The Nobodies Album by Carolyn Parkhurst

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Date of Publication: June 15^th, 2010

Memorable Quotation: “So Mitch and I were…happy, yes, but happiness isn’t what people think it is. There is no synonym for ‘happiness’ that could possibly describe the entirety of a life shared by two people…” (pg. 165)

Lasting Impression: Strong concept but poorly executed, The Nobodies Album shows the story of Octavia Frost, a writer and mother trapped in the past, who must face her own personal demons when her son is accused of murdering his girlfriend.

Storyline: A

Pace of Story: B-

Characters: B+

Ending: D

Overall: C+

I became a huge fan of Carolyn Parkhurst after reading Lost and Found and The Dogs of Babel because of her great mix characters and her philosophical undertones of what it means to be alive.  The Nobodies Album, however, was so unorganized and confusing at times that the only reason I finished it was because she had a good hook of a storyline and I wanted to give an author I respected a chance to win me over again.  (Unfortunately, I was greatly disappointed and left saying, “What?” when I finished it.)

The Nobodies Album has a great opening chapter, immediately showcasing Octavia’s personality and situation: a bold writer whose life falls apart after reading a headline about how her son, Milo Frost, lead singer of the band, Pareidolia being accused of murdering his girlfriend, Bettina Moffett.  The story continues with Octavia flying to California to help prove the innocence of her son as she shares the ideas of her latest novel, The Nobodies Album, with her readers.

The novel Octavia writes is interesting because it takes the ending from each of her previous novels and rewrites them, giving her characters another chance to react differently to what happens throughout her novels.  At the end of a few chapters, Parkhurst inserts a section of one of Octavia’s novels, which at first I thought was a good idea but quickly became irritated with this notion because her endings and rewritten endings had nothing to do with the original story.

The other problem with putting these chapters of Octavia’s novel into Parkhurst’s novel was that it deters the reader from the main storyline.  The endings are focused around Octavia’s thoughts and past, which makes the original storyline, her son’s murder mystery, fall by the waste side!   If Parkhurst were to put Octavia’s chapters in an appendix at the end of the book, that would have made the story flow so much better and not made the readers obligated to read these chapters. 

There is a lot of stream of conscious thinking on Octavia’s part that, once again, I did not think was necessary because it seemed to only be taking up space and not providing any true insight into anything.  When Parkhurst did have characters interacting and the what-ifs of the murder began to arise, the story became exciting! Unfortunately, the build up of suspense was not met with a satisfactory ending, only one that was long-winded and reminded me of another murder mystery I had reviewed with the same kind of ending, The Other Woman’s House by Sophie Hannah.

I do not mean to sound like I despised the novel, because I did not. I am frustrated that such great concepts with wonderfully realistic characters were put into a story that was so unorganized that they could not be seen at their full potential. Carolyn Parkhurst is still one of my favorite authors and I do appreciate when an author takes a chance in his or her writing but it has to be organized, and unfortunately, this one was not.  If she were to have cut out a good amount of the Octavia’s stream of conscious thoughts and, as I said previously, put Octavia’s chapters in an appendix, the characters would have shined more and the murder mystery itself would have been so much more organized and suspenseful.

~Shelly-Beans

Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse by Otsuichi

Genre: Japanese Horror/Short Stories

Translator: Nathan Collins

Date of Publication: September 21, 2010

Memorable Quotation: “What are these?” “They’re shoes my friend left. He had this strange habit of saving all his shoes and never throwing them out. He died and these shoes are all that he left behind…the ones on the left end he wore as a child. The ones to the right he wore just before he died. See these guys here, the leather ones?” He pointed at a pair of small shoes near the left end of the row. “He was wearing those when we first met.” He pointed at a pair on the right. “He was wearing these when the café first opened…” History lived in that row of shoes. They were like a timeline.” (From Black Fairy Tale, pgs 263-264)

Lasting Impression: Otsuichi created three suspenseful tales, each filled with magical realism and a description of death that is almost eloquent in its execution.

