This collection abounds with bad decisions, traumatic events, and ominous conclusions. In an introduction, British writer Stuart Evers observes that \u201cthe lives Meyer depicts are small ones; ones lived in the margins of society.\u201d The story \u201cI\u2019m Still Here!\u201d follows a boxer\u2014\u201ca Black Dutchman from Rotterdam with a mashed-up face\u201d\u2014as he endures existential doubt and racist abuse. It\u2019s a vision of the sport stripped of all glamour: \u201cHe was what they called a \u2018journeyman\u2019\u2014they brought him in so that he\u2019d lose.\u201d The protagonist of \u201cCarriage 29,\u201d meanwhile, wakes up on board a train with little sense of what he\u2019s doing there. Some of his own actions leave him baffled; at one point he wonders, \u201cWhy would a veteran wine rep like me ever drink this plonk?\u201d Humans aren\u2019t the only creatures in trouble in these stories; two of the most memorable\u2014\u201cOf Dogs and Horses\u201d and \u201cThe Old Man Buries His Beasts\u201d\u2014focus on the fraught relationship between humans and their pets. The former is particularly unnerving, as it begins with the protagonist being reminded of his dog\u2019s mortality only for Meyer to reveal more about the depth of the bond between man and beast, laying the groundwork for a truly haunting final image. Meyer isn\u2019t working in a wholly realistic mode throughout; there\u2019s also the grim delirium of \u201cThe Short Happy Life of Johannes Vettermann,\u201d which opens with a vision of a man with the head of a dog. And a reference early in the book to \u201cone of those disturbing street lamps, one of those lamps that never stop annoying you\u201d hints at an absurdist edge.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This collection abounds with bad decisions, traumatic events, and ominous conclusions. In an introduction, British writer Stuart Evers observes that \u201cthe lives Meyer depicts are small ones; ones lived in the margins of society.\u201d The story \u201cI\u2019m Still Here!\u201d follows a boxer\u2014\u201ca Black Dutchman from Rotterdam with a mashed-up face\u201d\u2014as he endures existential doubt and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":3460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}