Review: "The Free" by Willy Vlautin

As I’ve grown older, I found that a lot of the novels, mainly the famous ones, of American author John Steinbeck have not aged very well. They are good stories, and on the surface they are simple tales of good and evil and trying, and most of the time, failing to make a name for yourself. While those ideas are always going to be timeless, it is the political aspect of those books that I feel has lost some of its luster, mainly his tendency to over-romanticize the idea of the workingman and his fight against a faceless society that is hell bent on destroying them. The idea of the workingman has changed quite a bit since the great depression to include office workers and people in the retail industry, and not rugged men working in fields struggling to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. While that person still exists, it is lot less common now, with middle class working stiffs a bit better off, with that kind of desperation replaced with the concept of “making ends meet”. But for that person Steinbeck loved, we have an author like Willy Vlautin, whose novel, The Free, is a little more intimate than something like The Grapes of Wrath, and feels more like an elongated version of a Raymond Carver story. And for all it’s focus on an idealized version of the working outdated, I still think this novel is a great and memorable read. The novel focuses on three different characters, each trying to make a life out of petty and pathetic circumstances while trying to do so with dignity. The story opens as Leroy, a young man who enlisted in the National Guard, thinking it was not going to require him to fight, is living in a Veteran’s home, severely wounded in Iraq, struggling to make any sense of the life he now leads. He once had a girlfriend who loved him and a bright future. Now he can’t remember things that happened a day ago. In a desperate move, he tries to kill himself, but he survives, and lives in a world in his head based around the Science fiction novels he reads. Freddie, the night watchman at the home, works two jobs, gets little sleep and is slowly losing everything that he has left, including his home. Pauline, a nurse at the hospital where Leroy is in a coma, is drifting through life with little to care about, when a young runaway sparks a need in her to do right. I like how Vlautin creates suspense without blood and guts, making what happens real without piling up the bodies, with the emotion found in certain harrowing scenes of sadness, such as Leroy’s mother reading to hid body, Freddie’s lazy and unprofessional boss, and one of the saddest sexual encounters I’ve read in fiction involving Pauline, a guy named Ford and a Red Roof Inn. Despite the book’s flaws, like the alternate reality Leroy creates taking away from the human drama in the real world, this book has a lot of heart and passion in its pages, and you should definitely check it out.

Rating: 5/5

Review: "The Bottoms" by Joe R. Lansdale

It is no surprise to the few people who read my reviews that Joe R. Lansdale is one of my favorite writers, and someone I champion every chance that I get. He is the most underrated writer working in America, in both genre and mainstream fiction, and wish he had more recognition than he had. Hopefully that will change with the adaption of his novel Cold in July coming out soon, which stars big names such as Michael C. Hall, Sam Shepard and Don Johnson. He is a storyteller in the classical since, with hi best work echoing writers as eclectic as renowned as Mark Twain and Flannery O’Conner to pulp authors like Jim Thompson and horror authors like Shirley Jackson. But while he has been compared to those authors in the past, there is something in the heart of Lansdale’s fiction that is all his own and cannot be compared to anything else. His use of language, ancient country slang and mixing of the gothic and grotesque with the humorous and screwball antics makes for a reading experience that is unlike other. And the novel of his that I just recently finished, The Bottoms, is the perfect example of Lansdale’s unique talents. It tells the bloody, yet deeply moral tale that takes place in small Texas town in the years of the Great Depression. At the start of the novel we meet young Harry and his sister, Tom, as they are told, by their father Jacob, to go out into the woods to put down their dog Toby, who has had his back broken. While out there, lost because they were surprised Toby could still track squirrels with a broken back and being moved in a wheelbarrow, they discover the horribly mutilated body of a young black women. They immediately think that it is the work of an old legend in the area known as “the Goat Man”, who is said to live near the swinging bridge that crosses a nearby river. They think they see the creature out there, but quickly go back to their house and tell their father. Jacob, who is also the town’s constable, begins to investigate the crime quite voraciously, due to the fact that, since the person killed was black, no one in town will care if it is solved. From there, it becomes quite ride that Lansdale is known for. It plays out a lot like To Kill a Mockingbird, but this is much bloodier and better story that I wish I could have read in middle school. There is a brutal lynching that is among the most painful things Lansdale has written, which leads to Jacob’s backstory as to why he is so adamant about investigating the murder that is even sadder, and it all culminates in a twist ending that I really didn’t see coming that I’m sure will surprise every reader of this book. It is a brilliant use of misdirect on Lansdale’s part. And the epilogue is both bitter and hopeful, which is hard to believe given its circumstances. Do yourself a favor this summer, and pick up this or any other of Lansdale’s books (especially find a copy of “Night They Missed the Horror Show”, my favorite short story of all time). He deserves more serious attention.

