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June 2, 2000
By Martin Wilson
There's a sameness about the
protagonists of Matthew Klam's
stories: All are men in their late 20s
or early 30s with well-paying but
unsatisfying jobs in advertising or the
like, with brash and sarcastic
exteriors, and sensitive, little-boyish
cores. They're love- and sex-hungry
men who always have girlfriends or
wives at their sides, though most of
the relationships on display here are
walking on wobbly legs. In a lesser
writer's hands, this endless parade of
similar-minded men would be
blandly repetitive, perhaps evidence
of a lack of imagination. But Klam's
stories are so witty, assured, and
damned entertaining that this
sameness doesn't detract from the collection's strengths; it is one of its strengths.
Klam nails what it means to be a heterosexual man in America today.
"Issues I Dealt With in Therapy" is both a redemptive love story and a man's
knee-slapping account of going to an old friend's overblown wedding on a
Nantucket-like island. The groom, once a close friend of the narrator's, is now a
bigwig in Washington, a status-obsessed blowhard. The narrator, aided by a few
glasses of wine, concludes his rehearsal dinner toast by saying, "How come you
never call me back, you fat, pusillanimous, popcorn-eating, obsequious, spermy,
whoring, curry-barfing ass licker?" How can you not love this guy? Later, the
narrator's medical resident girlfriend, starved for sleep, falls into slumber before
they can have sex, causing him to reflect: "I loved her so much I couldn't think. I
loved her because I was horny. I was horny because I was sad, because the night
had been awful, because it was almost over." Again and again, Klam's men wage
the battle between horniness and love with depressing, hilarious, and, well, honest
results.
"Sam the Cat" stands out because its narrator says emphatically that he loves
women, yet finds himself developing an obsessive and embarrassing crush on a guy
who looked like "those handsome, pretty male models you see in Calvin Klein ads."
Never has a story about sexual confusion been so funny, and so sad.
The collection's one misfire is the final story, "European Wedding," which feels
clumsy and messy, perhaps because it's not written in the first person, a form which
Klam has mastered here. Last summer, Klam was named one of the best American
writers under 40 by The New Yorker, which originally published all of these
stories. The kudos are justified -- Sam the Cat is a remarkable debut.
Copyright © 2000 Austin Chronicle Corp.
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