LO C A L B O O KS
Adrienne Raphel Thinking Inside the Box PENGUIN PRESS
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love to tell people that I want to learn everything. When I was asked to read a book about the history of crossword puzzles I thought, “well, that’s not a topic I would have picked,” and agreed. When the first page told me that the crossword puzzle was invented in 1913 I could not imagine how this book could possibly be over 300 pages. I ended so consumed by Thinking Inside The Box that I was disappointed when I realized I only had three pages left. Thinking Inside the Box, by Writers’ Workshop alum Adrienne Raphel (out March 17), is a lot of things, but it is not at all inaccessible or esoteric. I don’t do crosswords; I had to look up a lot of words. (Did you know people who like crossword puzzles are called “cruciverbalists”?) But there was something immediately welcoming both in Raphel’s voice and in her content. This felt less like a history lesson and more like being invited into a friendly subculture where everyone brings snacks. In the third chapter Raphel drops the confines of third-person narration and introduces herself to the audience like she’s been waiting to let us in on a secret. We meet Raphel at a writing residency in the Berkshires where she is slaving over construction of her own first crossword. This is the first time Raphel states that she is not a crossword person, but comes from a family of puzzle and game lovers. It’s almost meta-level narrative when she describes creating her own crossword
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puzzle or going on a crossword cruise as Raphel insists that she is not on their level; meanwhile, she has lovingly crafted a treatise to honor the puzzle and those who love them. The beauty of this book is how accessible Raphel made crosswords to someone so outside of the world. She discusses their role in World War II; crossword puzzles in popular media; the work being done to Various Authors address gender, race and class inDeath of the Demon Machine equality in the puzzle world; crossSELF-PUBLISHED word puzzle vacations and tournaments; and how crosswords are he backstory begins like this: used in medicine. Raphel interviews Imagine Other Worlds with big names in puzzles like Will Authors (I.O.W.A.), a yearly multiShortz and attends the American genre book signing event that Crossword Puzzle Tournament began in the mid-2010s to uplift (where she amusingly finds herself and highlight regional writers, was tailed by her parents). once plagued by the presence of a While I really loved this book, soda machine stuck in a musical there were moments where Raphel loop. Throughout their entire event, missed her own blindspots. In adthe thing repeated and repeated dressing how crossword puzzles and repeated. So, like all creative are often used to signal intelligence, THERE WAS SOMETHING yet have historically been more acIMMEDIATELY WELCOMING BOTH cessible to middleIN RAPHEL’S VOICE AND IN HER and upper-class CONTENT. THIS FELT LESS LIKE people, she doesn’t A HISTORY LESSON AND MORE spend much time LIKE BEING INVITED INTO A discussing the FRIENDLY SUBCULTURE WHERE consequences of this gatekeeping. EVERYONE BRINGS SNACKS. When describing a rift between the old guard and new (during the professionals faced with an attack Oreo Wars!), she uses the term “the to their sanity, they decided to turn Young Turks” for the new guard madness into creative energy. They (a term that even the journalism wrote about it. group of this name has apologized The result is this anthology, pubfor using and changed their name to lished in paperback at the tail end initials). of 2020 and out this past Jan. 1 on Still, she goes to great lengths to Kindle. I was sucked in, as anyone show moments in which the crosswould be, when frequent Little word has brought people together, Village collaborator Blair Gauntt helped memory patients and caused recently shared the indelible cover military security issues. Thinking design he created for it on social Inside the Box is an educational media. His style is well-suited to romp; it inspired me to try the first this kind of tongue-in-cheek humor. crossword puzzle of my adult life His whimsy deepens the delight of and, more than anything, it is a love the reading experience. letter written by a poet to the 100 Death of the Demon Machine: A years of cruciverbalists who shaped Pop Anthology is a genre-spanning, her world. —Sarah Elgatian short and clever exercise in wish
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fulfillment. Each tale is a different author’s take on a mythology, origin story or satisfying demise for the offending beast. It runs the gamut in terms of quality, as well, with a few slow starts in an overall enjoyable experience. The collection doesn’t credit an editor, and that lack is felt in some stories more than others, as though the individual writers were each tasked with having their own pieces edited and some just— didn’t. However, the arc of the anthology works out beautifully, with the funniest stories (including Craig Hart’s “Demise of the Liquid Refreshment Dispensement Device”) landing right at the crest of the wave and the longest, most intricate tale (“Senior Year Soda,” by Stephen L. Brayton) offering a satisfying denouement. A few stories in the collection really stood out. Hart’s piece, while sometimes (intentionally) walking that thin line separating funny from corny, was at several points laugh-out-loud hilarious, easing a reader into a sense of comfort. Reading Beth Hudson’s “Daimonas Ex Machina” was like chatting with an old friend. It’s an incredibly tight story—the shortest in the collection—but manages the most honest character and scene work, and it finds time to drop gems of phrases like “caught in the fascination of the impossible.” And “Ticking,” by David Taylor II, was a surprise treat, a delightfully disturbing scifi romp. You can feel the joy and camaraderie baked into Death of the Demon Machine. Coming out in the wake of I.O.W.A. having to go virtual due to COVID-19 last year, there’s something of an ache to the nostalgia of authors gathered in a room, facing off against a common enemy. And there’s something very engaging and quintessentially Iowan about the joy that the writers take in one another, in the stories more literally set at the event itself. It’s amazing what demons we can slay when we come together. —Genevieve Trainor
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