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Loading... Better Living Through Plastic Explosivesby Zsuzsi Gartner
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 beentsy | Aug 12, 2023 |    ) RekhainBC | Feb 15, 2019 | The first story, "Summer of the Flesh Eater" was my favourite. The story is told from the perspective of one of the pretentious neighbours who really doesn't have any insight into their snotty-ness, as if their thinking and attitudes are the default position against which the others are measured. The suburban locals refer to one of their neighbours as ‘the Truck Guy’ or ‘Lucy’ (as in missing link). His passion is cars. He likes his meat, as evidenced by the slabs of steaks, ribs, chops at his bbq party, for which 'he eschewed terms like “well-marbled” in favour of “nice and fatty, smacking his pal down soundly on cuts he deemed particularly "bodacious" '. He speaks colourfully “in a dialect Patel, our own Henry Higgins, recalls as “Thunder Bay, 1977.” [that is so bang-on perfect] He moved in to the neighborhood on Canada Day, with a u-haul hitched to a silver Camaro. “He wore what’s commonly referred to as a muscle shirt but what some would call a wife beater.” They “hadn’t seen a grown man in cut-offs that tight since Expo ’86. (We later had a spirited debate about whether his was in fact a conventional mullet or ersatz hockey hair.)” “Afterwards, he sat down on his new front steps and drank beer straight from the can, wiping his lips with the back of his hand, exaggeratedly rotating his shoulders as if attempting to recalibrate himself. “ This guy is so pegged! And so are his snotty pretentious neighbours who regard him as a specimen; they knew that such men existed but had never had a chance to observe one in such close proximity. She writes of the nearby rendering plant “The congealed odour of pyrolyzed animal parts would enter the cul-de-sac and then just hang there, as if snagged on a hydro line.” Zsuzsi Gartner's writing is witty, funny, angry, and sometimes ethereally weird. She smiles when she bites. She sees what is right in front of us, and then presents it to us in a way that is new and fresh. (  ) TheBookJunky | Apr 22, 2016 |  ) Post_Hypnotic | Jul 19, 2015 | ) Post_Hypnotic | Jul 19, 2015 |
 In another story, a character thinks about her uterus as “a dried gourd inside her, rattling like a maraca.” Animals with teeth like skyscrapers, brains that have delete files, and a uterus like a musical instrument...As a plastic writer, Gartner’s turns her back to the past and looks to the future. Many of her stories have a science fiction and fantasy slant. One features a future America where motivational speakers have become enemies of the state. In another, angels take over the bodies of West Coast teenagers and discover the wonders of communing through texting...The emotional weight of Gartner’s stories comes from the contrast between the persistence of uncontrollable biological urges and an artificial universe. The emotional leitmotif that gets sounded throughout the book is disappointment.  Better Living Through Plastic Explosives, Zsuzsi Gartner’s second short-story collection, is funny ha ha and funny disturbing. These stories are not about the beautiful, utopian Vancouver that racks up high scores in all those livable city surveys. No, Gartner’s West Coast is wild and weird, uncanny and unnerving, volatile and violent. ..One of the most common – and I think, unfair and fogeyish – complaints about postmodern fiction is that it is too tricksy, too cerebral, and lacks old-fangled reader-pleasing qualities such as “heart” and “things happening.” Suffice to say that there is no such deficit here. AwardsNotable Lists
From an emerging master of short fiction and one of Canada's most distinctive voices, a collection of stories as heartbreaking as those of Lorrie Moore and as hilariously off-kilter as something out of McSweeney's. In Better Living through Plastic Explosives, Zsuzsi Gartner delivers a powerful second dose of the lacerating satire that marked her acclaimed debut, All the Anxious Girls on Earth, but with even greater depth and darker humour. Whether she casts her eye on evolution and modern manhood when an upscale cul-de-sac is thrown into chaos after a redneck moves into the neighbourhood, international adoption, war photography, real estate, the movie industry, motivational speakers, or terrorism, Gartner filets the righteous and the ridiculous with dexterity in equal, glorious measure. These stories ruthlessly expose our most secret desires, and allow us to snort with laughter at the grotesque world we'd live in if we all got what we wanted. No library descriptions found. |
LibraryThing Early Reviewers AlumZsuzsi Gartner's book Better Living Through Plastic Explosives was available from LibraryThing Early Reviewers.  Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.3)
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Better Living Through Plastic Explosives by Zsuzsi Gartner
Wikipedia in English
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Some very odd characters and some even odder story settings and concepts. Really enjoyed them though, in particular I thought Summer of the Flesh Eater was amazing. A truly bizarre level of every day normal and outlandishly weird. Great story. (