Catfish Karkowsky: Literture

Catfish Karkowsky: Literture

Uneven road to success

Literture is Karkowsky’s first book, a strange collection of stories that initially feels birthed from a world where Henry Miller and David Sedaris are read to a soundtrack of Tom Waits’s entire catalogue. This wouldn’t be a problem if the first 20 or so stories—some no more than four pages long—exhibited any of the depth of these artists. Instead, the reader must slog through mind-numbingly flat narration and gimmicky comedic premises presented in a tossed-off manner.

But even stranger is how good the remaining stories are, to a degree that they practically feel written by a different author. The dumb, sneering machismo in an early story like “Women?” is transformed into sharp existential philosophizing on impotence in the wonderful “Mojave.”

Indeed, the best pieces—“Listening to My Son,” Solder Jerry and his Steed Bessie Ann,” “Jimmy Dreams”—reveal a truly talented writer who can balance the absurd, the comic and the affecting with ease.

 
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