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May 21, 2000
First Fiction
By Mark Rozzo
As the title story of Matthew Klam's remarkable debut
collection winds down, Sam Beardson--unlucky in lust,
rampantly heterosexual and honestly puzzled by his
out-of-the-blue attraction to a skinny dude in a country-rock
band--concocts a neat solution to his mounting woes: "I'll tell
you who I should marry: myself. With my cat Skippy as the
mascot. We could sail around the world together." Klam's
young, male, preppy, mixed-up and, above all, horny
narrators are, by turns, given to acts of calculated
selfishness and flights of whimsical self-delusion as they
search for love and meaning amid stints at ad agencies, bouts
with uncooperative roast chickens and undying memories of
long-gone T & A. In "Not This," an unhappy guy heads down
to the Jersey shore to get inspired by his brother's perfect
married life only to find the couple tortured by a false
pregnancy and the mob. In "Linda's Daddy's Loaded," a young
husband and his rich wife endure a scary visit from her
egomaniacal TV-personality father, who just happens to pay
for their comfortable lifestyle. And "Issues I Dealt With in
Therapy" exposes all the competitiveness and insecurity at a
sprawling East Coast power wedding as its hero delivers a
disastrous toast before a tent full of stunned guests: "How
come you never call me back anymore, you fat,
pusillanimous, popcorn-eating, obsequious, spermy, whoring,
curry-barfing ass licker?" Klam's prose is an ongoing series of
unexpected outbursts, embarrassing insights and oddball
revelations rendered in agile sentences that turn on a dime,
from sweetness to obscenity, from comedy to cruelty. It's a
riveting, honest and unvarnished voice that sounds like no
one else's.
© Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times
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