by Kevin Bartelme

Kevin Bartelme, the author of five humorous novels, turns to the form of the classic short story in LET THEM EAT RUBBISH. The contrast between his wildly imaginative images, and the familiar structures of the literary short story—of De Maupassant, O. Henry, O’Hara—creates a crackling tension that ripples through the fifteen stories. His language, too, follows the classic structures and punctuation of “good English” so you always know exactly what he is saying—explicitly, at least. The clarity of his writing, and its strong narrative flow, lets the reader experience his creativity in a way that wouldn’t be possible if his prose was as offbeat and unexpected as his imagination.All the stories take place, at least in part, in pre-pandemic New York City—on its streets and in its bars, offices, apartments and shops. Love, wealth, ambition, sex, drinking, old age and immortality are themes that writers have explored for four thousand years, and Bartelme joins them in his vivid, 21st-century way. Rather than Odysseus struggling to free himself from the goddess Calypso, JOHN AND ELSA gives us a strangely convincing romance between a devil and an angel in a Manhattan club who have a hard time getting together, but find it even more difficult to break up. In VALLEY OF THE DOLTS, the high-tech screen called Solipsist, which lets a Las Vegas hooker grow a new body part, is oddly reminiscent of the reflection that dazzled Narcissus. And in PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST—and several other stories—the reader embarks on the same quest for immortality that captivated Gilgamesh.With vivid language and surprisingly twisty plots, Bartelme brings his characters and their emotions to life even as the title of this book, LET THEM EAT RUBBISH, loudly advertises one of his main concerns: there’s a lot he doesn’t like about the modern, consumerist, high-tech world. In the humorous, often memorable struggles of his characters, he shows us exactly why.