Review by New York Times Review
THE TITLE STORY of "Knockout" features a neck pinchhold to knock humans and other animals unconscious: "The giraffe was very elegant in the way it fell, slowly dropping to its knees and then gently tipping over on its side with a slight puff of breath." The protagonist loves that his buddy knocks him out and writes a few words or draws an octopus on his butt, and he reciprocates with his own words and sketches. He finds this exchange poignant, a chance "to finally be able to communicate some of my struggles with another human being." John Jodzio's entire collection is tremendously funny and well written, every story inventive and a pleasure to read. At each finish, though, there's a noticeable emptiness. The endings are truncated and unsatisfying, and this is partly because the characters aren't quite real. They've been sacrificed for oddity. In the same way George Saunders's much praised "Tenth of December" is limited by being only about morons, Jodzio's work is limited by being only about freaks involved in freakish events. "Chet" begins with someone dying from an elk bite. Then a demented priest tries to dig him up, and our protagonist, who works in a family-run power plant (odd enough in itself), Tasers him and also Tasers others, including a little kid who attracts crows and can foretell death. "Inside Work" features a nut job who hides bottles of cologne, cocktail napkins and a chicken taco under her breasts and then forgets about them. There are several panty stealers and stalkers, a gratuitous burning man in the road, a bounty hunter who tracks down roommates who try to leave him, a woman who never lets her kid out of the house, attacks from eagles, an anthropologist carried off for sacrifice and a boy who ties a bag of poop to helium balloons, then sends his dead dog aloft, then his sister's actor-boyfriend. All fun, but we don't care that the boyfriend is going to die, because we haven't cared about or believed anyone here. One of the stories is intentionally speculative (wounded Canadian soldiers enduring an American attack due to global warming), but in other stories, Jodzio is aiming for Chekhovian endings that fail because they lack earlier dramatic development and believable weight and are about people who are only ideas. The final story, "Our Mom-and-Pop Opium Den," does offer more fully developed relationships, a dramatic arc, an important decision and consequences. The setting is richly imagined, and the switch from hardware stores to opium stores, competing against Opium Depot, is a brilliant bit of the unreal. The only weakness is that the protagonist is desperately missing his ex-fiancée in the same way that most of the protagonists in this collection are desperately missing an ex. "Knockout" is an enormous improvement, though, over Jodzio's two earlier collections. "Get In if You Want to Live" is a small volume of short-shorts with accompanying illustrations. Interesting to look at but short on substance. The stories are funny and odd but deeply about nothing and embarrassingly male. You can think of them as upscale Beavis and Butt-Head. The stories of Jodzio's first collection, "If You Lived Here You'd Already Be Home," are more sustained, there's a desperation and loneliness to the characters, and lives are put under pressure, but each one still falls short. I don't want to undervalue how pleasurable it is to read Jodzio. His tales are a hoot. And their shortcomings are not entirely his fault. Lack of substance in fiction is celebrated now more than ever before. Because of blogs and Facebook, etc., readers are increasingly happy with reading about nothing. But I want something I can read twice or six times, and my second time through "Knockout" there was nothing left to find. DAVID VANN'S latest novel is "Aquarium." There are several panty stealers and stalkers, and a burning man in the road.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [May 10, 2016]
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this collection of fiercely funny and often satirical portraits, Jodzio (If You Lived Here You'd Already Be Home) focuses on the quirkiness of everyday people. These stories share a casual and comic tone, and many feature an unnamed narrator. In "Ackerman Is Selling His Sex Chair for Ten Bucks," the protagonist attends a neighbor's garage sale. The narrator reveals that he was having an affair with Ackerman's recently deceased wife, Elaine, and attends the garage sale in hopes of getting a glimpse at the life he could have had. "The Piss Test Place" revolves around a guy who gets a job at a drug-testing center after his metal band breaks up. While dealing with a ruined engagement and his ailing father, the narrator of "Our Mom and Pop Opium Den" has his family business threatened when a large opium chain opens on the same street (though set in America, the exact locations are left vague). The premise of each story is clearly defined in its title and opening paragraphs, but these narratives avoid predictability. In the title story, a man learns how to incapacitate living creatures by pinching their necks, a skill he learned during his time at a drug-rehabilitation facility. Later, while trying to adjust to life at home with his father, a friend recruits him to steal and sell a tiger. Each sentence conveys the notion that anything could happen, and most of the stories lead to purposeful but surprising conclusions. Jodzio's clean, quick, biting prose demonstrates a firm grasp of storytelling. He grounds the oddness of each narrative with believable human interactions: poignant moments where characters share meaningful connections. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A breakout book of short stories that packs a wicked punch. This is Jodzio's third story collection (If You Lived Here You'd Already Be Home, 2010, etc.). A Jodzio story's lineage is by way of George Saunders, Kelly Link, and Mark Leyner. His roots are in flash fiction, and he has learned how to put a little more meat on those bones. These 17 well-crafted tales, most first person, most short, are tight, funny, and bizarreeach is its own absurd world made real. The characters are misfits and losers who can't seem to get a break but remain hopeful dreamers. In the title story, two guys just post-rehab have discovered how to knock out animals using a Spock-like pinch behind the neck. When they try to do it on a neighbor's tiger in order to sell it for drug money, things go terribly wrong. "The Indoor Baby" is about an agoraphobic woman who's convinced that the "womb is the most indoorsy organ of all" and won't let her baby go outside. A son who runs his mom and pop's opium den must compete with a brand-new big-box Opium Depot store across the street. In "Ackerman Is Selling His Sex Chair for Ten Bucks," the narrator misses Ackerman's wife so much he has to buy something she once sat in. In "Duplex," the longest story, a young man rents a room from Jayhole, a retired bounty hunter, whose previous roommate killed himself because he couldn't take Jayhole's perverse sense of humor. Some stories are too slight and a bit dull, but the others are sharp, shiny, and dangerous. Dark, grim, and sardonically funny, Jodzio's stories stick like gum to the side of your brain and won't shake loose. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
