PositiveThe RumpusBlasim’s slim new volume gives us an asylum-seeker’s experience as a kidnapping victim, a young man’s admiration for his murderous older brother, and an unwilling suicide bomber’s love for his mother. But Blasim also throws in a magic ring, a disappearing-knife trick, and an egg-laying rabbit. Nightmarish stories evoke Kafka and Borges, and his characters invoke Pessoa, Fuentes, and One Thousand and One Nights. The result is fourteen tautly written stories-within-stories, Blasim’s fervent response to recent Iraqi history ... In Jonathan Wright’s translation from the Arabic, Blasim writes vividly and directly, though occasionally gracelessly ... The less daring stories get lost in the mix. Yet taken as a whole, the collection provides a fascinating series of permutations—different constructions made of the same raw materials. Storytelling is one of those essential elements ... Most of these stories bear such brutal ends. Yet, as brief as they are, they also tend to have more kinetic energy than emotional heft. Blasim loves a twist ending, which can be hit or miss.
Kirstin Valdez Quade
PositiveThe RumpusIn these stories, Valdez Quade’s characters find themselves either lost or saved, and the links connecting them to loved ones surface, rusted but strong ... Characters push and pull at those chains, struggling with loyalty, rage, and guilt ... Young women, as abandoned daughters or early mothers, serve as Valdez Quade’s principal narrators, and she keenly illustrates her protagonists’ alienation ... At times, Valdez Quade’s reliance on symbolism can overreach. This is a noticeable limitation for a collection that again and again seeks to explore the same familial ills—alcoholism, physical abuse, and divorce—through imagery ... These are sobering stories, but Valdez Quade, thankfully, isn’t above poking some fun at her characters.
