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May 21, 2000
Men Will Be Men
By David Wiegand
There are few greater disappointments in life than getting what
you think you want.
That's the observation Matthew Klam makes implicitly throughout
the seven well-crafted stories in his first collection, "Sam the
Cat." Despite common themes, however, each story takes on a
memorable life of its own, thanks to Klam's wonderful eye for
detail, his ability to find the perfect word or phrase at all times and
the precision with which he repeatedly nails the fragile
braggadocio of the modern American male.
Yet, for all the virtuosity evident in these stories, Klam's is not a
style that calls attention to itself. Only when we take the
descriptions out of context do they reveal their profound
cleverness.
In "There Should Be a Name for It," for example, a young
unmarried couple tries to get beyond a recent abortion. Lynn
carefully prepares a chicken for roasting, following her mother's
recipe. Jack, the narrator, watches her prepare the chicken: "She
holds it like a little playmate, flipping it over, rocking it under the
faucet," he says. Later, it will be tossed out the back door, along
with all the couple's hope for a better future.
At one point, Jack tries to convince himself that they are on solid
ground because their sex life is "normal -- whatever that means.
Sex is never normal with anyone. It's bizarre, it's wiggly meats."
There may have been better descriptions of sex in the past, but
nothing seems more precise than Klam's.
In many ways, Klam offers the polar opposite of what used to be
called "women's fiction" in the '80s: These stories are "guys'
fiction," and not just any guys, but guys who are driven to be in
love or in bed with women and, at one point or another, hate
themselves for their lust. And because it's so painful to blame
themselves, they take it out on their partners. More often than not,
even they know they're doing it. But, hey, it's a guy thing, and
guys are weak.
"I love women," Sam says in the brilliant title story. "I like to
see them bark for me. That's a joke." Well, maybe not. Sam is a
womanizer of prodigious talents. He loves women so much, he
hates them for what he thinks they do to him. Having notched off
one girlfriend after another, he is still able to say, "I wanted real
love. Where was that loyalty and trust? Where were the laughs?"
And his definition of real love? "Cut flowers, her wearing a
beautiful dress, lingerie, seeing an incredible band . . . (oral sex)
in a convertible. . . .How many times do I have to explain this?"
Sam goes to a party with Louise and is instantly smitten by a
willowy creature with long, dark hair. Once he gets Louise out of
the room, he makes his move, only to find that the object of his
affection is a musician named John. Admittedly, the plot suffers
in summary, but it works marvelously in context as Sam does
what every red-blooded heterosexual would do: He stalks John,
going so far as to enhance his looks with makeup.
"I didn't want to do anything with him," he whines. "I didn't
even think of sex with him. It didn't enter my mind. Well, of
course it did. But to hang around John, the two of us sitting there
together -- that would mean something to me. He'd call with some
funny thing he had to tell me. Then I'd know, then we'd both
know."
In a sadly childish reverie, he ponders his future after John has
predictably rebuffed him: "And who would I marry? I'll tell you
who I should marry. Myself. With my cat Skippy as the mascot.
We could sail around the world together. I'd get Skippy a tiny
yellow rain suit. `Man the mizzenmast, you furry little wog,' I'd
say."
On one level, Klam's stories could be read as postfeminist
laments; they are anything but. The "bad guys" in these stories
are merely the sad guys, all yearning to understand themselves
and women, but unable to do so because they are trapped in
citadels of skewed masculinity in the contemporary American
dream.
In "Not This," Vince travels to the New Jersey home of his
successful brother, Dave, for a Labor Day visit. "I'm not a great
person -- I know that. I've been a certain way my whole life. Mr.
Showcase. Mr. Jokey. Mr. Handshake. After a while, even I
can't stand it," Vince confesses, and we're certain he uses similar
self-deprecation to disarm everyone.
Arriving for the visit, he instantly envies everything his brother
has, even after he learns that Dave's only PR client is a mob
family. Klam details both the perfection of Dave's life and a
certain desperation as Vince opens the refrigerator: "I took out the
orange juice. Behind the opened orange juice they had two
unopened backups of juice set to go. Unopened backup jars of
everything. In the bathroom that morning, I'd seen fifteen bars of
Ivory soap under the sink and a case of toilet paper standing
beside the john."
The long story "European Wedding" finds Klam reaching to
explain things from the women's point of view as well as that of
Rich, the hapless protagonist who has an ugly affair with a
grotesque client just before jetting off to France to marry Glynnie.
At first, the piece seems less focused than the other stories, but it
delivers a powerful payoff at the end.
Though filled with both guilt over his quickie and raging
ambivalence about getting married, Rich arrives in France to find
that a hurricane back home has kept his father and the other men
in the bridal party from traveling to the wedding. It's his worst
nightmare come true when Rich finds himself all but surrounded
by women, including his smother mother, Glynnie's mother and
assorted relatives.
There is a poignant sense of yearning as Klam describes the scene
of the family coming together in anticipation of the wedding:
"What went on at the table between mothers and sons, between a
brother and his sisters, between women and babies and men
looking on -- each was a radiant, impenetrable circle that sealed
out the world and pushed it away." And perhaps Rich along with
it.
Among so many memorable elements of Klam's work, we are
perhaps most struck by his boldness in expressing the naked
desperation of his protagonists. Pitiable and noble at the same
time, these men command our unflagging attention and somehow
our admiration, albeit grudging. Such is not the case with their
creator: Our admiration for Klam is unqualified.
©2000 San Francisco Chronicle
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