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A review by mattdube
Refresh, Refresh by Benjamin Percy
4.0
This is a lot better than I thought it would be, since I think so much fiction is already obsessed with masculinity and I generally think, well, that as a subject it's kind of a reflexive dead end.
But this book, as much as the big M is its subject, varies the formula some by introducing some hardcore genre elements, like in the story "Fallout," which is the first post-apocalyptic story in the midst of a literary collection I can recall, and some stories that are, well, just nasty. "Whisper" is a standout for me, both for being nasty (the internal portrait of an unrepentant rapist) and for the writing, which in this story reaches for some figurative language and thrilling linguistic turns the other stories (mostly) eschew. It's really good.
Lots of the other stories are also pretty dynamite, because Percy seems authoritative on things I do care about but feel really isolated from-- a lot on working class lives, more on returning Gulf vets than I've read, two subjects I wish I understood well enough to write about, so I really appreciated reading about them. Some stories don't totally work-- "The Woods" and "The Faulty Builder" both kind of crap out to me, and the last story in the book, "When the Bear Came," has a lot of promise but in the end doesn't quite deliver.
But still, this is a really strong collection, one I liked sort of in spite of myself and my usual taste for something less conventional and more pointedly literary. A book with lots of charm mixed in amidst some serious craft.
But this book, as much as the big M is its subject, varies the formula some by introducing some hardcore genre elements, like in the story "Fallout," which is the first post-apocalyptic story in the midst of a literary collection I can recall, and some stories that are, well, just nasty. "Whisper" is a standout for me, both for being nasty (the internal portrait of an unrepentant rapist) and for the writing, which in this story reaches for some figurative language and thrilling linguistic turns the other stories (mostly) eschew. It's really good.
Lots of the other stories are also pretty dynamite, because Percy seems authoritative on things I do care about but feel really isolated from-- a lot on working class lives, more on returning Gulf vets than I've read, two subjects I wish I understood well enough to write about, so I really appreciated reading about them. Some stories don't totally work-- "The Woods" and "The Faulty Builder" both kind of crap out to me, and the last story in the book, "When the Bear Came," has a lot of promise but in the end doesn't quite deliver.
But still, this is a really strong collection, one I liked sort of in spite of myself and my usual taste for something less conventional and more pointedly literary. A book with lots of charm mixed in amidst some serious craft.