It’s funny that just
recently I read what may be the best novel McSweeny’s has published, that a
little later I would read what might be their worst one. John Sayles A Moment
in the Sun was an odd choice to be published by a company that specializes in
off-kilter works, but it is easily a high point for them that represents a
change in direction to present books that have the potential for a wider
audience by authors who do not have as big of a name. But this book, The
Convalescent by Jessica Anthony, is truly a low point for the company. It is
not offensive bad, like Noughties (nothing may top that), but it is about as
far from good as you can get without ending up in the badlands. If you could
put all your clichéd notions of what a company like McSweeny’s is like at its
most arrogant, exclusive and pompous, this is the book that would be it’s
cornerstone. It really tells two different stories that are thrown together so
haphazardly that they seem stuck together by Elmer’s Glue. One story is told
from the perspective of Rovar Pfliegman, a short, ugly Hungarian man who owns a butcher shop
that he runs out of an old bus. He suffers from many heath issues that just
keep getting worse as time goes on, and a crippling attraction to his doctors,
knowing he is too repulsive to win their hearts. The other story concerns a
lost Hungarian tribe where Rovar gets his namesake, famous equally for leg
fighting and a mystical kinship with losing. He is the last of this tribe, and
seems to be holding on to that tradition, whether he likes it or not. None of
this works, as a whole or separately. Even when his ailments require him to be
wrapped up like a mummy or lose his skin, this book rings false. Luckily this
book is a few years old, and McSweeny’s seems to be publishing better books
than this nowadays.
Rating:
2/5
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