"Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer" is a 2013 fantasy story by Kenneth Schneyer. It was first published in the Mythic Delirium Books anthology Clockwork Phoenix 4. An audio version was subsequently released on PodCastle, read by Peter Wood.
Plot summary
editRather than being a conventional narrative, "Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer" is presented as a set of notes and discussion questions from an art museum's posthumous exhibition of the paintings of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer — a woman who was able to see things that other people were not. Schneyer has stated that the story is about ghosts, and that the narrator is intended to be a "curator who (...) entirely misunderstand(s) the story that was being told by the paintings."[1]
Reception
edit"Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer" was a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story of 2013,[2] and the 2014 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.[3] Tangent Online praised the level of detail with which Schneyer described Latimer's paintings,[4] while at Locus, Lois Tilton called the story a "puzzle" with "a lot of clues", stating that it "rewards re-reading".[5] Tor.com noted that although "these sorts of stories" (i.e., stories where the narrative is presented as a series of disconnected facts which readers must mentally assemble) are often "so boring that [readers] don’t make it to the end," Selected is "far more successful than most";[6] Strange Horizons, however, considered that despite the story being "effective" and "very technically ambitious", its weakness was its presentism: although Latimer is portrayed as having lived until 2025, and therefore the art exhibition must take place after that, the "program notes purportedly written in the future feel as though they were written in [2013], as they in fact were."[7]
References
edit- ^ A Clockwork Phoenix Featured Story: “Selected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer” (Author's notes), by Kenneth Schneyer; retrieved December 19, 2016
- ^ 2013 Nebula Awards Winners Announced, at Science Fiction Writers of America; published May 18, 2014; retrieved December 19, 2016
- ^ "Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award 2014". Science Fiction Awards Database. Locus. Archived from the original on 2015-09-28. Retrieved 2016-12-19.
- ^ Clockwork Phoenix 4, reviewed by Louis West in Tangent Online; published March 25, 2013; retrieved December 19, 2016
- ^ Lois Tilton reviews Short Fiction, late February, originally published in Locus, February 2013; archived online at Locus Online, February 28, 2013; retrieved December 19, 2016
- ^ Short Fiction Spotlight: Clockwork Phoenix 4, edited by Mike Allen, reviewed by Lee Mandelo, at Tor.com; published October 29, 2013; retrieved December 19, 2016
- ^ Clockwork Phoenix 4, edited by Mike Allen, reviewed by Lila Garrott, at Strange Horizons; published July 1, 2013; retrieved December 19, 2016