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Kevin Brockmeier & Nabokov
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Subject: NY Times Book Review ...
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2002 01:23:44 -0400
From: "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@hotmail.com>
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http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/14/books/review/14FREYLT.html
[The New York Times] April 14, 2002
'Things That Fall From the Sky': Lift Up Your Eyes
By HILLARY FREY
evin Brockmeier must enjoy making lists. His first collection of
stories is punctuated by them -- desperate lists of sums,
possessions, even canned goods. A list maker myself, I thought I'd
compile a short one here, a compendium of what falls from the sky in
Brockmeier's delightful, sad and often magical book: a lethal bucket,
rain, someone's mother, a gigantic black spot, a little girl, turning
leaves. Not every story in ''Things That Fall From the Sky'' is
concerned with the great above and what might descend from it. But those
that are rank among Brockmeier's best.
In ''The Ceiling,'' a dark mark in the sky expands to eclipse the moon,
the clouds, the sun -- threatening, as it lowers to an altitude ''no
higher than a coffee table,'' to destroy an entire town. In ''The
Passenger,'' a young man who lives on a jet that never lands tells of
his solitary, airborne existence. He had had his mother for company and
comfort. But when she died, she was thrown into the sky. ''She had asked
that it be so,'' he explains. ''When I die, she told me, let me go --
let me wing my way straight to the ground.'' In the less supernatural
''Apples,'' a boy's Bible teacher is struck and killed by a metal bucket
as it crashes through a schoolroom window during a violent rainstorm.
Though more earthbound, ''These Hands,'' which opens the collection, is
tied to Brockmeier's other stories by its preoccupation with loss.
Lewis, the narrator, vows that he hasn't ''ever, not once'' read
Nabokov. But ''These Hands'' is a creepily absurdist rewriting of
''Lolita.'' The 34-year-old storyteller-cum-baby sitter describes his
love for Caroline, his 18-month-old charge. She inspires him: ''Caroline
chews crayons, red like a fire truck, green like a river, silver like
the light from a passing airplane, and there's something in my love for
her that speaks this same urge,'' Lewis explains. ''I want to receive
the world inside me.''
From the first, we know that Lewis, as he recounts his 144 blissful days
with Caroline -- the eroticized bubble baths, the romantic trips to the
park, the intimate story hours -- is no longer employed as Caroline's
keeper; this only makes every detail of their short history inspire in
the reader a not altogether unpleasant sense of anticipation, waiting
for the worst. But as Brockmeier reveals the truth of what separated
Lewis and Caroline, he throws in a nice twist that feels like relief --
a twist that takes the story beyond quirkiness to real brilliance.
''These Hands'' sets a high bar for the other stories in ''Things That
Fall From the Sky'' -- one that those I have mentioned reach, though
others do not. ''The Jesus Stories,'' a mock-scholarly account of the
''N. people,'' who believe Jesus will come again once every possible
account of his works is told, falls flat. The excessively tidy title
story, which concerns a lonely librarian, feels like an exercise from a
fiction-writing workshop. ''A Day in the Life of Half of
Rumpelstiltskin'' -- a story about, well, half of Rumpelstiltskin -- is
an overly warped attempt to explore feelings of loss; as the fairy-tale
figure mourns his missing half, he becomes too unreal. Brockmeier is
better at exploring emotions through more recognizable characters.
Take ''The House at the End of the World,'' which closes the collection.
In this story, a woman of indeterminate age named Holly recalls her
young girlhood, when she lived in the far woods with her father and
believed civilization had fallen -- that these two were the only people
in the world. She is a hunter, a gatherer, a precocious and helpful
child; her life is full. So when Holly's mother shows up to take her
daughter back and introduce her to civilization, and Holly tightens her
grip on her father's arm, their quiet, illegal, natural existence seems
good, magical, preferable -- and the bond between father and daughter
unbreakable. The anticipation of loss here is more heartbreaking than
the real thing.
But back to that list. Here's another, this one of what you won't find
in ''Things That Fall From the Sky'': gimmicks, a thinly disguised
Brooklyn, drug use, fashion models, hipster parties, excessive
footnotes, ironic detachment. Brockmeier's small, carefully made worlds
are like Steven Millhauser's; they are definitely fantastic and,
miraculously, utterly human.
Hillary Frey is assistant literary editor of The Nation.
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