A Son of the Rock

Reviewed for Interzone issue 231, Nov-Dec, 2010.

This is a collection of fiction plus one letter of “sententious crap” unpublished in Vonnegut’s lifetime. The stories appear to have been written for the most part in the 1950s; one even mentions King Farouk. Sparingly interspersed through the book are Vonnegut’s own illustrations in his naïve style. They too appear of 1950s vintage though their copyright dates are much later.

Throughout, Vonnegut’s tendency to name his characters strikingly is to the fore; Ernest Groper, K Hollomon Weems, Felix Karadubian. Vonnegut’s characteristic dry style is also evident. He seems to have found his voice early. Though he made his name writing SF, before later disclaiming it, most of the tales here are devoid of speculative content.

The two stories that might vaguely be called SF are “Confido” and “The Petrified Ants.” In the first an ear piece designed to make people happy is “a combination of confidant and a household pet” but whispers only the worst of others. I trust Vonnegut was aware of the Latin pun of his title. The second is set in the Erzgebirge mountains in Soviet era Czechoslovakia where some newly uncovered fossils reveal ants once behaved individualistically. The revelation of their change to collectivity is hurried, though, and stretches credibility. The story is fun but too heavy-handed in its allegorisation of Soviet society.

As to the rest of the fiction, “FUBAR” is a gentle but utterly conventional story in which a crabbed bureaucrat begins to awaken to the possibility of a different kind of life when a newly trained young secretary is assigned to him. The 1950s ambience here is revealed by the F in FUBAR standing for “fouled” rather than anything more demotic.

“Shout About it from the Housetops” examines the deleterious consequences of publishing a novel whose characters are based on barely disguised neighbours, friends and the author’s spouse.

The two-part “Ed Luby’s Key Club” deals with Harve Elliot, who, along with his wife, Claire, witnesses a murder by the local gang boss. Both are then accused of it themselves. In the second part Harve alone escapes from custody and attempts to vindicate himself. The story’s conclusion, while worthy, is perhaps a little too complacent.

“A Song for Selma” tells how people’s aspirations can be transformed, for good or ill, by their expectations of themselves as mediated through those of others.

In “Hall of Mirrors” a hypnotist uses his powers to evade the police when they come to investigate the disappearances of his wealthy women clients.

“Hello, Red” is the story of a bitter wandering sailor’s return to his home town to try to claim guardianship of the distinctively flame haired daughter he fathered before his first trip abroad, and of her reaction to him.

“Little Drops of Water” concerns the subtle strategy employed by one former conquest to gain her revenge after being dumped by a confirmed ladies’ man of fixed habits.

In “Look at the Birdie” an encounter in a bar with a disgraced former psychiatrist who insists his wife photographs the narrator leads to a demand that can’t be refused.

“King and Queen of the Universe” has a very well to do teenaged couple in the Depression era on their way home from a party come face to face with the harsher realities of less privileged lives.

“The Good Explainer” is the doctor to whom a man and wife travel from Cincinnati to Chicago in order to have the reasons for their childlessness laid bare.

While all the stories in the book are never less than readable, they do not represent Vonnegut at his best. Among other faults they are too often prefaced by a brief paragraph or two of scene setting which are told to, rather than unfolded for, us and there is a tendency to repetition of such things as job titles.

Recommended to Vonnegut completists but not as an introduction to his work.