February 9, 2010 Quick Reads

Quick Reads

by Christopher OlsonClay Hemmerich

Blue Banana

The Banana Story of Agony
Lesley Johnson
Conundrum Press
72 pp
$15

Lesley Johnson, the author of The Banana Story of Agony, is blue. Actually, make that violet, like Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory—after turning into a giant blueberry. Chalk it up to bad photography or a near-fatal overdose of colloidal silver, but I wouldn’t put it past the author of such an eclectic collection of stories to turn her skin blue for the purposes of provoking a double-take from her author portrait.

The Banana Story of Agony is a cross between a children’s picture book and a graphic novel. The stories are all remarkably forthright. The title story features a banana that waits in trembling fear to be eaten, while “Susan Had a Chicken on Her Butt” should win an award for truth in advertising. Susan did, as I discovered, have a chicken on her butt. I won’t ruin the ending to “There’s No One Home,” in which a purported Santa Claus asks to be let into a little boy’s house, because I’m still not sure it had an ending. The meaning of “Love,” the first of the stories, is equally intangible—and so, I fear, is the meaning of love.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of The Banana Story of Agony, but if its goal was clarity, colour me confused.

4/5
—Christopher Olson

Not-so-beautiful Children

The Beautiful Children
Michael Kenyon
Thistledown Press
191 pp
$18.95

I was lost and disorientated while reading Michael Kenyon’s haunting first novel, The Beautiful Children. Throughout the book, I simply did not know what was going on.
The book starts off with a man suffering from amnesia. He tries to remember his life by looking at pictures of his son and the flute he played professionally, but nothing ever reaches him. The only thing he can recall is the name “Saporro,” not knowing if it is his name or a place.

The story also follows the amnesiac’s young son, who becomes homeless in the absence of his father. He dubs himself Star and loses himself in the city streets with a group of not-so-beautiful children who have also been subjected to a world of sex, drugs and violence.
The images Kenyon draws up often leave one wondering why they are there at all, and trying to decipher if they are ingenious or simply unpolished.

The Beautiful Children is as confusing as an amnesiac’s world would be, but there is no humour inside its bleak pages. If you enjoy dark, poetic prose, pick up this book. But if you enjoy the little pleasures in life, like laughing and smiling, stay away!

2/5
—Clay Hemmerich