Two consciously hip books for these dog days
by John Sewell
Sam The Cat
Matthew Klam (Random House/$22.95)
While reading Matthew Klam's Sam The Cat And Other Stories, one is forced to wonder exactly where the line is drawn between the imagined lives of the protagonists and the true experiences and ideas of the author. Klam belongs to the new school of self-revelatory writers (Mary Gaitskill, Robert Bingham, Richard Ford, et al) who tell their tales of promiscuity, affairs and the inherent bed-hopping, simultaneously examining the underlying psychological motivations in tell-all fashion that is oftentimes too honest for comfort. And this feeling of discomfort is exactly what makes Sam The Cat's seven stories so interesting, disturbing, and, yes, entertaining.
All of Klam's protagonists are variations of the post-preppie, upwardly mobile and somewhat predatory male template: WASPs who view their relationships as acquisitions and rank their lovers' attributes and failings as credits and debits. What is most unnerving is the way the characters relate their driving compulsions with blunt honesty; even when it shows them to be selfish manipulators with a consumerist approach to the most intimate encounters.
All of this callousness comes off as quite amusing. In the title story, Samuel Beardson unwittingly becomes obsessed with John, "a skinny dude with long hair, that's all," whom he spotted at a party, initially thinking he was a woman. Beardson pursues John through a series of phone calls and carefully orchestrated "chance" meetings, until John finally realizes that he is being pursued sexually. All the while, the protagonist surveys his heterosexual affairs of the past and the possibility of being homosexual or bisexual. ("I didn't even think of having sex with him. It didn't even enter my mind. Well, of course it did.")
In "European Wedding," Rich, who is engaged to be married, has sex with another woman, his client. As their passion (or is it contempt?) mounts, Rich is amazed at himself for becoming so intertwined with a woman he is actually repelled by. ("Her own head moved forward steadily—like a shark's head, like a prosthetic limb, some football wrapped in bologna. She threw her tongue down his throat like a waterlogged sneaker.")
But don't let these quotations throw you. The stories in Sam The Cat are much more concerned with the personalities of the narrators than with nuts and bolts descriptions of sexual couplings. Klam's host of characters leave little to the imagination as they expose their most basic, guttural urges. And these urges aren't always solely motivated by sex.
Klam's direct, engaging prose instantly draws the reader into his disconcerting, yet somehow funny, stories. Sam The Cat is an entertaining look at the amoral conquest of sex and love—a world where natural selection and idiosyncratic twists overrule logic and good intentions every time. You'll be enthralled by these tales, wincing and laughing all the while.
A Certain Age
Tama Janowitz (Anchor Books/$13)
Tama Janowitz, New York's downtown equivalent of Joan Collins for the aging Gen-X set, can always be relied on for some good, trashy fun. So, on a ennui-laden Sunday afternoon, I was pleased to spy her latest paperback on the new arrivals table at my local bookstore. I had kind of lost interest in Janowitz after Slaves of New York, but hey—it just wasn't the day that I was finally going to tackle Kierkegaard.
Janowitz' latest paperback release, A Certain Age, has all her trademark components: Manhattan socialites, the nouveau riche, lots of club and party hopping and enough fashion product placement to make even Brett Easton Ellis green with envy. The novel starts off innocuously enough, seeming like a light yuppie farce. But the plot soon turns for the worse.
Protagonist Florence Collins is an urbane city dweller who wears the right clothes and attends the right parties with all of the expected contempt for her comrades. The problem is, she's over 30 and has yet to find a rich, fashionable man to sweep her off her feet. And her inheritance is running out, like now.
As things get worse for Florence (a series of furtive affairs, the loss of her job and a newfound craving for crack cocaine), the novel switches gears from trendy Barbara Cartland fodder to a Y2K version of Looking For Mr. Goodbar. And all of Florence's travails are dutifully chronicled by Jano-witz, who shows a deft eye for psychological detail that adds clarity.
In the novel's 300-odd pages, the book morphs from a light romp to grave and serious fare. By the end of the novel, I found myself actually caring about the protagonist and wondering, "Well, what is she gonna do next?" Janowitz is like a Quentin Tarantino of fiction, creating sensational pop product that both entertains and poses some big philosophical questions. Janowitz' best novel so far, A Certain Age is proof positive that artistry can be packaged as pure entertainment.
August 24, 2000 * Vol. 10, No. 34
© 2000 Metro Pulse
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