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The Lightning of Possible Storms
Aleya’s world starts to unravel after a café customer leaves behind a collection of short stories. Surprised and disturbed to discover that it has been dedicated to her, Aleya delves into the strange book…
A mad scientist seeks to steal his son’s dreams. A struggling writer, skilled only at destruction, finds himself courted by Hollywood. A woman seeks to escape her body and live inside her dreams. Citizens panic when a new city block manifests out of nowhere. The personification of capitalism strives to impress his cutthroat boss.
The more Aleya reads, the deeper she sinks into the mysterious writer’s work, and the less real the world around her seems. Soon, she’s overwhelmed as a new, more terrifying existence takes hold.
Jonathan Ball’s first collection of short fiction blends humour and horror, doom, and daylight, offering myriad possible storms.
A mad scientist seeks to steal his son’s dreams. A struggling writer, skilled only at destruction, finds himself courted by Hollywood. A woman seeks to escape her body and live inside her dreams. Citizens panic when a new city block manifests out of nowhere. The personification of capitalism strives to impress his cutthroat boss.
The more Aleya reads, the deeper she sinks into the mysterious writer’s work, and the less real the world around her seems. Soon, she’s overwhelmed as a new, more terrifying existence takes hold.
Jonathan Ball’s first collection of short fiction blends humour and horror, doom, and daylight, offering myriad possible storms.
- GenresFictionShort Stories
209 pages, Paperback
First published September 30, 2020
21 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Ball
30 books34 followersJonathan Ball is the author of three books: Ex Machina (BookThug, 2009), Clockfire (Coach House Books, 2010), and The Politics of Knives (Coach House Books, 2012). He also wrote the academic monograph John Paizs's Crime Wave (University of Toronto Press, 2014) about the cult film classic, and co-edited (with Ryan Fitzpatrick) Why Poetry Sucks: Humorous Experimental Canadian Poetry (Insomniac, 2014). He holds a PhD from the University of Calgary, with focuses in Canadian Literature and Creative Writing. He is the former Managing Editor of Dandelion magazine, the former film/video section editor at Filling Station, and the former short films programmer for the Gimli Film Festival. He writes the humour column Haiku Horoscopes (http://www.haikuhoroscopes.com), and can be found online at http://www.jonathanball.com and on Twitter @jonathanballcom.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 21, 2021
Originally reviewed by Will Fawley for Prairie Fire's Book Reviews Program. prairiefire.ca
Jonathan Ball has built an impressive writing career that includes both poetry and fiction. That wild electricity of poetry explodes in his first full-length fiction collection, The Lightning of Possible Storms.
The Lightning of Possible Storms is categorized as a short story collection, and while it’s not quite a novel in stories, it’s something more cohesive than your average fiction collection. It is a reflection on books and writing, art, life and death, and our place in the Universe. It is also wild and experimental, which can sometimes be uncomfortable, but the language is tight and smart, keeping you reading for both plot and possibility.
The short stories themselves are framed by a meta-narrative in which the author leaves the book we’re reading in a café, and a server named Aleya finds it. The experimental meta-narrative feels at times like Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler meets the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft.
Things get even more meta in the first story, “National Bestseller,” in which a character also named Jonathan Ball resolves to break out of literary obscurity by writing a commercial success. The writer’s inclusion of himself as a character in the book makes the whole thing feel like a strange kind of fictional meta-autobiography.
This writing about writing continues in “The Best Story Ever Submitted to Your Magazine,” which takes the form of a submission letter a delusional writer sends to a magazine about a story he hasn’t written yet.
The writer as a character is a risky move, as it often comes off as self-indulgent—and it is to some degree—but Ball writes effortlessly, blending fact and fiction, inserting himself into the narrative. This playfulness often shatters the fourth wall (and all the other walls for that matter) and makes the book feel like something more than the sum of its parts, something beyond fiction.
The overarching story of Aleya comes back periodically, interspersed with the stories in the collection proper. These sections have no title or indication that they are not part of the previous story. At one point, Aleya muses, “As different as these stories are, they seem like a suite of sorts, Ball moving through the phases of a career, through different skins. But who is this writer of hers? The more his name appears, the less defined he seems to be.” (p 71)
Not all the stories are about writing though. Immediately after the second Aleya section, the book shifts to more traditional stories. “Costa Rican Green” is a poignant, emotionally-charged travel story, and “Judith” is a sci-fi story about machines that can predict how you will die. Then there are wild, experimental tales, like “Capitalism”, which is about the personification of capitalism itself.
“The War with the Dead” is a short meditation on life and death, and the permanence of art and ideas. It seems to be a turning point in the book. Until this point it has been experimenting with themes, and has finally arrived at its heart.
