

So, I knew Eric Bogosian from miscellaneous roles, and I wasn't surprised to see that he writes a little. His essay/monologue/first-person rant, "Smoking Jesus," starts with the paragraphs I started this post with. It's the best thing in this collection. Sadly, it's only 4 pages of it. That just isn't right.

I was surprised to see that Michael Imperioli writes, but I'm glad he does. His contribution was one of the better and more imaginative pieces.

Lee Child and Joyce Carol Oates, are names, of course, that I recognized because I've walked into a bookstore/library at least once in the last twenty years. Child's story wasn't the kind of thing that fans would expect, but was pretty decent. I appreciated what Oates was doing, but it felt a little...obvious? Unnecessary? Clichéd?

THE NAMES THAT WERE NEW TO ME
That leaves 12 names I'm pretty sure I've never run across before. None of them moved me to seek out other work of theirs, but there were only two that I actively disliked. I'd be open to reading things from all of them were I to stumble across them.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT THE NICOTINE CHRONICLES?

I craved a cigarette right then like I was missing not some foreign chemical but a part of my own, soul, and from each cell of my throat and my lungs, I thanked the universe that I had one.

Every story was well-written, well-executed. I'm not going to complain about the technical aspects—top-notch work, really. But the overwhelming majority of these left me cold. And even with the ones I felt most positive about I could only muster mild interest over.

I have no real animus about this, but no real reason to recommend it. It's just something I read. ( )

A fascinating collection of short stories with smoking or nicotine as the connecting thread. The characters were well drawn. One story about vaping gives a contemporary feel to three collection. ( )

This is the fifth in Akashics Drug Chronicle Series, but the first I have read. Comparing this collection of shorts with the more iconic Noir Series by Akashic is rather problematic. The Nicotine theme rather loosely ties these stories together. Some of the authors really played the nicotine part to it's fullest, while others just tossed it in as an afterthought. From my personal point of view, I greatly prefer the Noirs, as many of the locales brought back memories of my extensive travels to many of these places.

On the other hand, these stories unfortunately reminded me of my own addiction, and the struggles to overcome it. Thankfully, that was many years ago. Young folks now get their fix from vaping...just as addictive, as Joyce Carol Oates attests to in the final story in this volume.

Not my cup of tea, so while many of the stories were well written, I can only give it 2 1/2 stars. ( )