Stories from McSweeney's, Playboy, etc. In many the main character has failed, or their partner has left (with the children). There's often a search/quest of some sort.
- Anything helps - Bit has been chucked out of the hostel. He has an alert sense of humour. Back on the street he critiques others' signs and locations. He begs enough to buy a Harry Potter book. He misses Julie (who overdosed?). He walks to the house where son Nate (13) has been fostered for 3 years. Bit hasn't seen him for maybe 6 months. He's not supposed to go there on spec. He's gone there with the idea of talking to real people but realises when talking to the foster mother that he's constrained, like he is in group therapy meetings, to say the expected phrases. He briefly sees Nate, who returns the HP present (his religious foster parents object to it).
- We live in water - In a 1958 thread Oren, divorced, is going to plead forgiveness to the local heavy for screwing his wife. He leaves his son Michael outside. In a 1992 thread Michael, recently divorced, returns to find out what happened to his father. He tracks down Tim, who was his father's friend. Oren was probably bludgeoned to death but he told his Tim to say that he'd taken a boat to the far east, so that's what Tim says. A rather plain story.
- Thief - Wayne (3rd person PoV) wonders which of his children stole coins from the piggybank. He pretends to go to work and hides in the closet with a few beers. But when he hears a child steal he doesn't look to see which one it is. The final paragraph is "In the hallway, the thief burns with shame, the quarters two hot circles of mourning in my palm", a surprise change of PoV that doesn't work for me.
- Can a corn - 2 pages long. Tommy gives his widowered stepfather Ken a lift to dialysis, but Ken jumps out and goes fishing. "Ken reeled in a dull catfish, yellow-eyed and spiny. No fight in it". At the end we learn that Tommy returns Ken to prison at the end of the day.
- Virgo - A newspaper editor tries to mess up her ex's life by making her horiscope bad. He extends the idea to make comments about his workmates. He hangs around his ex's house. He's discovered. At the end he may kill his ex and her lover.
- Helpless little things - The narrator runs a scam, employing 2 young people to collect GreenPeace donations on the street. Julie gives her cut to GreenPeace. He's told that her stepfather abuses her. The narrator feels sorry for her, gets her to point out her stepfather's house. While he's inside, roughing the guy up, she steals his car and drugs. She'd chosen the house at random.
- Please - 2 pages. Tommy sees his kid for the first time in weeks. He realises that the kids being involved with illegal activity by his mother and her partner. He tells the mother to desist. He wonders why he says "please".
- Don't eat cat - SF. Many people have hypo-ETE, caused by a club drug. It makes people stupid and short-tempered - Zombies, though they shouldn't be called that. They're employed by considerate companies. The narrator inadvertently causes one of them to freak out. We learn that his partner chose to become a zombie and left him. Two years later he employs a detective to help find her. The detective takes him to a zombie town and leaves him there. He's made to feel guilty about waiting so long.
- The new frontier - The main character, Nick (divorced, his ex-wife's about to remarry), goes to Vegas with Bobby Rausch to retrieve Lisa, Bobby's stepsister. Nick had his first sex with her when she was 14. She had an abortion some months after. They trawl the strip clubs for a fortnight. Nick finds her. She's going ok as a realtor. Pregnant. She doesn't know who the father was back then. She says that when she was 12 Bobby obsessively had sex with her. My favourite story.
- The brakes - The divorced main character, Tommy, drives with his little son from his step-father's very poorly attended funeral. He returns with his son to his work in a garage where colleagues are exploiting a senile old widow who comes in every few weeks to have brakes and tires checked. Tommy threatens to call the police if the woman's exploited again, then says to his son "You know it don't matter who your mom marries, right? I ain't going nowhere."
- The wolf and the wild -21 numbered sections. Wade, imprisoned for embezzlement, is released to do community service - 1-to-1 teaching in schools. He's good at it. He's worth $30 million, even after the forthcoming divorce. He uses some of his money to help a friendly barmaid and a schoolboy. Rather weak.
- Wheelbarrow kings - Mitch tells the narrator (who repeatedly tells us that he's hungry, who's repeated told that he smells) that there's a big TV they can pick up and sell. They get to the donor's house and see his new screen - "The picture is too sharp though. It's like sharper than your eyes. That would freak me out. On Call of Duty I see shit I never knew was there. Life ain't that real". They nick a wheelbarrow to perch the old TV precariously on. It takes an hour to go 6 blocks to the pawn shop. The shop owner rejects the TV but gives then $15 for the wheelbarrow. They feast on the money and see the funny side of the day - "I guess remembering is better than living". I like it.
- Statistical abstract for my hometown of Spokane, Washington - 50 numbered sections. Facts and fiction (autobio?) mixed. "In 2000 and 2001, the years I most deperately wanted to move out of Spokane, 2,632 illegal aliens were deported by the Spokane office of the U.S. Border Patrol. They were throwing people out of Spokane and I still couldn't leave." Item 47 repeats an idea from "The wolf and the wild"
Other reviews
- Meghan Farnsworth
- Hannah Rosefield (deals unsparingly and sympathetically with men – and it is all men – struggling with bad choices and failed ambition.)
- goodreads
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