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Show STQ RIEtS i TOUGH, TOUGH TOYS FOR TOUGH, TOUGH BOYS By Will Self Grove ISBN Press, $23 0802116442 REVIEW BY CHARLES WYRICK Will Self likes taking risks. His last novel, Great Apes, followed the stressed-ou- t life of a psy- chologist who awakened one morning as a chimpanzee. In his essays Self has stalked prime ministers and fought British rock stars. His work breeds controversy, and his method welcomes experiment. Needless to say anything new by him is noteworthy. In Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys, Self mixes the plausible with the absurd. Within this collection of short stories you will find a rock of crack cocaine as large as a hotel and meet a lexicographer who has learned to communicate with insects. These new stories turn a fun house mirror on modern circumstance. Their humor is grotesque, ticklish, and daft. Take A Story for Europe for example. Here, Self plays on the fears and MOTHERS WHO THINK Tales of Real-Lif- Parenthood e Edited by Camille Peri and Kate Moses Ward, $22.95 ISBN 0375502696 REVIEW BY FARRAR RICHARDSON Mothers Who Think is a collection of essays that focuses on the many realities of motherhood. The essays are works previously featured in Salon magazine's daily column entitled Mothers Who Think. Camille Peri and Kate Moses, both editors at Salon, have compiled a diverse combination of writers who explore the varying depths of being and having a mother. Although the title. Mothers Who Think, might imply that such mothers are a minority, this is not the case. The essays in this book are written not by women attempting to impress others with heavyweight thinking, but by mothers who contemplate the dramatic effects mothering has on every aspect of their lives and all those who share them. In fact, mothers will be relieved to find something written on mothering that is not prescriptive, instructive, condescending, or unattainable. You will not be left feeling like a negligent, unfit, superior, or i.'i.V.A h nt'i. e: troubles of new parents. Worried that their toddlers linguistic skills arent developing, Miriam and Daniel Green take their to the doctor. A bewildered child development specialist informs the anxiety-taxe- d couple that their son is not only fine but also fully fluent in business German. Elsewhere, in the poetically titled Design Faults in the Volvo 760 Turbo: A Manual, Self takes us into the mind of a panicky adulterer. Nervous to the point of trauma, Selfs protagonist hallucinates that he is 60 feet tall. Incapable of hiding from his spouse because of his size, the guilty giant pleads with his wife for forgiveness, telling her that the palmsized woman he has been caught with is nothing but a toy. No, these are not bad from jokes or The Twilight Zone, these are quintessential Will Self creations. For all their outrageousness, these tales radiate a narrative charm. For every goofy plot turn youll find an equally well plotted character or adroitly spun metaphor. Whether dealing with nerdy parents or hardened drug addicts. Self nails his subjects with an exacting, invigorating stylistic temper like that of the truly great satirists. if that's not Surely Self is one of them too immodest a proposal. out-tak- together mom. What you might gain, instead, is the sense that someone has taken the edge off of the loneliness that can at times encompass us. You'll find that you're not the only mother whose daily car trip home from school is filled with the rage and tears of the horrors of recess and the knowledge that you are the only one the child can trust. Perhaps you'll simply relate to the sheer pleasure of a swimming hole with no regulations because it is a respite that you crave as much as your child does. You will be comforted that you are not the only mother who is angry or sad. Perhaps a more powerful and uniting comfort will be the undeniable reality that we all love our children more than we can bear. Peri and Moses have compiled an accessible and balanced collection. The tales will provide you with a range of emotions and perspectives. As Anne Lamott writes in the foreword. some are stories where mothers just tell their truth; and this, in the end, is all that any of us has to offer. After reading this collection, I am compelled to take closer note of the small offerings that my daughter and I give and take from each other every day. Mothers Who Think is celebratory and affirming. Perhaps it is the gift you might buy for yourself this Mother's Day. is a reviewer in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Farrar Riehardson MAY 1999 91 SUaSsPENS EK EVERY DEAD THING By John Connolly Simon & Schuster, $25 ISBN 0684857146 Simon A Schuster Audio, 524, 0671043862 REVIEW BY ADAM DUNN Paeans to a host of other latter-da- y g icons abound in this dark first novel of deprivation, detection, and dissection. Former NYPD Detective Charlie "Birdman Parker (no relation), has really had it bad. The son of a childkilling cop, Parker's alcoholism destroyed his marriage in name, while a deranged killer ended it in reality by gruesomely murdering his wife and child. Having quit the force amid ugly, suspicious rumors, Parker now ekes out a meager living catching escaped fugitives for sleazy bail bondsmen, and talks through his anguish with a sympathetic (and attractive) psychiatrist named Rachel Wolfe. One of his cases ropes him into what appears to be an internal Mafia squabble but quickly leads to something altogether more sinister and depraved. Parker, who harbors a desperate yearning to aid other people's children as he could not his own, follows a bloodstained trail from New Yorks outer boroughs to the Louisiana swamps (William Hjortsberg, Falling Angel) where a bayou medicine crime-writin- woman (shades of 1 Midnight in the Garden of T1 Good and Evil) helps him uncover a grisly string of child slayings (cue Andrew Vachss). While this is happening, the killer known as Traveling Man, who murdered Parkers own family, resurfaces, forcing the detective to enlist the aid of a pair of career criminals befriended dur- mg ms days on tne torce (think Robert B. Parker here, if Hawk were gay). As the Mob struggle spills n over into a feud and the bodies start piling up, Parker and a disheveled FBI agent named Woolrich race against time to decipher the gory language of Traveling Man's psychopathology and determine where he will strike next (Thomas Harris, big time). Traveling Mans MO has a terrible familiarity for Parker, which in turn increases his dependence on Rachel, which leads to well, you get the idea. Connollys nods to established authors carry more than a touch of homage, and Connolly himself employs a strong command of the written word and his American locales. Every Dead Thing is a promising first attempt, and should appeal to many fans of the genre. M 1 Adam Dunn writes reviews and features for Current Diversions and Speak magazine. |