Recently I was in the mood to read a book that was uncanny, insightful, thrilling, beautiful, able to make me write better blog posts and, in a pinch, act as a meal replacement. Reasoning that if such a powerful book existed, I’d either have heard about it or it would be very new, I perused the new book shelf at the Columbia Public Library. In the sort of serendipitous moment that usually only occurs in telenovelas or upscale puppet shows, I noticed, while retrieving some dropped pudding, that my pudding had landed nearest a book with a blurb reading: “Uncanny, insightful, thrilling, beautiful… my favorite book by one of America’s great living writers.” Despite saying nothing about its qualifications as a meal replacement or blog-betterer, I figured I’d give the book a shot, plus it was going to take me a little time to get the pudding off of it.
The book, now without even a trace of pudding on it, is called “2 A.M. in Little America.” Ken Kalfus wrote it. Apparently, I should’ve been familiar with him, based on the authors who herald him as a gem of American literature and on the deadpan comic tone of the novel. I’ll consider this further proof that I do not have an encyclopedic knowledge of American fiction or Kens.
The book is narrated by a refugee from America. He escaped the country while a civil war, complete with internment camps and war crimes, raged. Now, with their country in shambles, Americans struggle to find a country that will accept them. And after finding one for a little while, the American refugee will likely find their host country has changed its mind or that their stay was always only meant to be for a little while, and so must repeat the desperate process of finding a new, likely temporary, home. Sounds terrible!
It’s extra terrible when, after years of loneliness, you find someone to share things with, only to watch as they lose their right to stay in the country. Sure your infatuation may have started while you were doing rooftop repairs and you inadvertently caught a glimpse of a showering woman and then advertently lingered to watch for a while even while chastising yourself for doing so and rationalizing reasons why it’s ok to keep lingering and peeping. And also sure the woman you take walks with might not be the same one you spied on, because you have a terrible time distinguishing faces, which makes the novel often more confusing than this paragraph and which leads me to recommend it in part because of the writing and the premise and in part so that someone can explain portions of it to me.
Years after being separated, you think you see her again in your “Little America” enclave (complete with buildings the refugees had decorated to look somewhat like the big box stores in their former country) in an unnamed country. Of course, the face thing makes it tough, at least for the reader, to know who is really there. It isn’t long before a cop has coerced you into being his informant about the American goings-on, and dangerous war criminals are asking you for dangerous favors. Soon, the novel ends with a short, hilarious sentence.
So the book did not make me a better blogsman, nor did it suppress my appetite, but I will agree it was uncanny, insightful, sometimes thrilling and beautiful. I think you will agree that there are no pudding stains on the book. Please read it and answer my questions.
