"Then We Saw the
Flames" by Daniel Hoyt (University of Massachusetts Press, ISBN
9781558496996, $19.95)
This colorful short story collection is the perfect slim volume to enjoy on
a cool summer evening on the front porch with a can of PBR. Lots of the
stories deal with the harsh grotesqueness of human life. Characters observe
disturbing grossness in the other, and sometimes admit discovering the same
in themselves.
The titular line comes from the story "The Chez Du Pancakes," about a
Taiwanese man who burns down his own business after realizing he has become
part of the same glutinous American culture he detests in his backwards-ball
cap clad belching patrons. In another story Amar reacts to the punks and
skinheads constantly defacing his kabob shop. Maria imagines her tapeworm
eating up all her sins. Darren is disgusted with his whore of a mother, and
Ronnie scrapes plaque off the teeth of her lover. One story follows a
college student's obsession with the notoriously un-bathed homeless man
called "The Dirty Boy." The descriptions of filth in this collection are
fantastic.
Some stories put on display a surrounding bleakness. "Black Box" is the
narrative of a terrorist-cell leader during a hijacking plot gone awry.
Starving foster kids steal hamburger buns from the garbage of a family on
the Atkins diet. This collection is biting and caustic, and mostly dark but
in a light sort of way. One title is "Five Stories About Throwing Things at
Famous People." It's great.
Review by
Rebekah Rine,
July 30, 2009
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