Let Them Eat Rubbish

Fiction. Short Stories. Author of five previous humorous novels, in his latest, LET THEM EAT RUBBISH, Kevin Bartelme turns to the form of the classic short story. The contrast between his wildly imaginative images, and the familiar structures of the literary short story--of De Maupassant, O. Henry, O'Hara--creates a crackling tension that ripples through the seventeen stories. The clarity of his writing, and its strong narrative flow, lets the reader experience his creativity in a way that wouldn't be possible if his prose was as offbeat and unexpected as his imagination. His style, too, follows the classic structures and punctuation of good English so you always know exactly what he is saying--explicitly, at least. Most of the stories take place in pre-pandemic, New York City--on its streets and in its bars, offices, apartments and shops. Love, wealth, ambition, sex, drinking, old age and immortality are themes that writers have explored for four thousand years, and Bartelme joins them in his vivid, 21st-century way.

Rather than Odysseus struggling to free himself from the goddess Calypso, John and Elsa gives us a strangely convincing romance between a devil and an angel in a Manhattan club who have a hard time getting together, but find it even more difficult to break up. In Valley of the Dolts, the high-tech screen called Solipsist, which lets a Las Vegas hooker grow a new body part, is oddly reminiscent of the reflection that dazzled Narcissus. And in Portrait of the Artist--and several other stories--the reader embarks on the same quest for immortality that captivated Gilgamesh. In The Conscience of a Conservative he begins: I have no conscience and I hope I never will. In my opinion, conscience is for rubes and turkeys who don't understand the realities of the world we live in. They don't understand the constant threat we are under...

With vivid language and surprisingly twisty plots, Bartelme brings his characters and their emotions to life even as the title of this book, LET THEM EAT RUBBISH, loudly advertises one of his main concerns: there (TM)s a lot he doesn't like about the modern, consumerist, high-tech world. In the humorous, often memorable struggles of his characters, he shows us exactly why.