When a Fan Hits the Shit: The Rise and Fall of a Phony Charity

by Jeanine Renne

(Turondo (www.turondo.com), 348 pages, $14.95)

If Nov. 2 didn't clue you in to the existence of, shall we say, "other Americas," this self-published chronicle of baroque subcultural weirdness will do the trick. Part true-crime exposé, part insanely completist memoir, When a Fan Hits the Shit is a more comprehensive (by a considerable margin) recounting of events chronicled in these very pages by your humble reviewer (see "Hobbits Gone Wrong," WW, July 17, 2004).

Salem author Jeanine Renne details a scam-of sorts-perpetrated within the Internet-woven world of hardcore Lord of the Rings fans. You could say the saga, which played out in and around Portland last year, is merely a tale of small-time fraud. To do so, however, would leave out the cross-dressing, faked suicides, identity theft and speaking in Hobbit.

Renne, who was victimized by her story's weird villains, hopes to recoup money she and others lost in the intricate meltdown of a Tolkien fan club by selling this book. Her heart's in the right place. Her prose is pretty clear, and her characters couldn't be more oddball. Unfortunately, she chooses to include way too much information. And by way too much, we mean way, way, way, way too much. At 348 pages, replete with appendices and verbatim transcriptions of long web-chats, WAFHTS is tough to recommend for casual readers who otherwise might get into the American Gothic oddity of it all. For anyone with a deep interest in Tolkien fandom, Internet culture or underground artifacts in general, however, this book is one of a kind. Zach Dundas

Autobahn: A Short-Play Cycle

By Neil LaBute

(Faber and Faber, 93 pages, $13)In Neil LaBute's lofty introduction to Autobahn, he lauds "The Pleasures of Limitation." The limitations of his seven new vignettes call for the playwright's characters to do everything from salvaging relationships to plotting the retrieval of a beloved Nintendo 64, all while strapped firmly into their bucket or bench seats. Here, the "infinite possibilities" of the car as dramatic space are rarely taken to mean the drama of a rapidly changing landscape or the tantalizing possibility of collision. Instead, LaBute focuses primarily on the effects of a small, inescapable space on his often garrulous, insatiable characters.

Without exception, each piece features characters obsessed with language. Conversations don't make it past opening statements before someone latches on relentlessly to what he or she condemns as a poorly chosen word. The seeming triviality of the countless syntactical debates contrasts with the scandalous nature of each scene's looming secrets. Characteristically, LaBute depends on shocking revelations to justify almost every scene. In some cases, as in "Bench Seat," these disclosures feel forced and the dialogue drones. Elsewhere, as in "Merge," quibbles over wording grippingly heighten the scene's tension and reveal the logic of lie making.

However, in "Merge," a husband learns the details of his wife's willing involvement in a post-company-seminar gangbang. He uncovers her carefully parsed story by navigating her language, as she directs him through the city. If the entire collection could boast such sophistication,

Autobahn might feel less like sitting in gridlock traffic. Johanna Droubay