Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by xterminal
Rotten Little Animals by Kevin Shamel
3.0
Kevin Shamel, Rotten Little Animals (Eraserhead Press, 2009)
One of the great strengths of the bizarro fiction movement (along with the fact that all of it I've read, even the horror novels, is gut-wrenchingly funny) is that the basic scenario of each book is original. And by “original” I mean “what were you on when you came up with this stuff, and where do I get some?” As another case in point, I offer Rotten Little Animals, a recent book from bizarro auteur Kevin Shamel. Shamel's thesis here is that animals have an entire world that humans don't know about. That world includes independent cinema. And when, thanks to a drunk watchbird, a human boy finds out about the animals' independent cinema (during the filming of a movie about zombie cats), the director of the flick decides to kidnap the human kid and make a mockumentary about the human kid getting kidnapped (since all their careers would be wiped out if the animal community found out the film crew had slipped up and let a human knew about the underground animal culture... you get the picture).
One of the great weaknesses of the bizarro fiction movement is that these awesome scenarios don't often have their potential realized. I love about the first half of Rotten Little Animals, the actual kidnapping and the filming of the movie (and the big blow-up at the wrap party, not only the best scene in the book, but the best-written as well, and if I seem to imply at any point in this review the book isn't worth your time, I will tell you right now: buy it for that scene). The fact that the book's climax comes halfway through sets up some amazing possibilities, actually, for an extended denouement (while I know there are a number of excellent examples of this outside Shakespeare, the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Greene's The End of the Affair, because it's far too early in the morning for me to be thinking about the plot structure of classic novels). How awesome would it be for Shamel to have come up with a narrative for the second half of the book that mirrored the first half, for example, or simply reversed the themes, with the human world gaining wide knowledge of the animal conspiracy and kidnapping some sort of exotic animal to film its own mockumentary? Instead, it kind of stalls, as if Shamel knew where the book was ending (and it does pick up steam again when we get to the end, which ends up being a second climax rather than an extended denouement), but wasn't quite sure how to get there. And when you start talking about the pace lagging in a book that comes out less than one hundred pages, you know there are some structural problems with it.
Shamel is an original writer to be sure, and when Rotten Little Animals is hitting on all cylinders, it's a barnburner. When he puts together a novel that's as solid from front to back as the bests scenes here are, it'll blow your head off. This one won't, but when it's good, it's very, very good. ***
One of the great strengths of the bizarro fiction movement (along with the fact that all of it I've read, even the horror novels, is gut-wrenchingly funny) is that the basic scenario of each book is original. And by “original” I mean “what were you on when you came up with this stuff, and where do I get some?” As another case in point, I offer Rotten Little Animals, a recent book from bizarro auteur Kevin Shamel. Shamel's thesis here is that animals have an entire world that humans don't know about. That world includes independent cinema. And when, thanks to a drunk watchbird, a human boy finds out about the animals' independent cinema (during the filming of a movie about zombie cats), the director of the flick decides to kidnap the human kid and make a mockumentary about the human kid getting kidnapped (since all their careers would be wiped out if the animal community found out the film crew had slipped up and let a human knew about the underground animal culture... you get the picture).
One of the great weaknesses of the bizarro fiction movement is that these awesome scenarios don't often have their potential realized. I love about the first half of Rotten Little Animals, the actual kidnapping and the filming of the movie (and the big blow-up at the wrap party, not only the best scene in the book, but the best-written as well, and if I seem to imply at any point in this review the book isn't worth your time, I will tell you right now: buy it for that scene). The fact that the book's climax comes halfway through sets up some amazing possibilities, actually, for an extended denouement (while I know there are a number of excellent examples of this outside Shakespeare, the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Greene's The End of the Affair, because it's far too early in the morning for me to be thinking about the plot structure of classic novels). How awesome would it be for Shamel to have come up with a narrative for the second half of the book that mirrored the first half, for example, or simply reversed the themes, with the human world gaining wide knowledge of the animal conspiracy and kidnapping some sort of exotic animal to film its own mockumentary? Instead, it kind of stalls, as if Shamel knew where the book was ending (and it does pick up steam again when we get to the end, which ends up being a second climax rather than an extended denouement), but wasn't quite sure how to get there. And when you start talking about the pace lagging in a book that comes out less than one hundred pages, you know there are some structural problems with it.
Shamel is an original writer to be sure, and when Rotten Little Animals is hitting on all cylinders, it's a barnburner. When he puts together a novel that's as solid from front to back as the bests scenes here are, it'll blow your head off. This one won't, but when it's good, it's very, very good. ***