MixedThe Baffler... let’s be honest about what it is: the late juvenilia of an aging queer bohemian ... wallows in this generational self-pity and self-regard, with mixed results. Middle-age weltschmerz from a gay writer risking the censors of Brazil’s military dictatorship is not an entirely unattractive proposition, and several stories in the collection transcend cliché to achieve enchantment through the sheer force of artistic will triumphing over depressive malaise and cannabinoid ennui. Others exalt moments of joy that manage to persist under an oppressively homophobic regime ... Here Abreu’s prose pulses with life and gamely flirts with camp ... This dreary solipsism saturates several stories in the collection ... Still Life reads like a timed response to a creative writing prompt ... Less interested in capturing a mood than in generating a vibe, the narrative gaze is here directed outward; like an adolescent, it doesn’t register what it sees as a historical or geographical particularity. Rather, the vague city is a universal, made recognizable—and even familiar—by viewing it from the vantage of restless youth. This means it’s a cliché, but like most optical illusions, it’s amusing to behold ... [Abreau] became, and remains, the kind of cult figure who stirs the passions of aspiring young writers because even his more jejune and navel-gazing stories capture a different sort of magic, one that comes disguised in blessings and curses: the extreme and erratic emotions of youth.