Rating: 5/5

Review: "Voodoo Heart" by Scott Snyder

It has been quite awhile since a book really floored me. Some of it has to do with the reading decisions I have been making, but most of it has to do with a massive life-changing event that I am going through right now involving moving across the country. I have been coasting for a while, at least with my focus on the book I have been reading. And it was nice to finally read a book that I feel is not only great, but more than great, something that is a masterpiece of an art form that is populated by people more interested in their own talent than the art of narrative. And I can safely say that Voodoo Heart by Scott Snyder is masterpiece of the short story format. The amount of care that is put into every single story that is in this collection not only astounds me and makes me want to do better things in my personal creative journey, but makes me a bit emotional as well. There is not a hint of irony, pessimism or cynicism in any one of these 7 long stories, although the endings may make you think differently. They are written with the passion and intrigue you can find in the short stories of the masters like Flannery O’Conner and Shirley Jackson as well as contemporaries like Joe R. Lansdale and Wells Tower. They can scare you, manipulate you (in a good way), move you and ultimately break your heart. Since every story in this collection is great, I will discuss them all here in this review. The first story in the collection, “Blue Yodel” concerns a young man chasing the love of his life, who is holed up in a sky city that of floating around the country during the early 20^th century. It has a theme that runs through most of the stories, which is the idea of romantic longing and the things we do to protect it. It is a very touching story, with an “uplifting” ending. “Happy Fish, Plus Coin” has another young man, running from his family, who finds himself in Florida working at a large bouncing house and befriending a messianic burn victim. It’s a bizarre fun ride you won’t forget. “About Face”, about a man who begins working for a military school after his life falls apart, touches on themes of romantic sacrifice, where you must let the person you love love someone else if you really care about them, even if the person is awful. The title story has a couple move into a large mansion near a women’s minimum-security prison, where the man begins to obsess over the compound as he moves toward a painful prophecy from his past he’s been trying to avoid; probably the darkest story here. The next story, “Wreck”, is probably the saddest, where a huge celebrity recovering from plastic surgery begins a romance with a meek loner out in the woods. The ending is inevitable, but it still quite melancholic. “Dumpster Tuesday” is the weirdest, where a once successful Wall Street trader loses his wife to a country singing oddity, which leads him in a direction that threatens to destroy his life; this one has to be read to be believed. The final story, “The Star Attraction of 1919” has a new pilot teaming up with a runaway bride as the travel the country giving rides in small towns. This one is really touching, despite the surprise downer at the end. The perfect collection of stories for anyone scorned by love that you feel you deserved, or anyone wanting a truly great short story collection, I cannot recommend this enough.

Rating: 5/5

Review: "War By Candlelight" by Daniel Alarcon

It seems rather appropriate that the way I feel about one 20 Under 40 author’s book of short stories, in this case my recent review of Chris Adrian’s A Better Angel, is the same way that I feel about another 20 Under 40’s book of short stories, with Daniel Alarcon’s debut book, War By Candlelight being his best all around book. In both collections, there are a few missteps that cannot be ignored, and each are far from perfect, but each brought an overall enjoyment over the course of a few days. Each collection is far better than the novels that the authors have produced, with the stories in Alarcon’s book showing a slight violent edge that were only hinted at in Lost City Radio, and completely absent in At Night We Walk in Circles. Hew writes about his war town homeland with vim and vigor, and even when the stories are not perfect, they can’t help but feel alive with fire and passion. Some highlights from this collection include the opening story “Flood”, where a flood in a rural village in Lima, Peru forces a group of kids into a form of gang warfare that lands them in prison for a few dangerous and life altering days. The title story, which could have been trimmed by at least 10 or so pages, farms similar territory in the adult world using altering chapters to represent different points in the life of the narrator. And despite it’s unoriginality, “Third Avenue Suicide”, about a mixed race couple whose attraction dwindles as illness and secrecy rule their lives, remains fresh and packs a punch. My favorite story in this collection is “Lima, Peru, July 28, 1979”, where a night of revolutionary action turns ugly and immoral. It is swift violent, and like Chris Adrian’s “Stab”, it’s Alarcon’s best work. Check this collection out if you can, it made me rethink Alarcon’s place in modern literature.

Rating: 4/5

Review: "Hot Pink" by Adam Levin

Despite the cool cover, Adam Levin’s Hot Pink is the worst short story collection I have read since Justin Taylor’s Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever. I tried reading Levin’s massive 1000 page novel The Instructions last year, and if these stories are anything like that huge book, I am glad I stopped when I did. There isn’t a note in any of these stories that ring true or genuine or written with any kind of originality. While I discussed postmodernism a few reviews back, I would like to apologize to Padgett Powell; these stories are the kind of postmodern exercises I feel are written with zero signs of effort in both the writing off, and the effect it will have on the reader. The writer seems too preoccupied with his sense of self to worry about whether or not what he is writing is boring the reader to tears. Despite my vitriol, I didn’t hate all of this collection. While I did not like most of it, it did have it’s bright spots, like the story “Jane Tell”, about a doomed romance set within the community of Narcotics Anonymous. There are moments in this story that are really emotionally resonant. And the story “Scientific American”, about a family’s house oozing a weird kind of gel out of its walls is quite funny as well. But even these stories have problems, with each respectively trying to resurrect the spirit of Infinite Jest and House of Leaves, which really needs to stop, especially for Infinite Jest. It is sad and insulting when it occurs. It is books like this that really leave a bad taste in my mouth about what can pass for literature sometimes. For every great author bringing to the public his or her unique vision to an eager public, there is a book like this turning literature into a silly game of one-upmanship in boredom.

Rating: 2/5