Popisho
by Leone Ross
[Book]
view/request
I highly recommend Popisho, by Leone Ross.
Popisho is a magical realist adventure set in a fictional island in the Caribbean, where everyone is born with a little magic of their very own. This was the least predictable novel I have ever read, full of mischievous surprises and rich details that act on all of the five senses. The story introduces dozens of characters, but focuses on a day in the life of Xavier Redchoose, who is the islands Macaenus–chosen by the gods to serve each person the perfect meal at the perfect time in their life. The characters struggle with fate, class conflict, grief, addiction, and lost love, but the story is suffused with hope and community. I love the way magic works in this world, and it left me feeling a lot more open to astonishment and joy in the world around me. Read it!
Reviewed by Abigail
Tagged: Fantasy, Fiction, Magical realism, Romance
First Person Singular
by Haruki Murakami
[Book]
view/request
This small collection of eight short stories by Haruki Murakami has everything I love about Murakami’s writing: the subtle oddness, the evocative descriptions of ordinary things, his expansive awareness of culture and great enthusiasm for favored subjects from baseball to jazz. Each story here is written in the first person, from the perspective a man, usually a middle-aged writer, examining some past experience. Many of the stories are completely realistic, with a few leaving you wondering whether they might be autobiographical. In one the narrator is even an author named Haruki Murakami! In others, the stories are subtly fantastic: the narrator reflects on the time he met a talking monkey at a hot spring; the narrator finds himself in another man’s body, perhaps. And, in typical Murakami fashion, even some of the most realistic stories leave you perplexed, like the narrator, wondering just what might have been going on.
My favorite story in the collection is, without a doubt, “The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection”—the story with a narrator named Haruki Murakami that reads so much like memoir. In it the narrator tells us of his love of baseball, how he came to become a Yakult Swallows fan, and how, early in his career, he self-published a chapbook of poems about baseball. The story includes a number of delightful poems about baseball (you need not be a baseball fan to appreciate them) and is told in a pleasantly conversational tone. There is no strangeness in this story, except for the mundane strangeness that lies at its very heart—why would a man be a fan of such a losing team?
This is a great volume for fans of short stories. It is sure to delight established Murakami fans, and would be a great introduction to his work for anyone not yet familiar with his writing.
Translated from the Japanese by longtime Murakami translator Philip Gabriel.
Reviewed by Ben
Tagged: Fiction, Japan, Magical realism, Short stories
Nothing to See Here
[Book]
view/request
There’s nothing to see here—or maybe there is? Keeping the secret of stepchildren who spontaneously combust is not easy especially when your father is a high profile politician. Magic realism at its finest with fascinatingly flawed characters.
Reviewed by Lisa
Tagged: Fiction, Humor, Magical realism
Report to the Men’s Club
by Carol Emshwiller
[Book]
view/request
Though we’ve labeled this science fiction, for the most part these short stories are magic realism, little worlds where everything is normal, except perhaps, grandma can fly. Some funny, some a bit macabre (think Joyce Carol Oates with a sense of humor.) One is a paean to a feminist anthropologist, many about the lives of women. They will stick with you after the volume is closed.
Reviewed by Linda
Tagged: Fiction, Humor, Magical realism, Short stories