All of these explorations of writing and art are surreal and fragmented, yet woven together masterfully. Each story is a collection of threads that seems meaningless until you begin to see how they connect, how the ideas and concepts come together to form a cohesive tapestry that is far greater than the sum of its parts.
In the title story, “The Lightning of Possible Storms,” all the fragments collide. Aleya enters a proper story in the collection, not just the space between them, and things begin to become clear.
And if everything becomes clear in the title story, reason is exploded again in “About the Author,” which is either a story itself, or an actual ‘about the author’ section that Ball cleverly wrote about himself. In this section or story, Ball talks about the desire to write an autobiography. We have to wonder then, is the whole book itself some kind of strange autobiography made more factual through the freedom of fiction?
“Every story is true, somewhere. It does not matter that you do not believe.” (p 179)
Bound by the meta-narrative with Aleya, and the larger meta-narrative that might be Ball’s autobiography, The Lightning of Possible Storms is more of a wholistic experience than most collections. Because of the way the Aleya parts and the concepts build, the book should be read straight through from beginning to end, not jumping between stories the way a reader can in a typical short story collection.
In the hands of a lesser writer, these complex concepts could have fallen flat. Fortunately, Ball is the kind of masterful writer you trust to take you wherever the story may lead. When you arrive at the last page, you may wonder how the hell you got there, but you will know that you have experienced something entirely new and wondrous on the journey.
Jonathan Ball has built an impressive writing career that includes both poetry and fiction. That wild electricity of poetry explodes in his first full-length fiction collection, The Lightning of Possible Storms.
The Lightning of Possible Storms is categorized as a short story collection, and while it’s not quite a novel in stories, it’s something more cohesive than your average fiction collection. It is a reflection on books and writing, art, life and death, and our place in the Universe. It is also wild and experimental, which can sometimes be uncomfortable, but the language is tight and smart, keeping you reading for both plot and possibility.
The short stories themselves are framed by a meta-narrative in which the author leaves the book we’re reading in a café, and a server named Aleya finds it. The experimental meta-narrative feels at times like Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler meets the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft.
Things get even more meta in the first story, “National Bestseller,” in which a character also named Jonathan Ball resolves to break out of literary obscurity by writing a commercial success. The writer’s inclusion of himself as a character in the book makes the whole thing feel like a strange kind of fictional meta-autobiography.
This writing about writing continues in “The Best Story Ever Submitted to Your Magazine,” which takes the form of a submission letter a delusional writer sends to a magazine about a story he hasn’t written yet.
The writer as a character is a risky move, as it often comes off as self-indulgent—and it is to some degree—but Ball writes effortlessly, blending fact and fiction, inserting himself into the narrative. This playfulness often shatters the fourth wall (and all the other walls for that matter) and makes the book feel like something more than the sum of its parts, something beyond fiction.
The overarching story of Aleya comes back periodically, interspersed with the stories in the collection proper. These sections have no title or indication that they are not part of the previous story. At one point, Aleya muses, “As different as these stories are, they seem like a suite of sorts, Ball moving through the phases of a career, through different skins. But who is this writer of hers? The more his name appears, the less defined he seems to be.” (p 71)
Not all the stories are about writing though. Immediately after the second Aleya section, the book shifts to more traditional stories. “Costa Rican Green” is a poignant, emotionally-charged travel story, and “Judith” is a sci-fi story about machines that can predict how you will die. Then there are wild, experimental tales, like “Capitalism”, which is about the personification of capitalism itself.
“The War with the Dead” is a short meditation on life and death, and the permanence of art and ideas. It seems to be a turning point in the book. Until this point it has been experimenting with themes, and has finally arrived at its heart.
All of these explorations of writing and art are surreal and fragmented, yet woven together masterfully. Each story is a collection of threads that seems meaningless until you begin to see how they connect, how the ideas and concepts come together to form a cohesive tapestry that is far greater than the sum of its parts.
In the title story, “The Lightning of Possible Storms,” all the fragments collide. Aleya enters a proper story in the collection, not just the space between them, and things begin to become clear.
And if everything becomes clear in the title story, reason is exploded again in “About the Author,” which is either a story itself, or an actual ‘about the author’ section that Ball cleverly wrote about himself. In this section or story, Ball talks about the desire to write an autobiography. We have to wonder then, is the whole book itself some kind of strange autobiography made more factual through the freedom of fiction?
“Every story is true, somewhere. It does not matter that you do not believe.” (p 179)
Bound by the meta-narrative with Aleya, and the larger meta-narrative that might be Ball’s autobiography, The Lightning of Possible Storms is more of a wholistic experience than most collections. Because of the way the Aleya parts and the concepts build, the book should be read straight through from beginning to end, not jumping between stories the way a reader can in a typical short story collection.
In the hands of a lesser writer, these complex concepts could have fallen flat. Fortunately, Ball is the kind of masterful writer you trust to take you wherever the story may lead. When you arrive at the last page, you may wonder how the hell you got there, but you will know that you have experienced something entirely new and wondrous on the journey.
