The biggest problem with Jincy Willett’s short story collection, Jenny and the Jaws of Life, is the cover. Everything about it, from the blurbs to the kooky picture, led me to expect laugh-out-loud funny. Sure, the funny might be tinged with darkness—those people on the cover are stuck in a sardine can after all—but I was thinking Dorothy Parker. What I got was Flannery O’Connor.

If the characters were from the southern rural U.S., the opening story in this collection, “Julie in the Funhouse,” could fit pretty nicely in a collection of O’Connor’s stories. Her voice is different, sure, but the mood of the story would be just right.

Many of the other early stories were hit or miss. “Father of Invention,” for example, was composed of some very brilliant little sketches that didn’t quite hang together for me. But a few were just all-around great. “The Best of Betty” is a series of letters and responses in an advice column, and as the letters go on, we see the columnist lose her patience and her grip. I think this story helped me “get” Willett’s voice somehow because after reading “The Best of Betty,” I enjoyed the rest of the stories very much. ”Justine Laughs at Death” is also very, very funny, it’s the kind of funny that you get when the main character is a serial killer who’s being driven insane.

Most of the stories weren’t laugh-out-loud funny, but there were some uncomfortable chuckles of recognition, as when in “Resume” the narrator admits to being the sort of person who would walk away from someone making a racist comment, but not indignantly to make a statement. Instead, he would pretend he had to go to the bathroom. And “Mr. Lazenbee” shows a little girl behaving in an unbelievably shocking, even evil manner, but somehow Willett makes it possible to empathize with a girl who shows no empathy, while never getting sentimental or squishy about it.

Overall, this is a very good collection of stories, but it’s probably best to ignore the cover. It just sets the wrong mood.

See my complete review at my blog. ( )

The cover of this book has a blurb from David Sedaris (I think Sedaris is hilarious) which says: "It's just the funniest collection of stories I've ever read--really funny and perfectly sad at the same time." In addition, Sedaris wrote the introduction for this reprinting of the collection.

I know humor is subjective, but if this is humor, it's definitely black humor. The stories so far (I'm 2/3 of the way through) are excellent, but I wouldn't call them funny. Except for "The Best of Betty", which still manages to have more than just a hint of poignancy.

I can see why Sedaris is fond of these stories though. They're remarkably well written; sharp, clean prose and vivid characterization. They do remind me of his essays, but they haven't been making me snort with laughter like his usually do. All in all, I'd probably recommend this book... especially to people who really like short stories. We'll see how the last couple of stories go.

Here's my favorite quote so far. It's from "The Best of Betty", a sort of twisted Ann Landers-y thingamajig:

Dear Betty:
This is the end of the line for you and the rest of your ilk. We shall no longer seek the counsel of false matriarchs, keepers of the Old Order, quislings whose sole power derives from the continuing bondage of their sisters. Like the dinosaurs, your bodies will fuel the new society, where each woman shall be sovereign, and acknowledge her rage, and validate her neighbor's rage, and rejoice in everybody's rage, and caper and dance widdershins beneath the gibbous moon.
Turning and Turning in the Widening Gyre ( )