reading notes

by Alan Deniro
ISBN: 9781931520171

The rules in Deniro’s stories aren’t the everyday real world rules, because his stories are disconcertingly, wonderfully not set in the everyday real world.

I’m always impressed when that is done easily. Meaning, it seems easy, because I buy the premise, believe in the world of the story, believe it absolutely. I love it when I don’t question the odd things that can’t possibly be true because the logic of story makes them true. Willing suspension of disbelief is the technical term for this but that is just a clinical way (like using idiopathic instead of “I have no fucking idea”) to say when it really works, what is happening is magic.

In my opinion, there is magic in this book. Most obviously in two stories: “If I Leap” and the title story. I could say “If I Leap” is a twist on the the Chicken Little story, or about not being able to stand living with your parents, or figuring out the future, or transformation — and each statement would be true. The title story has footnotes, pollution, songwriting, and high school but isn’t really about these things. It, too, is about transformation and the need for connection that is difficult to make and nearly impossible to understand. They’re also funny and not self-important.

There are other strong stories in the book: “Salting the Map” with its impossible cartography, the obsessions in “The Keeper” as well as the stories with the child assassins, giants, and beating the crap out of people in the backwoods. It’s a weird collection, and I mean that as praise. If you have enjoyed other books put out by Small Beer Press, you’ll probably really enjoy this as well. Definitely recommended.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 12th, 2009 at 6:30 pm and is filed under fiction.