![]() ![]() ![]() VanderMeer’s distinct brand of “new weird” fiction, Robertson persuasively argues, “helps us see possibilities beyond the norms we know” while suggesting how “something else might be possible” (3). Despite his book’s title, Robertson asserts that all of this is, in fact, normal “because all of this is possible,” with “this” referring to what has felt, in recent years, like the collapse of modern norms resulting from events as diverse as Brexit and the election of Donald Trump to the Cubs winning the World Series (2). Robertson’s object of study is the fiction of Jeff VanderMeer, a writer allied with genres that are defined by abnormality and “weirdness.” Yet, as Robertson is quick to point out, the very weirdness that those genres would seek to explore repeatedly finds its echo in contemporary life. ![]() Robertson reveals his title to be a ruse. ![]() Within the opening pages of None of This Is Normal, critic Benjamin J. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2018. Robertson, None of This Is Normal: The Fiction of Jeff VanderMeer. Detail from cover of Jeff VanderMeer’s Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogyīenjamin J. ![]()
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