Arkansas

by John Brandon

I really enjoyed John Brandon's Citrus County when I read it a couple of years back, so I thought I should check out his first novel, Arkansas.

This novel is a story about three men - Kyle, Swin, and Frog.  Frog is a drug lord who has created a network in which to hide himself, dispatching packages with instructions for the various people in his network to follow.  His story, from his earliest days to a time commensurate with the action of the novel, is interspersed throughout the book, and strangely told in second person.

Kyle is a recluse, with a good head for crime, if nothing else.  Swin is a more interesting character, a health freak whose very generous assessment of his own intelligence is also the reason why he's had trouble finding success in the world.

These two guys find their way into Frog's operation, and are eventually assigned to work as Park Rangers in a National Park overseen by a man named Bright, who is one of Frog's most valued men.  After Bright is killed in a strange incident, Swin and Kyle try to go it alone, maintaining the park and their side business much as was done under Bright, but it's not possible for them to manage this for long.

I don't read a lot of crime novels, and so I appreciated how Brandon eschewed many of the usual tropes of that genre, instead just telling a good story about some people in some strange and compromising situations.  His prose goes down easy, and this is an enjoyable read.

McSweeney's 41

Edited by Dave Eggers

It would seem I don't get tired of the type of contemporary fiction and reportage on offer in any given issue of the McSweeney's Quarterly Concern.

Issue 41 starts off strong, with a story by Thomas McGuane about a couple of old friends who have gone off on a fishing trip together.  They have kind of come to hate one another, and their crotchety old guide is a real handful - this is a nice exploration of character in a difficult terrain.

Jess Walter has perhaps the best story in this collection with 'The Wolf and the Wild', a story about a white collar convict who ends up volunteering as part of a program that has cons working in schools with children (because that sounds like such a good idea).  It's sensitive and remarkably well-written.

Deb Olin Unferth tosses some life-long tourists into a difficult situation in 'Stay Where You Are', which showcases how Western arrogance can play out, even among people who have spent decades travelling the globe.

Henry Bean's story 'The Virago' is a fascinating character piece about a Hollywood agent who will do just about anything to keep ahold of her tenuous grasp on her career, clients, and empty attempts at happiness.  It's both scary and sad, and very powerful.

In 'Robot Sex', Ryan Boudinot portrays a future where humans and robots work side-by-side, but where relations between robots are illegal.  It's an unlikely future, but the story is fun.

There is an excerpt from John Brandon's new novel, A Million Heavens, which really makes me want to read this book.

This issue ends with a collection of four pieces of Australian Aboriginal short fiction, and all are excellent.  They tend to explore inter-racial relationships a fair deal.  Tony Birch's 'The Promise' is narrated by an alcoholic who wants to get his wife and kids back, but wants his next drink more.  In 'S&J', by Ellen Van Neerven-Currie, a pair of girlfriends pick up a German hitchhiker who has never met Aborigines before, and is intent on exploring quite a bit of at least one of them.  Tara June Winch wrote 'It's Too Difficult to Explain,' a story about a young Aboriginal man who excelled in sprinting, but found failure in all other things, and eventually that too, as he tried to negotiate a relationship with a white girl from an educated background.  Finally, there is 'Tonsils', a wonderful story by Melissa Lucashenko, narrated by a woman who has taken in her daughter's friend, because the girl's mother is a drunk.  This story has one of the best endings I've read in a while.

In terms of non-fiction, there are two pieces of note.  The first is 'A Land Rush in Tehran', wherein Viveca Mellegard explores her memories and the modern reality of a formerly quiet, empty section of Tehran which is now filled with skyscrapers.

J. Malcolm Garcia, my favourite of McSweeney's regular non-fiction contributors, has written 'What Happens After Sixteen Years in Prison?', which follows two sisters who spent that long imprisoned for a robbery which they probably never committed, and which caused no harm if it did happen.  Garcia doesn't come out and indict the American justice system; he lets the story do it for him.

Each story in this book is illustrated quite beautifully at the beginning, and as with most issues of McSweeney's, this book is a pleasure to hold and open.

