freudy cat

Ha. Stole the title from K's email. He proclaimed it dreadful (the title, not the email). I, on the other hand, proclaim it awesome.

I wrote a review of this book. I came across the book while on a work-related mission in a Barnes and Noble. Reading the back of the book I heard the voice of the publishing world or maybe the devil, murmuring, No one buys short story collections. Oh yeah? Well I will, I thought, and I did buy it, mostly out of spite. Ha! Take that! Cash money!

But once I dug into Noria Jablonski's weird tales of heartbreak and freakdom, I recognized something interesting -- a recurring theme of the strangeness of human bodies, the sense of the uncanny (that's where Freud comes in), a recurrance of Siamese Twins. Her characters exist in this defamiliarized, messy world, with hints of violence and strangeness at every turn : "At a double sink like any kitchen sink, goopy babies are rinsed like dishes." "These blue jays keep hurling themselves at the window...so hard sometimes they leave bloody smears." And I thought, other people should read this book, too, and maybe if I write a review a few more people will at least accidentally retain her name. It's a book that should be read -- one that I'm surprised isn't being read and talked about more.