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December 23, 2024Books that confound and sometimes confuse can be the most potent of creations. This is because they keep the reader off guard, as they try and decipher precisely what sort of book they hold in their hands. That might be the reaction for some thanks to the book THE LIGHTNING OF POSSIBLE STORMS. Author Jonathan Ball has pulled out all the stops with a book that seems the best of many worlds. Ball is an author of many books, as well as Podcaster, creating quite the name for himself and following in the literary world.
With this book, it has elements of mystery fantasy, and at times seems autobiographical. The main point is that the book is written in such a manner, that you are compelled to keep reading just to see where the plots will head and align themselves.
The book begins with the dedication “For Aleya who will learn why.” She happens to be server in a tea house. She has many regulars who come into the business, and one of them happens to be a writer who seems to be the silent type, almost acting as if she doesn’t exist when she comes to serve him. It is a sort of arrogance as if he is superior, but there is more to the man than that. The fact that he tips very well, sort of helps makes up for the silent treatment. Then one day she discovers a book that he has left behind called The Lightning of Possible Storms, first thought accidentally forgotten.
That is until Aleya reads the dedication in the book that says, “For Aleya who will learn why.” Of course this more than overwhelms her curiosity, as she wants to see why her name is mentioned inside the book, from a man who barely acknowledged her. The stories are all quite different, focusing on a variety of subjects that are definitely most diverse. There is a look at life and death, and the universe and one’s place in it. There is also science-fiction as seen in Judith, which looks into machines who have the ability to tell you precisely how you will die. That definitely offers a most unusual aspect of the writing, taking on a variety of subjects whether we are comfortable with them or not.
Others stories like The Best Story Every Submitted To Your Magazine, The War With the Dead, and The Dark Part of the Sky, show Ball at his best, writing with great zeal, almost experimentally in tone, but giving the reader fanciful notions about chaos and order and creating your own reality from illusions. The reader like Aleya, will learn why Ball created such a bold and striking work, giving them quite the journey into his mind and motives.
With this book, it has elements of mystery fantasy, and at times seems autobiographical. The main point is that the book is written in such a manner, that you are compelled to keep reading just to see where the plots will head and align themselves.
The book begins with the dedication “For Aleya who will learn why.” She happens to be server in a tea house. She has many regulars who come into the business, and one of them happens to be a writer who seems to be the silent type, almost acting as if she doesn’t exist when she comes to serve him. It is a sort of arrogance as if he is superior, but there is more to the man than that. The fact that he tips very well, sort of helps makes up for the silent treatment. Then one day she discovers a book that he has left behind called The Lightning of Possible Storms, first thought accidentally forgotten.
That is until Aleya reads the dedication in the book that says, “For Aleya who will learn why.” Of course this more than overwhelms her curiosity, as she wants to see why her name is mentioned inside the book, from a man who barely acknowledged her. The stories are all quite different, focusing on a variety of subjects that are definitely most diverse. There is a look at life and death, and the universe and one’s place in it. There is also science-fiction as seen in Judith, which looks into machines who have the ability to tell you precisely how you will die. That definitely offers a most unusual aspect of the writing, taking on a variety of subjects whether we are comfortable with them or not.
Others stories like The Best Story Every Submitted To Your Magazine, The War With the Dead, and The Dark Part of the Sky, show Ball at his best, writing with great zeal, almost experimentally in tone, but giving the reader fanciful notions about chaos and order and creating your own reality from illusions. The reader like Aleya, will learn why Ball created such a bold and striking work, giving them quite the journey into his mind and motives.