*NOTE: In rating a collection of short stories, I look at each one overall and combine all of their positives and negatives into one rating, as shown below.*

Story-line: A

Pace of Story: B+

Characters: A

Ending: A-

Overall Grade: A

For those of you who looked at the title and cringed, please do not be deterred.  Although it is true that the three tales in this short story collection are grotesque at times, the idea behind each story is very creative, deserving a chance to be enjoyed.  I have always found the Japanese to be risk-takers in their writing, never having any shame or worrying that they will offend someone, like Chuck Palahniuk, which is why I love reading their literature and always looking past the obvious content to find the deeper meaning.

There are three stories in this collection: Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse; Yuko; and Black Fairy Tale.

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Summer, Fireworks, and My Corpse is about three children; siblings Ken and Satsuki and their friend Yayoi and how an innocent conversation and honest confession soon turns into murder.  (SPOILER ALERT: One of the children dies.) The description of the death is graphic but the deceased child lives on by being the narrator of the events that occur (Similar to the narration of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones).  In terms of theatre, the term dramatic irony works well here because in a sense, the reader is aware of what happened to one of the children as the other two main characters try to hide the evidence, but the other characters are not aware as to why the siblings have been acting so strangely. 

Honestly, I was very disappointed with the ending until I read the epilogue. I cannot say the ending left me warm and fuzzy but the epilogue had a crazy twist that I was not expecting, almost making up for my irritation with Otsuichi for ending the story in such a way.

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The 2^nd story, Yuko, is about a young woman named Kiyone and her new position as housekeeper for Master Masayoshi and his wife, Yuko.  The couple seems ordinary until the meal ritual Kiyone must follow is set into place. As Kiyone begins to talk to the neighbors and their rumors begin to mess with her mind, things become stranger by the minute. 

At first, the story reminded me of William Faulkner’s A Rose for Emily, but soon different elements came into play that made that comparison not as viable as I had thought.  The twist he gives us in this story is very clever but there is a lot of explanation behind it, making the impact not as much of a ‘wow’ factor as I had hoped. Regardless of the ending, the story was brilliant.

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The 3^rd and final story, Black Fairy Tale, was the longest of the three stories but still packs a pretty good punch in the end.  The story focuses on Nami, a high school girl who loses her left eye in a freak accident and causes her to have amnesia.  Not long after she has amnesia does she get an eye transplant that brings her more than vision in her left eye; she can also see the memories of its previous owner at sporadic times of the day.  As Nami becomes more comfortable with these memories to take the place of the ones she lost, she discovers the hometown of the previous town and the secrets, both good and bad, are waiting for her.

This story has an alternating narrative, in which a writer named Miki tells us his story as well.  He has a terrible gift, one reminiscent of John Coffey in The Green Mile, in the respect that both men can prolong life or take it away.   Miki becomes a serial killer not out of thirst for blood, but out of curiosity for what the human body can become; since everyone he kills stays alive without feeling pain.  Miki and Nami eventually meet as fate would have it, but Miki is only a penname and his real idenitity comes to light as Nami’s gets involved in a situation that may be over her head.  

The best part about this story is the subtle detail in the alternating narratives; you think the two narratives are happening at the same time but as the story goes on, we see just how clever Otsuichi is when he delivers a second twist out of nowhere without skipping a beat.

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When I read a book as ‘different’ as this one, I am not expecting a huge following of people to read this.  At times it was not easy for me to read because of the gory detail and the images that came with them but I challenged myself and made it through those difficult parts to enjoy the rest. I am not asking you to have the same appreciation of Japanese Horror or ‘J-Horror’ as I do, in the same respect that I cannot appreciate the film, ‘Melancholia,’ as much as a friend of mine does.  My point is that sometimes it is nice to challenge yourself; and  if you are someone who likes Stephen King, enjoys writers that challenge the way their reader’s think, and you have an open mind towards different cultural literature, Otsuichi’s novels will be a joy to read.

~Shelly-Beans