In Ed Park’s collection, An Oral History of Atlantis, characters bemoan their fleeting youth, focus on their breathing, meet cute, break up, write book reviews, translate ancient glyphs, bid on stuff online, whale watch, and once in a while find solace in the sublime.
This book of comic sketches is lighter but no less exuberant ... These are comedies of embarrassment, but happily there is no embarrassment to the comedy, no leavening of the gags and witticisms with serious issues.
Extraordinary inventiveness ... Throughout his 16 stories, Park deftly upends quotidian expectations, encourages discomfort, and presents surreality with biting humor.
Park...writes books that are easy to love and hard to define. His writing is hilarious but also serious; chaotic while still cohesive; irreverent and earnest all at once ... Melds the unexpected with a healthy dose of humor.
