Edited by Nick Hornby
Riverhead Books
Fans of the offbeat work of English scribe Nick Hornby (author of High Fidelity) should be delighted with this recent anthology, Speaking With the Angel, which collects twelve short stories from some of the most eccentric writers of this modern world (though mostly England).
There isn’t much that one can say about a book like this, except that each story is a complete and utter joy to read. Most pieces are sidesplitting and irreverent, like Helen Fielding’s “Luckybitch,” the tale of an aging drama queen who has fallen and can’t get up. Patrick Marber’s “Peter Shelley,” is a riotous memoir of a boy and girl losing their virginities to an old Buzzcocks 45, told in graphic detail, right down to the last bodily fluid. “Walking Into the Wind,” by John O’Farrell, is a bittersweet yet still laughable account of the rise and fall of a vain, self-deluding mime who can’t understand why his career is circling the toilet bowl in spite of his unique gift for recreating poignant, global issues on the stage, like the destruction of the Amazon rainforests.
These more humorous stories are offset by the occasional serious piece, such as Roddy Doyle’s “The Slave,” or Dave Eggers’ bizarre, “After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned,” which is told from the perspective of a dog that loves to run and jump, only to be drowned and discover that God is actually the sun. Colin Firth’s “The Department of Nothing” is a touching story of a tormented boy coming to terms with his beloved grandmother’s imminent death. And, there is nothing repulsively heavy-handed about these stories; they too are funny in their own rights, but with thinly veiled sincerity just under the surface.
However, it is Hornby himself who fittingly provides the collection’s best story, the bitingly satirical “Nipplejesus,” which parodies the much-ballyhooed incident in New York involving that painting of Mary smeared with elephant dung. In Hornby’s story, a hardheaded museum security guard grows to love the artwork that he is trusted to protect: a portrait of Jesus composed of thousands of tiny pictures of bare-breasts taken from lurid magazines.
All in all, Speaking With the Angel is a droll and compulsive read that will, if nothing else, compel you to run out and find more work from the authors collected within.
As an added bonus, purchasing this book will also do provide catharsis for your stained soul. For each copy you buy, a portion of the sales will go to TreeHouse and the New York Child Learning Institute, two excellent schools for autistic children in England and the States respectively.
By Casey Lombardo
Long Beach Union
Originally printed 5.7.01
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