Review: The Peculiar State by Patricio Pron

The Peculiar State 

Patricio Pron  

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

The author, Patricio Pron--an Argentinian writer, transplanted to Spain--was unfamiliar to me. The series--A Vintage Short--instead, appealed: the promise of a classic short story. I reviewed one earlier, which disappointed. This one did not.

Towards the end, the unnamed protagonist is a German author, who writes a to-do list:

"1. Give up writing. Think about the death of the novel and the peculiar state of the short story.... 

"3. Go days without changing your shirt. 

"4. Say 'You wouldn't understand' when she asks you why you don't write anymore."

 This excerpt gives a sense of the story in theme, humor, chaos, and story (although #7 is the best and #10 contradicts previous assertions). The humor recalls Joseph Heller's Catch-22.

The German and his wife live in Altoona. He makes his living as a creative consultant, answering cryptic phone calls about chocolate. The results of his opinions dismay him when he spies them on billboards.

As you read, you learn "the peculiar state of the short story" is really the peculiar state of society--a mirror of the strange world the protagonist lives in but doesn't comprehend. It's the kind of taster that makes you salivate for more peculiar stories and their peculiar societies.

"Paranoid Fantasy #1" by Lawrence Watt-Evans

First appeared in The American Atheist.  Reprinted by Isaac Asimov, Terry Carr, and Martin H. Greenberg.

For a one-page story, this has remarkable sophistication--not only that, it was Lawrence Watt-Evans's first story.  I don't know if he had Joseph Heller's quote from Catch-22 in mind when Watt-Evans scribbled this down, but it smells like it:

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”

Nathan has a number of superstitious habits:  wearing crosses, spreading garlic, avoiding sidewalk cracks.  His friend Eddie harasses him for his superstitions and then... *spoiler* gets carried off by monsters.

What makes this sophisticated is the question:  What is the paranoid fantasy?  The monsters that come out at night?  The whole thing (constructed by protagonist)?  Or the reality of those that think that paranoid fantasies cannot be real?  It could as equally apply for or against any religious or anti-religious affiliation.

If the above description intrigues you, it's worth checking out.  It opens Watt-Evans' collection, Crosstime Traffic, so you can read it as a sample.