PositivePasteDavis’ hallmark shorts provide addictively powerful, rapid encounters with tragedy, humor and existential confusion in the span of a page or a line. These tales reside in fiction’s grand thematic territory: sex, family, love and betrayal. But they also touch on less hallowed topics, including pet flatulence and eyeballs. Precious few of these stories signal ‘story’ through the use of dialogue, scenes or plot, but they thrill with their depth and dynamism … Though unconventional, the shorter pieces in Disturbance are formally conservative compared to the longer stories. With a few exceptions, these longer pieces challenge reader expectations and attention spans in lengthy narratives presented as case studies, pseudo-scientific journals and instructional manuals … These oddly shaped longer stories can be intriguing and funny, but also tedious—perhaps intentionally so.
