Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Full of sharp left turns and unexpected narrative choices, Clarke's (The Happiest People in the World, 2014) bleak yet hilarious collection constantly mixes the seemingly mundane with the profound. The opening title story sets the tone, as the narrator's concerns over pricey haircuts arise due to events caused by racial inequities in the criminal-justice system, leading to a blend of the innocuous and the serious creating a charming and confounding story that is unexpectedly poignant. Clarke pulls this off again in Our Pointy Boots, as the love a group of childhood friends have for their boots is contrasted with their later service in Iraq. As well as such juxtapositions, Clarke also plays with styles, such as the long, run-on sentences that form The Grand Canyon and when he switches the tone and setting to Florence for the wonderful closing story, The Pity Palace. Filled with exceptionally imagined minor characters the couple who visit The Pity Palace are particularly memorable these stories often echo the absurdities of Donald Barthelme, Nikolai Gogol, Joshua Ferris, and David Foster Wallace. In trying to illuminate how we discuss race, war, and family dynamics, Clarke shows he is constantly willing to push boundaries. The resulting tales are hilarious, haunting, and original.--Moran, Alexander Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In his third short story collection, Clarke (An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England) offers 11 satirical, sometimes surreal, tales that investigate broken individuals and flawed societal expectations. In the title story, emotionally fragile middle-class white men suffering from bad haircuts debate whether to patronize a racist but affordable barber. In "The Misunderstandings," a family's dysfunctions inadvertently challenge the local restaurant community and its patrons to rethink their assumptions and beliefs. "The Grand Canyon" airs a woman's breathless grievances against her new husband after they honeymoon in a tent near the famous national park. In "What is the Cure for Meanness?," a teenage son attempts to differentiate himself from his abusive father by giving his mother a series of gifts that only make things worse. The narrator of "Good Night" struggles to accept affection without caustic commentary. In "Our Pointy Boots," soldiers on leave search for relief from the horrors of war in a distant, fond memory they all share. Clarke's disquieting, droll work reflects humanity like a dark fun house mirror. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
This collection of short fiction features writing as straightforward as the perspective is askew.Readers might find themselves asking a couple of questions when reading Clarke's (The Happiest People in the World, 2015, etc.) latest story collection. The first is What is this story about? The second, Why would anyone write a story about this? These are mostly first-person narratives featuring hopelessly deluded protagonists who live in a world where the usual principles of human behavior don't seem to apply. The title story, which opens the collection, proceeds from this premise: "On Monday, an unarmed black teenage boy was shot in the back and killed by a white city policeman. On Tuesday, there was a race riot." A simple statement of cause and effect, until the mayor determines that the explanation is too easy, that the riot had in fact been sparked by a white barber who offered cut-rate haircuts and allegedly made a racist remark while giving one. The explanation satisfies the narrator and his white cohort but leaves them in a quandary. Should they go protest at the barber shop? Or should they get one of those discount haircuts that are such a better value than their expensive ones? They expect black protestors when they arrive at the barber shop, but all they see is a long line of white customers wanting their own bargain haircuts. A parable? Then there's "Concerning Lizzie Borden, Her Axe, My Wife," in which a mystified husband finds himself invited without explanation to join his wifewho had recently kicked him out of the houseat a BB in the former home of the notorious ax murderer, where he joins other equally confused guests. For pure literary pleasure, the concluding "The Pity Palace" shows a masterful command of tone on a number of different levels. Though written in the third person, it focuses on an Italian man, Antonio Vieri, despondent because his "wife had left him for the famous American author who wrote those best-selling novels about Italian gangsters in New York." In other words, Mario Puzo, whose name Vieri can't bear to hear spoken and who happens to be dead. And was dead at the time Vieri suggested to his wife that if she liked those novels so much, like the one whose translated title was The Patriarch of the Gangster, she could just leave him for the author. If he ever actually did that. If he ever actually had a wife. If any of this signifies anything more than words on a page in a book. Vieri's dialogue seems to have been inspired by idiomatic English translated into the Italian vernacular and then back into English, a virtuosic feat.Where Clarke's novels veer toward social satire, often hilariously so, this uneven collection ranges from the inscrutable to the astounding. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
