THIS MODERN MAN IS BEAT

In Zablah’s collection of short stories, men struggle to find affection among family and shattered relationships.

In the story “Oslo,” Habib bin Habib Al-Fulan fantasizes about leaving Miami to settle in Norway. He even goes so far as to try to convince friends and family to move with him. But his arrest for drunk driving and ensuing time behind bars may indicate that his life won’t become any better if he merely changes the scenery. While most of the tales feature the El Salvador–born Habib, whose grandparents are from Palestine, the lead characters aren’t necessarily the same Habib (some stories are told by unnamed narrators). For example, he frequently visits or lives with his mother, but in “Oslo,” his alcoholic father laments that his son “grew up without a mother.” Similarly, “La Femme” tells of Habib’s trouble with his estranged wife, Oona, and their young daughter, Tessa, but in another story, Habib has apparently never married. Whatever version of Habib crops up, he faces many of the same obstacles, from always-problematic extramarital affairs (some of which Habib himself is involved in) to simply trying to find someone he can talk to about the various misfortunes plaguing him. Notably, another character altogether headlines the standout story, “Leaving for Paris.” In this tale, Yuniesky “Doofy” Zabala, a Cuban named after his Russian grandfather, goes on two radically different dates—one with a paid female sex worker and the other with a dental hygienist, who doesn’t seem as easy to connect to.

Zablah fills his stories with striking metaphors. The title of “Why Are You Afraid of Growing Old With Me?” says it all. Habib, whose friend loses her sickly husband, contemplates whether his longtime but currently estranged love, Lucia, will care for him when he’s “old and decrepit.” In another tale, Habib is a conjoined twin with Fawzy, and the brothers have conflicting ideas on where to take their dates (and how the proposed evening will end). Many stories deal with everyday life, with some entertaining exceptions: “The Second Time We Tried To Escape Cuba” is essentially a heist story, albeit a delightfully unconventional one, in which a man hires two friends to kidnap his ex-wife’s cockatoo. Another story has a science fiction flavor, while “100 Ways To Propose to a Married Woman” is an actual list of numbered tips that occasionally clash (numbers 69-72 chastise readers for presumably disregarding 68’s advice). Although Doofy and the many Habibs are dynamic protagonists and narrators who shift through a wide range of emotions, the collection’s female characters leave a bit to be desired—they’re predominantly objectified sex workers and exotic dancers, and Habib rarely has anything good to say about the recurring Lucia, who’s usually cast as his ex. Still, the author loads his concise prose with indelible passages, as when Doofy is nervous about meeting his escort date (“Fear and sex amalgamated in his mind”), and a German American college professor’s eyes are described as “blue, like the pasty, fading blue off the Florida coast before a big storm strikes.”

Often despondent, but enthralling, well-written tales of life and love.