Citrus County

by John Brandon

It's been a while since I've read a novel that is so straight-forward and entertaining, while also beguilingly disturbing and haunting.  Citrus County is a portrait of a forgotten region of Florida.  Too swampy to be infested with tourists, and too out of the usual hurricane path to ever get on the news, this is a dilapidated, rather hopeless region in a state that has become the poster child for the recession.

The book focuses on three people, and how their lives intertwine through the actions of one of them.  Toby is an orphan and a troublemaker in school.  He excels at getting detention, and feels very disconnected from the world around him (which consists of school and a crumbling house in the woods, where he lives with his suicidal uncle).  Shelby is a girl in Toby's class.  She's new to the County, and Toby doesn't know what to do about the fact that she's interested in him.  Their teacher is Mr. Hibma, a man who was once very much in love with his own genius, but has now slowly had to come to grips with the fact that he's a sub-par middle school teacher in the middle of nowhere.

One day, Toby decides to kidnap Shelby's little sister Kaley.  He abducts her from her own bed, and hides her in an abandoned bunker he's discovered in the woods.  This is not exactly an act of malice or deviance - he's jealous that Shelby has someone in her life that she can be close to.  Strangely, this secret act draws Shelby closer to him, but also causes Toby to begin to have some feelings for other people.

The book is pretty disturbing, but achingly funny.  I love the scenes with Mr. Hibma, who, when forced to coach girls' basketball, employs cosmetics and personal grooming as an offensive strategy.  He fantasizes about killing one of his colleagues, a complicated plot that involves first befriending her to allay any eventual suspicions.

I found that I began to really like these characters, and when things start to come together at the end of the book, I found myself rooting for all of them.  The people that fill this book are quite complex, and Brandon's casual, easy prose make the book a pleasure to read.  Recommended.

McSweeney's 36

Edited by Dave Eggers

You have to hand it to McSweeney's and their amazing ability to design unique objects that both titillate and perhaps repulse people.  McSweeney's 36 came in the form of a box, decorated to look like a man's head, and full of small books, pamphlets, postcards, and a long roll of uncut fortune cookie fortunes.

As with any good issue of McSweeneys', there is a lot of to love in this box.  Michael Chabon's Fountain City and Wajahat Ali's marvelous play The Domestic Crusaders have already been discussed on this blog, but there's plenty more to talk about in this box.

The pamphlets, postcards, and fortunes are pleasing filler, but the core of the box lies in the different books, some of which I found more enjoyable than others.

The 'Bicycle Built For Two' screenplay by Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington was pretty nonsensical, which would have been fine had I found it funnier than it was (it's supposed to be a film for Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey about baseball players who ride a tandem bicycle).  Likewise, I found Jack Pendarvis's 'Jungle Geronimo in Gay Paree', a parody of condensed novels which takes on the jungle pulp genre to be kind of silly and unnecessary. 

Where this issue really started to work for me was in the short story book, which included pieces that were quite good.  Ismet Prcic's 'At The National Theatre' was a little obscure, but I loved John Brandon's story 'The Occurrences', which is told by a young boy who lives in a Florida town that appears to be plagued by alien abductions (they often take the whole roof of the house as they suck people up).  It was funny and bizarre, and definitely makes me interested in his novels.  In the same book are the stories 'Dog Bites' by Ricardo Nulla, an interesting look at a boy who has a 'syndrome', and Colm Toibin's 'The Street', a tale of love between illegal Pakistani migrant workers in Barcelona.  Increasingly, one of my favourite things to read in an issue of McSweeney's is the letters section, and this one did not disappoint.

Included in the box is a preview of the recently released newest volume in the Voice of Witness series, which deals with people who have acted in resistance to the Burmese junta.  The story here, told by Ma Su Mon is powerful and frank.

The last item that really caught my attention was the first chapter in Adam Levine's massive novel 'The Instructions'.  It's told by a disturbed boy in a special education program helpfully called 'The Cage', and it is quite funny and perceptive.

In all, another excellent McSweeney's.