December 2, 2020
Jonathan Ball’s short fiction collection, The Lightning of Possible Storms, is a volume that exults in the many ways in which it confounds expectations and keeps the reader off balance. Ball’s stories are brashly eccentric, cynical, surreal and delightfully subversive metafictions. In a manoeuvre that one does not often encounter in volumes of short fiction, Ball employs a framing device. The dedication reads, “For Aleya, who will learn why.” But Aleya is also present in the book: we first encounter her in an untitled introductory section. She is a server in a tea house. One of the regular customers is a writer who rarely speaks to her and pointedly ignores her as he writes at his table (she doesn’t mind because he’s a generous tipper). One day she finds a book that he has left behind. The title is The Lightning of Possible Storms by Jonathan Ball, and when she flips it open, she finds the dedication: “For Aleya, who will learn why.” Thus, Aleya’s experience of reading the book and trying to figure out “why” becomes our experience as well. The stories themselves cover a range of subjects and themes but are largely concerned with malleable perspectives and shifting realities, the struggle of the creative artist, and the lack of recognition and appreciation to which many artists must resign themselves. In “National Bestseller” a writer named Jonathan Ball decides to write a bestselling book. The story describes his bungling efforts to “dumb down” his writing in order to make it appealing to a mass audience, his push-pull relationship with his agent, and his uneasy and comical ruminations regarding how one in fact does write a bestseller. “The Best Story Ever Submitted to Your Magazine” is a fanciful missive addressed to the editor of the magazine where the writer has chosen to submit his magnificent story, which he hasn’t actually written yet. And “Explosions,” narrated in the seldom-used second-person voice, concerns an unnamed “hotshot” Hollywood producer’s embattled collaboration with an annoying and uncooperative writer named Jonathan Ball. Aleya makes further appearances throughout the volume, eventually becoming a character in the book she’s reading. At one point, in an interlude section between stories, Aleya pauses in her reading and thinks, “Not what she expected, these stories.” The reader will have much the same reaction. Ball’s stories constantly surprise; they cheerfully and brazenly defy narrative convention and propel the reader into bizarre landscapes and hallucinatory states of mind. Admittedly, this sort of writing is not for everyone, and it is true that several of the author’s more outlandish and hazily conceived efforts strain visibly for effect. But it is also true that reading The Lightning of Possible Storms is a genuinely bracing and exciting experience, profoundly unsettling and disorienting. Anyone who enjoys having their ass kicked by a book of fiction will not be disappointed.
December 22, 2020
The Lightning of Possible Storms, Jonathan Ball
From its opening dedication, “For Aleya, who learn why” readers are invited into Balls metafiction which is a compelling and immersive literary puzzle.
Aleya is both the books dedicatee and the central character, who like us also embarks in discovering why this collection of stories has been left for her - left for us.
Reminiscent of twilight zone with existentialist prose that serves to evoke feelings of relatability, bafflement, elusiveness and surrealism playing on our anxieties and deep seated needs. Ball has crafted a collection of tales that could be seen as daily musings yet also serve as commentary for our our current climate of our shared connected disconnectedness.
Which is uncannily perfect.
Especially given our current state of affairs in Canada - our second province wide lockdown in Ontario. We ready ourselves at the boards on the heels of one year morphing into a new year. Unrest, unease and anticipation bubbling within our collective flutes. The lightning of our shared possible storms casting sparks.
How, as Ball asks Aleya, will we write it out?
From its opening dedication, “For Aleya, who learn why” readers are invited into Balls metafiction which is a compelling and immersive literary puzzle.
Aleya is both the books dedicatee and the central character, who like us also embarks in discovering why this collection of stories has been left for her - left for us.
Reminiscent of twilight zone with existentialist prose that serves to evoke feelings of relatability, bafflement, elusiveness and surrealism playing on our anxieties and deep seated needs. Ball has crafted a collection of tales that could be seen as daily musings yet also serve as commentary for our our current climate of our shared connected disconnectedness.
Which is uncannily perfect.
Especially given our current state of affairs in Canada - our second province wide lockdown in Ontario. We ready ourselves at the boards on the heels of one year morphing into a new year. Unrest, unease and anticipation bubbling within our collective flutes. The lightning of our shared possible storms casting sparks.
How, as Ball asks Aleya, will we write it out?
December 4, 2020
A deeply, deeply weird, schizophrenic book that starts off as one thing, transforms into another, and desires nothing more than to make me pull my hair out trying to read it. I'm rating it 3 stars, because it lurches between funny, boring, profound, depressing, and dull...all within the span of a single book. If nothing else, it's an impressive achievement that kept me curious throughout...even when all I wanted to do was throw it under a bus.
April 25, 2021
I liked the idea of this book far more than the actual book. I enjoyed quite a few of the short stories but I felt that the parts about Aleya didn’t quite fit.
I would love to read a novel based on the description of this book; rather than a number of short stories with just the barest minimum of the Aleya plot interspersed.
I would love to read a novel based on the description of this book; rather than a number of short stories with just the barest minimum of the Aleya plot interspersed.
January 18, 2022
This was honestly a wonderful read, especially as an aspiring author/writer. There were so many things within this anthology that played with the way people write and create stories, broke the fourth wall, and made me have to pause and think before continuing. I really, really enjoyed the journey of this one.
January 28, 2021
I suspect this was very clever. I just wasn't in on the secret and didn't get it. There were a few moments that were deep and/or ironic and made me think but for the most part I was confused and disappointed.
February 23, 2022
This book is a 4.5 star. Only missing a .5 because I dreamed about it and can't remember if the dream was part of the book or the book really was that memorable. Either way, this book has wormed it's way into dreams and I think it will stay there forever.
December 19, 2021
pretty much fun
February 4, 2022
the ending was fun!
June 21, 2022
Some good short story's, but some that bored me
April 25, 2023
Intriguing stories, blended into one book. It is a great combination of humor, horror and fantasy.
June 7, 2021
Short story collection.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews