Fly Already: Stories

As a 5-year-old I asked my father, “What's a prostitute?” He said to me, “A prostitute is somebody who makes a living by listening to other people's problems.” I asked him, “What's a mafia guy?” He says, “A mafia guy is like a landlord but he collects money from houses that he doesn't own.”—Etgar Keret on Fresh Air, 16 June 2015

I had the pleasure of seeing Keret give a reading from this collection earlier this year. What I love about him, in his writing and in person, is his gift for making people consider seemingly familiar things from a completely new perspective. Keret's surreal style is informed in part by his tendency to look at the world through a childlike lens, free from the jaded, calcified preconceptions of most adults. For this reason, he's an excellent writer of children, and they often feature in his stories. My favorite from this collection is the title story, which is also the first. Keret isn't for everyone, but this slim volume would be the perfect place to start.

Short story collections are always difficult to review, but for real, I'm over here thinking, how on earth does one review this collection?? Keret is an Israeli author, and this was translated into English, and I feel like I need to give props to the translators because I think this was pretty magnificent, if not a bit messed up.

The problem for reviewing (but a wonderful thing for reading) is that these stories kind of take you where you don't expect them to go, and so I kind of don't want to go into too much detail for fear of ruining the individual stories for someone else. They're just unexpected, and many are quite dark, and they have these little twists or turns of phrase where it's not something you're looking for, but then you're putting the book down on your lap, going “huh” and stopping to think for a few minutes before picking it back up.

Standout stories for me:
- The titular piece, and the first story in the collection, which gave me chills right off the bat, as a man tries to protect his son from witnessing a stranger's suicide.
- Tabula Rasa. Oh this one was wonderfully written and so very fucked up. I can't tell you anything about it.
- Car Concentrate, about a guy who has his father's old crushed-up convertible as a conversation piece in his living room. It's also messed up.
- Windows, about a man named Mickey who has trouble remembering things and is in what seems like assisted living, but who is helping whom?
- Yad Vashem, which I had to sit with for a while after I finished. About a couple visiting Israel, and their trip to a Holocaust museum. The juxtaposition of the children who were killed, and that the woman had recently had an abortion.
- Also the one that's not really titled, other than I guess “Glitch at the Edge of the Galaxy” query, which isn't so much a story as it is a series of emails throughout the book back and forth between a guy who is the manager of an escape room and a patron who wants to visit it on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

... which I guess is a lot of stories I thought were impressive for a short collection.

Anyway, despite it being weird and messed up and dark and dry in tone, I thought it was exceptional. 4.5 stars.