SHORT REPORT: LAKE OF THE DEAD

"The boy, however, hears. He can't stand the voices of the cuttlefish, and so he kills them. Hundreds each day. Even when he crushes them, even when the cuttlefish are in the belly of a canary, he hears them, puckering."
—page 64, "Cuttlefish," Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead by Alan DeNiro

Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead is a very smart collection of short stories. I was lead to it by stumbling upon The Written Nerd blog, which linked to the Litblog Co-op, whose collective membership's recommended the book as their spring 2007 Read This! choice. Based upon what I read there, I picked up a copy of the book, and am very glad I did.

I have read the following stories, so far:

*"Our Byzantium"—One world, one time, one empire crashing into another, or perhaps crashing into a relationship, or perhaps two relationships, or perhaps all of the above. "We, all of us, are mosaics of venom and balms." (page 14)

*"Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead"—This is a college entrance essay from a youth in the suburb of Suddenly in a future Pennsylvania. He starts dating one of the "deaders" who live in the parking garage island in the nearby lake. He footnotes his essay. Simultaneously humorous and sad.

*"If I Leap"—A man who leaps off of buildings to divine disasters meets his spectator girlfriend. He bleeds the sky. Will she follow in his footsteps? Can she?

*"The Fourth"—My favorite story of those I have read. It is an effective, over-the-top satire of homeland security, surveillance, and the bureacritization of the government. It reminds me of David Sedaris's "Christmas Means Giving" and George Saunders's "In Persuasion Nation" in tone, although I think it works even better than those two stories.

*"The Centaur"—A weird tale of war and death. The reference to the mythological creature reminds me of Karen Russell's use of the Minotaur in "Children's Reminiscences of the Westward Migration." The Centaur and the Minotaur in both stories are displaced from Greek mythology, only to find themselves in an America past, and in unfamiliar roles.

*"Cuttlefish"—A strange little tale about the small things of creation and madness. I kept looking over at my two cockatiels as they played in their cage, next to their cuttlefish "chew." I could almost hear it talking to me.

This book has me hooked. I must continue to read.