Chang Rae Lee has always been one of my favorite writers, especially A GESTURE LIFE and NATIVE SPEAKER. This is a piece from his forthcoming novel. It takes place almost exclusively in a school yard atmosphere. Rather like LORD OF THE FLIES. Our hero is Korean and he gets into a ongoing fight with a Jewish boy and some sorry names get thrown around. I don't know why it works so well because it is a familiar theme. But Lee is a terrific writer who makes it come alive. I remember fights like this so well from my schoolyard days.
3 comments:
I'm reading Tom Perrotta's second short story collection, NINE INCHES, and though some of the stories are good, overall it can't hold a candle to his BAD HAIRCUT, written 20 years earlier, at least in my opinion.
Also reading Jordan Harper's dark collection, LOVE AND OTHER WOUNDS, while waiting for his new book to come in at the library. Pretty dark.
I've not read Chang Rae Lee's work but I'll look for it. Right now, I'm avoid "dark" short stories. Listening to Pete Hegseth is dark enough for me...
Likewise, but more with those a/v items as HALF-MAN and particularly IF I HAD LEGS I WOULD KICK YOU that seem to be attempting to absurdify (and in pedestrian ways) societal cruelty to young misfits and those around them. "We all suffered this, so it can be funny." Actually, I suspect the artists involved did not, at least to the degree they claim, or perhaps they would have more empathic understanding of the pain involved.
Hegseth, as SNL is getting mostly right, is absurd enough to be insanely funny (with equal stress on both words), while also pathetically grim in his arrested development, but no less depressing nor dangerous for that.
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