I always go out of my way to read up on whatever is being published by the FSG Originals imprint. Whether it be good, like any of the books Frank Bill puts out or their startling nonfictions books like A Burglar’s Guide to the City or People Who Eat Darkness, to middling like Lindsay Hunter’s Don’t Kiss Me to Laura Van Den Berg’s The Isle of Youth, to disappointing like Dennis Mahoney’s Fellow Mortals or Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy. After a few hours thought, Laura Adamczyk debut short story collection falls into the latter category, with some really good short selections, but also some that were not that good at all. But like everything put out by this imprint it is interesting, unique and makes me question my preconceived notions on what novel, short story collection or a book of essays should be. These stories range from the creepy to the confusing, from frightening to frustrating, focusing on the horrors of adulthood, especially for those still seemingly stuck in the purgatory between childhood and the adult world. As always, I’ll pick out a few of my favorites. The first story, “Wanted”, only a few short pages, sees a disaffected adult woman finding a common bond with a young boy she meets in a public playground. There are wanted signs posted up, but the ending is not what you think, as is the case with many of these stories, a motif that helps some and hurts others. It helps the story “Danny Girl”, my personal favorite, about one woman finding her identity in decidedly amoral actions, but hurts a story like “Gun Control”, a dud of a selection that struggles for a purpose, fails and is totally tedious. A selection that rose above it’s strange, one-note premise is “Wine is Mostly Water” where a shiftless man takes a gig as the centerpiece of a weird art project that involves being hung from the ceiling. I’m not sure of it’s all supposed to mean, but it has hypnotic creeping dread that I won’t soon forget, which is how I would describe the collection as a whole.
Rating: 4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment