The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians

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The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians is a weird fiction novella by American writer Bradley Denton. It was first published in Fantasy and Science Fiction , in June 1988. [1] It republished in Denton's 1994 collection The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians , and his 1998 collection One Day Closer to Death: Eight Stabs at Immortality; a French translation was published in 1989. [2]

Weird fiction Subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries

Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. John Clute defines weird fiction as a "Term used loosely to describe Fantasy, Supernatural Fiction and Horror tales embodying transgressive material". China Miéville defines weird fiction thus: "Weird Fiction is usually, roughly, conceived of as a rather breathless and generically slippery macabre fiction, a dark fantastic often featuring nontraditional alien monsters ." Discussing the "Old Weird Fiction" published in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock says, "Old Weird fiction utilises elements of horror, science fiction and fantasy to showcase the impotence and insignificance of human beings within a much larger universe populated by often malign powers and forces that greatly exceed the human capacities to understand or control them." Weird fiction either eschews or radically reinterprets ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and other traditional antagonists of supernatural horror fiction. Weird fiction is sometimes symbolised by the tentacle, a limb-type absent from most of the monsters of European folklore and gothic fiction, but often attached to the monstrous creatures created by weird fiction writers such as William Hope Hodgson, M. R. James, and H. P. Lovecraft. Weird fiction often attempts to inspire awe as well as fear in response to its fictional creations, causing commentators like Miéville to say that weird fiction evokes a sense of the numinous. Although "weird fiction" has been chiefly used as a historical description for works through the 1930s, the term has also been increasingly used since the 1980s, sometimes to describe slipstream fiction that blends horror, fantasy, and science fiction.

Novella written, fictional, prose narrative normally longer than a short story but shorter than a novel

A novella is a text of written, fictional, narrative prose normally longer than a short story but shorter than a novel, somewhere between 17,500 and 40,000 words.

Bradley Clayton Denton is an American science fiction author. He has also written other types of fiction, such as the black comedy of his novel Blackburn, about a sympathetic serial killer.

Contents

Plot summary

In the afterlife, Leonard finds himself confined to the Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians, an institution where comedians who were rude, offensive, obscene, and blasphemous are kept until they can learn to shed those elements of their personalities which would make them unfit for Heaven.

The afterlife is the belief that the essential part of an individual's identity or the stream of consciousness continues after the death of the physical body. According to various ideas about the afterlife, the essential aspect of the individual that lives on after death may be some partial element, or the entire soul or spirit, of an individual, which carries with it and may confer personal identity or, on the contrary, may not, as in Indian nirvana. Belief in an afterlife is in contrast to the belief in oblivion after death.

Lenny Bruce American comedian, activist and social critic

Leonard Alfred Schneider, better known by his stage name Lenny Bruce, was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-style and critical form of comedy which integrated satire, politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was followed by a posthumous pardon, the first in the history of New York state, by then-Governor George Pataki in 2003.

Calvin Coolidge 30th president of the United States

Calvin Coolidge was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 30th president of the United States from 1923 to 1929. A Republican lawyer from New England, born in Vermont, Coolidge worked his way up the ladder of Massachusetts state politics, eventually becoming governor. His response to the Boston Police Strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight and gave him a reputation as a man of decisive action. The next year, he was elected vice president of the United States, and he succeeded to the presidency upon the sudden death of Warren G. Harding in 1923. Elected in his own right in 1924, he gained a reputation as a small government conservative and also as a man who said very little and had a rather dry sense of humor.

Reception

The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians was a finalist for the 1989 Hugo Award for Best Novella [1] and the 1989 Nebula Award for Best Novella, [2] and was ranked 9th for the Locus Award for Best Novella. [2]

The Hugo Award for Best Novella is one of the Hugo Awards given each year for science fiction or fantasy stories published or translated into English during the previous calendar year. The novella award is available for works of fiction of between 17,500 and 40,000 words; awards are also given out in the short story, novelette and novel categories. The Hugo Awards have been described as "a fine showcase for speculative fiction" and "the best known literary award for science fiction writing".

Nebula Award for Best Novella literary award

The Nebula Award for Best Novella is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) for science fiction or fantasy novellas. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as a novella if it is between 17,500 and 40,000 words; awards are also given out for pieces of longer lengths in the novel category, and for shorter lengths in the short story and novelette categories. To be eligible for Nebula Award consideration, a novella must be published in English in the United States. Works published in English elsewhere in the world are also eligible, provided they are released on either a website or in an electronic edition. The Nebula Award for Best Novella has been awarded annually since 1966. Novellas published by themselves are eligible for the novel award instead, if the author requests them to be considered as such. The award has been described as one of "the most important of the American science fiction awards" and "the science-fiction and fantasy equivalent" of the Emmy Awards.

The Locus Award for Best Novella is one of a series of Locus Awards given out each year by Locus Magazine. Awards presented in a given year are for works published in the previous calendar year.

Jo Walton has described Coolidge as being "terrific" and "memorable and excellent". [3]

Jo Walton Welsh Canadian writer

Jo Walton is a Welsh-Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2002 and the World Fantasy award for her novel Tooth and Claw in 2004. Her novel Ha'penny was a co-winner of the 2008 Prometheus Award. Her novel Lifelode won the 2010 Mythopoeic Award. Her novel Among Others won the 2011 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Novel; Among Others is one of only seven novels to have been nominated for the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, and World Fantasy Award.

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References

  1. 1 2 1989 Hugo Awards at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved April 18, 2016
  2. 1 2 3 The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians, at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, retrieved April 18, 2016
  3. ↑ Hugo Nominees: 1989, by Jo Walton, at Tor.com; published June 26, 2011; retrieved April 18, 2016
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