Understories
Tim Horvath. Bellevue
Literary Press, $14.95 trade paperback (256p) ISBN 978-1934137444
Build an impenetrable
wall from your stacks of gloomy realists, gouge out your eyes and sear your
fingertips, for I present to you a collection of stories in which the author
has had the gall, the coarseness, the utter audacity to have fun while writing.
The pieces that
comprise Tim Horvath’s Understories
are split roughly into two modes: unconnected, standard length short stories that
cover a spectrum of styles from hard realism to the totally surreal, and a
series of shorter, more unusual ‘Urban Planning Case Studies’. These case
studies stand firmly on their own while also acting as palate cleansers between
the longer pieces. The Case Studies all revolve around a group of fictional
cities which each have a bizarre theme or trait that affects their inhabitants.
One city is entirely composed of shifting substances. Another’s inhabitants are
obsessed with the culinary world. Then there is the peculiar case of ‘the-city-which-is-in-denial-of-being-a-city’
and its struggles in coming to terms with its identity. Horvath connects the case
study cities within the various stories to create a sort of pocket universe
within the book.
As far as the more
conventional stories go it seems that in some cases Horvath devised a ‘single
interesting idea’ then wrote the stories out from there. This can be an
attractive and perilous premise for many writers, but Horvath successfully fleshes
out the stories and pulls each off with grace time and again. Humor is one of
Horvath’s strong suits and it comes usually in the dryer, lighter, more absurd
kind. He attempts to evoke drama or nostalgia at points with varying success,
though when he nails it (as in the titular ‘The Understory’) it certainly
shines. Silly names, absurd situations accepted as fact, and unusually
intelligent (sometimes brilliant) characters abound. It’s hard to overemphasize
how broad Horvath’s voice ranges. This is a talented demonstration of
versatility and agility on his part. Dialogue generally flows easily except
during the more hysterical realist stories where the ubiquitous word play and
peppiness can come off as cloying. Throughout, the stories’ recurring themes
include meditations on family (especially the parent-child relationship),
nature (of the earthly and of the astronomical sort), and media’s effects on
the consumer.
Influences rest solidly
in the vein of Calvino, Borges, Gass and a certain tragically late author who
went by three names. If you enjoy the work of any of these authors you will
undoubtedly find Horvath to be making new and imaginative strides in this field
of writing.
Unfortunately, there is
so much going in the book that a proper review of more than a few stories would
become unwieldy. Personal favorites were ‘The Discipline of Shadows’ and ‘Urban
Planning: Case Study Seven’. ‘The Discipline of Shadows’ follows the head of the
small academic ‘umbrology’ department and the intrigues within his obscure and under-respected
field of the study of shadows. Horvath does a great job of constructing the
narrator’s voice, the imaginary field he studies, and of getting the reader
into the head of someone who is obsessed with an area of interest which is
baffling to those outside of it. The professor’s
description of the moment he decided to devote his life to studying shadows—
“As I tried to hold it
aloft, it struck me that the choice of black as the near-universal color of
print was no mere convention, no mere appeasement of the eyes. My epiphany:
Printed words were the shadows of referents.”
—is exquisite with its
mix of the familiar and unusual, coming off at once as certainly impossible and
yet totally relatable.
‘Urban Planning: Case
Study Seven’ is the most hefty out of the ‘Case Studies’ and is a fully
developed story in its own right. It examines the city of Palmoa and its
obsession with cinema. Cinema is so integral to this city that some of the
city’s inhabitants experience ‘cinaddiction’ and suffer from withdrawal
symptoms severe enough that projectionists are required to maintain a constant
stream of movies lest their customers fall into horrific shock. The narrator’s
best friend is a (gloriously named) ‘anticinemite’ and the member of an
underground revolutionary group steeped in appropriated communist rhetoric which
seeks to wrest the city from the grasp of cinema. Within this setup lies a
troubled love story. Horvath writes this section with an excellent eye for
subtlety and great attention to detail.
Few if any of the
stories throttle a message into the reader or have a significant ‘kick’ which
some readers may find to be a fault, but Horvath’s writing is so consistently
fun, engaging, inventive, and imaginative while displaying such range between
stories, that the reader will never grow bored. (November 2012)
Purchase Understories HERE.
Reviewer bio: Sam Moss
lives in the Pacific Northwest. He is currently working on a novel called Basic
Analysis. He writes for the zine NADA at nadadadamagazine.blogspot.com
and his blog can be found at perfidiousscript.blogspot.com.
