If there’s a theme connecting these twelve stories, it is that their
authors are slightly irreverent, and there’s a youthful sense they share,
even when they are dealing with issues of middle age and death. I’d also
say that they are lightweight, more likely to bring a wry smile to your
face than move you profoundly. But apart from that, they are a mixed bunch.
I have to confess that I didn’t finish Dave Eggers’ story told from the
perspective of a dog — Eggers’ talent for being too smart for his readers’
own good apparently persists beyond his vastly irritating best seller.
But I read all the way through all the others, even Roddy Doyle’s “The
Slave,” which starts out with a Beckett-like slowness and circularity.

A few of the stories read like morality tales. This includes Doyle’s
contribution, and those of Irving Welsh and Nick Hornby. Welsh offers up
a story of thuggery and homophobia, while Hornby delves into the world
of political modern art. Robert Harris’s skit about a Prime Minister’s
explanation to Parliament of his bizarre behavior over the previous few
days is funny enough, and Giles Smith’s narrative of a woman who cooks
the last meals for people about to be executed is darkly humorous. Melissa
Bank explores some of the anxieties of a Manhattan woman dating a man ten
years her junior, as they go to a party in Brooklyn, while Colin Firth
enters into the world of a boy with a dysfunctional family whose story-telling
grandmother mother is dying.

My favorite two stories both feature young teenage boys as their subjects.
Zadie Smith’s narrator is a fourteen-year-old boy into bodybuilding. It
is not the story so much as her use of language that makes her piece interesting;
she brings an appealing tightness to her prose. Patrick Marber strikes
home with a punk-rock story of another fourteen-year-old boy, this time
losing his virginity. Its combination of 45 rpm singles’ sleeves and teenage
lust may not appeal to everyone, but for those of us who grew up enjoying
the shocked adult reactions to the Sex Pistols, it’s a sure winner.

© 2001 Christian Perring. First Serial Rights.

Christian Perring,
Ph.D., is Chair of the Philosophy Department at Dowling College,
Long Island. He is editor of Metapsychology Online Review.
His main research is on philosophical issues in psychiatry.
He is especially interested in exploring how philosophers can
play a greater role in public life. He is available to give talks
on many philosophical or controversial issues in mental health.

Categories: Fiction