The Paris Stories
By Laird Hunt

 Smokeproof Press (no address- try Small Press Distribution)

 

When this book arrived in the mail, there was a moment when I thought it was a package for Lori. Lori sometimes gets up to ten boxes or packages a day. I usually get letters offering for me to get a new credit card, or letters (which I like), from my mom, keeping me updated on what is happening in the home country (Buffalo). These small sicknesses of love are not so sick. We put some of the Dear Sweetheart pieces in Tool a Magazine # 3, in 2000. At the time, I was not aware that they were a part of The Paris Stories… which is an excellent book— a challenging book in the same way that Borges, Sun Ra, or Sebald challenges. This book is a necessary challenge and a beautiful book to read

One night, after I read page 59, I rushed across our apartment to the back room where L was hard at work. I interrupted her with one of my “read this” moments. She obliged. When she was done, she said that she loved it- that this page is amazing, and then I sprinkled the brim of my hat “and stepped inside.”

Allow me to quote the entire passage that got me jazzed:

"On the 15th of September, 1840, at 6:01 a.m., a certain Jean Biche woke to the news that his uncle, in dying, had named him the soul heir of a considerable fortune, and at 8:01 a.m., that same morning he took possession of the now defunct uncle’s Paris mansion and began very slowly to bash out its interior floors and walls, a process that took him several years. When the several years were over and the enormous house stood gutted, Mr. Biche, or the Marquis Sans-Tete, as he was afterwards known, boarded up and hermetically sealed all the windows, purchased the entire living inventory of the teeming local bird market, released it into the vast dark space, sprinkled the brim of his hat with bird seed, and stepped inside.”

And I though Proust was odd for his Jetsons corklined apartment.

Dear Laird:

I realize now that this is not going to be an ordinary review- but in my own fashion, this is the way I would like to write about this book. Sometimes when I read your writing, I get scared, not Prince of Darkness scared, but spooked. Like someone is going to stop and talk to me on the street and then he is going to disappear and re-appear again. Or a guy like from the book, four feet tall and in a brown leather jacket and a blue baseball cap telling me to “back off!” Once, at the Price Chopper down the street, this 40-70 year-old guy in front of me turned around and said: “it was my birthday last night, we spent like 70 dollars on beer, then the cops came and broke up the party.” With no other nod or contact with me, he just turned to the register, proceeded to buy his stuff and walk away. When he was walking away, all I could think to say was- “Happy Birthday buddy!”

As far as the style of this book, it is unique, and the structure moves between letters and prose-poetry pieces. It is like a synchronicity of odd moments. At this moment, our Burmese mix cat is actually sitting on the mouse-pad, purring in step with the beats pulsing out of my computer speakers. She may be aware of this, but at any rate, it is making me laugh, but at the same time, I feel bewildered and in awe of her natural purring powers. Does she feel the drums and is letting me know? Why can’t we all purr? A combination of the odd and beautiful; a perfect way to describe the innovative and amazing writing of Laird Hunt. Go get the book, and while you are at it, pick up his noir psychedelic fiction debut: The Impossibly.

 

Oct 2002

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