In his introduction to "The Territory," the opening story of One Day
Closer to Death, Bradley Denton states:
The greatest moment in all of American literature occurs in chapter 31 of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when Huck says- "All right then, I'll go to hell." And he tears up a certain piece of paper. *(*A letter he had written to Jim's owner, Mrs. Watson, revealing Jim's whereabouts.)
Denton's novels usually meets this lofty goal. One Day Closer to Death, featuring seven previously published stories (all of which were in Wildside Press' World Fantasy Award-winning pair of collections, The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians and A Conflagration Artist, now out of print) and one new novella, proves he also meets this standard in his shorter work. Composed of various milestones from his thirteen-year career, each story contains characters who face personal hells, some forced on them by circumstance, others self created.
The collection's strongest stories are three novellas, "The Territory," "The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians," and "Blackburn Bakes Cookies." "The Territory" is an alternate history relating young Sam Clemens' experiences as a member of Quantrill's raiders, and the choice he is forced to make when that savage band decides to invade the abolitionist stronghold of Lawrence, Kansas. "The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians" features the controversial Lenny Bruce, who, after his tawdry death, discovers that the line between heaven and hell is very thin. "Blackburn Bakes Cookies," the volume's original, provides a fitting epitaph to the Jimmy Blackburn saga. Although not physically present (unless you count his ashes), Blackburn's presence pervades this twisted tale of family ties and hero worship.
Rounding out the collection are "Skidmore" (wherein the ghost of a serial killer accompanies the story's narrator on a grim trek), "Killing Weeds" (a story of the continuing ravages of the Vietnam War), "Captain Coyote's Last Hunt" (in which a sadistic hunter gets his comeuppance from the Trickster himself), "We Love Lydia Love," (a tale of obsessive love and self-destruction which could have easily come out of Harlan Ellison's Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Misspelled), and "A Conflagration Artist" (about a woman sharing her personal tragedy with others via combustible performance art).
The stories are arranged chronologically, so readers can, in Denton's words, "see his evolution as a writer." They show an author constantly refining his gifts, constantly improving, constantly pushing literary boundaries. At once sad and funny, lyrical and prickly, One Day Closer to Death demonstrates Denton's formidable talent, and attests to the ever-increasing depth of his perceptive and beguiling work.
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