Fast-paced, lewd and extremely unconventional short stories that may appeal to fans of Mark Danielewski and David Foster...
A collection of hyperenergetic, scatological, stream-of-consciousness short stories.
Bird (Catastrophically Consequential, 2012) serves up 12 highly impressionistic stories in this revised edition of his original 2009 collection. The stories range from the frantic Harry Potter parody of “Szczmawgwhore(ts): A Pornographick Bitch-Story” to the sardonic true-crime parody of “Bobby Chushingura,” with its fierce send-up of small-town Middle America (“Bobby had grown up on the wrong side of the tracks of a rural-suburban Rust Belt town populated by wealthy equestrian enthusiasts who were only as sick as their secrets”). Also notable are the almost incoherent psychedelic ramblings of the linked stories “Gothra Schvulkopf and the Daily Grind” and “Gothra Schvulkopf and Her Pumpkin Trolls,” which, even at their most disconnected, are saved by Bird’s skilled pacing and surprisingly lovely turns of phrase: “One can espy an Amazonian jungle creeping along the edge of my bikini line. Little children burn doggie poo in paper bags on my doorstep on Halloween and run away cackling in the harvest moon dry brown leaf rustling night.” Bird is a performance artist in New York City, and many of his stories in this collection would likely be far more effective in performance, where the copious amounts of profanity would likely be funnier than they are on the page. Even so, the narrative swagger Bird brings to stories like “The Travails of Ginger Bocey” (“Her wore them dirty pants with pride, her warn’t no society lady, her life were dirty and she rubbed it in everyone’s face”) gives them a welcome, raunchy life all their own.
Fast-paced, lewd and extremely unconventional short stories that may appeal to fans of Mark Danielewski and David Foster Wallace.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2013
ISBN: 978-0615581705
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Hysterical Dementia
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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