Monzó blends verve and precision in these stories while also posing bold philosophical questions.
A Catalan writer's stories abound with unexpected allusions to fables, celebrities, and the absurdities of existence.
What happens when fate develops a strange—and possibly cruel—sense of humor? Several of the characters in Monzó’s (A Thousand Morons, 2013, etc.) collection discover the results for good and for ill. Notable among them is the protagonist of “Trojan Euphoria,” who, over the course of the tale, loses his arm, his job, and his home, eventually dying while attempting a heroic act that ends on a bleak punchline. Trujillo, the protagonist of “Instability,” makes a series of decisions to prevent his car stereo from being stolen, setting in motion events that lead to the death of his neighbor and his unexpected marriage. And the protagonist of “Half-Twelvish” descends into a philosophical quandary when he learns that the woman he's been dating has been dead for months—maybe. Monzó also displays a fondness for alluding to myths and fables. The group of stories that closes the collection includes a reimagining of “Cinderella” and the tale of a prince searching for a frog to kiss. Early on in the book, Monzó satirizes the notion of the awful male genius in “Pygmalion,” revisiting both mythology and misogyny along the way. Most of these stories are complete in a handful of pages, and Monzó neatly blends concision with a penchant for absurdity. The original Catalan version of this collection was published in the 1990s, and a handful of its celebrity references could feel dated for some readers—but that's hardly overwhelming. And grand themes of fate, existence, and human connection are never far from the action.
Monzó blends verve and precision in these stories while also posing bold philosophical questions.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-948830-04-1
Page Count: 119
Publisher: Open Letter
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019
It's being called a novel, but it is more a hybrid: short-stories/essays/confessions about the Vietnam War—the subject that O'Brien reasonably comes back to with every book. Some of these stories/memoirs are very good in their starkness and factualness: the title piece, about what a foot soldier actually has on him (weights included) at any given time, lends a palpability that makes the emotional freight (fear, horror, guilt) correspond superbly. Maybe the most moving piece here is "On The Rainy River," about a draftee's ambivalence about going, and how he decided to go: "I would go to war—I would kill and maybe die—because I was embarrassed not to." But so much else is so structurally coy that real effects are muted and disadvantaged: O'Brien is writing a book more about earnestness than about war, and the peekaboos of this isn't really me but of course it truly is serve no true purpose. They make this an annoyingly arty book, hiding more than not behind Hemingwayesque time-signatures and puerile repetitions about war (and memory and everything else, for that matter) being hell and heaven both. A disappointment.
Pub Date: March 28, 1990
ISBN: 0618706410
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990
SEEN & HEARD
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
A newcomer to watch: fresh, funny, and tough.
Seven stories, including a couple of prizewinners, from an exuberantly talented young Thai-American writer.
In the poignant title story, a young man accompanies his mother to Kok Lukmak, the last in the chain of Andaman Islands—where the two can behave like “farangs,” or foreigners, for once. It’s his last summer before college, her last before losing her eyesight. As he adjusts to his unsentimental mother’s acceptance of her fate, they make tentative steps toward the future. “Farangs,” included in Best New American Voices 2005 (p. 711), is about a flirtation between a Thai teenager who keeps a pet pig named Clint Eastwood and an American girl who wanders around in a bikini. His mother, who runs a motel after having been deserted by the boy’s American father, warns him about “bonking” one of the guests. “Draft Day” concerns a relieved but guilty young man whose father has bribed him out of the draft, and in “Don’t Let Me Die in This Place,” a bitter grandfather has moved from the States to Bangkok to live with his son, his Thai daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren. The grandfather’s grudging adjustment to the move and to his loss of autonomy (from a stroke) is accelerated by a visit to a carnival, where he urges the whole family into a game of bumper cars. The longest story, “Cockfighter,” is an astonishing coming-of-ager about feisty Ladda, 15, who watches as her father, once the best cockfighter in town, loses his status, money, and dignity to Little Jui, 16, a meth addict whose father is the local crime boss. Even Ladda is in danger, as Little Jui’s bodyguards try to abduct her. Her mother tells Ladda a family secret about her father’s failure of courage in fighting Big Jui to save his own sister’s honor. By the time Little Jui has had her father beaten and his ear cut off, Ladda has begun to realize how she must fend for herself.
A newcomer to watch: fresh, funny, and tough.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-8021-1788-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2004
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