71 stories (from Narrative, Zoetrope All-story, etc) spread over 240 pages, featuring young Roy in fifties Chicago. They're not time-ordered - on p.71 he's 19 and he's been in Europe for 2 years. In other stories he's not yet 10. It's difficult to know where to draw the line, but I think the book should have been far shorter.
Details about his parents appear at the start of several stories. His mother started college then went into modelling, meeting his father who was 20 years older than her. He tried to get her into films. For a while Roy and his mother lived in hotels in Cuba and Florida. His father runs a 24-hours liquor store, which gives Roy a chance to meet interesting people.
A typical template is that a stranger or relative monologs (or dialogs with Roy) then at the end there's a one-liner that adds significance and involves Roy. Here are some endings.
- "Of course, Roy," she said. "I wasn't talking about you." (p.46)
- "There's no such place." said his mother's husband. (p.58)
- but he never understood what she meant when she said she should have married a Jew (p.70)
Sometimes stories end by Roy implicitly asking people if his interpretation of recent events is correct. Sometimes he misunderstands -
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"Don't talk about your dad," she said. "Not right now." "Why, Mom? He's coming to Miami, isn't he?" "It hurts, Roy. I didn't think it would, but it does." "Don't worry, Mom, they're just jellyfish stings. You'll be okay in a few days." |
Roy is trying to work out right from wrong, appearances from truth. The trivial and significant intermix. A story with a death - especially a murder - tends to end with a trivial remark.
"The way of all flesh" might be my favourite. But not "Shrimpers" - one of several pieces recounting an event then seeming not to know how to finish, resorting to an unconvincing one-liner. "The Religious experience is better.
Other reviews
- Emily Harrison (there are a few pieces to be placed in the spotlight. They capture the mood of The Cuban Club in perhaps the best form – at once funny, at once poignant, at once violent, at once innocent, ever-changing as Roy ages back and forth throughout ... ‘The Boy Whose Mother May Have Married A Leopard’ ... The Religious Experience’ ... ‘Men in The Kitchen’ ... 'Sick')
- Pilar DiPietro
- Kate Burns (Roy’s dad is an immigrant mobster, his mother a former model nineteen years younger who likes the good life her husband’s success affords them. Their marriage doesn’t last, nor do her subsequent three. Roy longs to spend more time with his father, a man who doesn’t talk about his past but tries to set an honorable example for his son. By the time he’s twelve, Roy knows he must rely on himself.)
- goodreads
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