Customer Reviews

The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories

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Reviewed by Colleen Hollister for Small Spiral Notebook

Steve Almond is a storyteller, and a good one, possessing a distinctively engaging voice and obviously in love with the language he uses. His bestselling Candyfreak has an incredibly rich texture, wrapping the reader in his passions for both words and candy. Almond's newest short story collection The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories does the same (though unfortunately, no chocolate is involved). The stories collected here reestablish his talent for engaging readers and pulling them inescapably in; readers may not know exactly what is happening, but they will be glad nonetheless to have been through such an experience.

The stories are throughout just that - an experience. They are weird but absorbing, at times slightly twisted, and in some cases perhaps not for the faint of heart. But the remarkably original ways in which they capture the fragility and absurdity of life manage to be real, heartfelt, and wholly believable at the same time.

Almond is not afraid to test the boundaries of the unusual - one story has an entire family convinced they have been abducted by aliens, another Lincoln and Frederick Douglass traveling downriver on a flatboat while discussing slavery and life - but his situations, however dramatically different, are never implausible. Once absorbed, the reader does not question - it most likely would never even occur to her to question, so easy it is to get caught up in the action, eagerly anticipating the new twists spinning from Almond's imagination.

Though twists from the normal are abundant, Almond never forgets the human element: the stories are not about the situations but the interrelationships of the people involved. The title story captures the happenings of a bizarre blind date, complete with the ridiculousness that accompanies falling in love; "I Am as I Am" first shocks with the bracing portrayal of an accident at a children's ballgame, and then spins out the nuances of its emotional consequences; in "Wired for Life," a woman develops a strange obsession with the man who fixes her computer; "The Problem of Human Consumption" beautifully relates the delicate relationship of a widowed father with his growing daughter.

Almond achieves the difficult balance between the strange and the entirely normal. The stories are easy to understand and easy to relate to without being at all simplistic, seeming effortless in a way that is definitely hard to create. The language possesses a strength and clarity that makes me certain it could not have been written any better; a blurb on the front cover warns not to quote from the uncorrected proof, otherwise it would be difficult to avoid quoting a fair bit of it. The stories are crystal clear, with well-chosen details, well-chosen words and characters that resound in the reader long after the story has ended. They are emotional without being heavy-handed, descriptive without being crowded, funny while still maintaining their heart. They are also, obviously, difficult to describe while still doing them justice. They would better be absorbed rather than picked apart.

A group of writers together, discussing each others' work, will all invariably end up saying "I wish I wrote this," "I wish I wrote that," "I hate you because your story is true...and because I didn't write it." The stories collected in The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories consistently ring with truisms that would throw strife and envy into writers prone to such things. Writers will certainly start hating Steve Almond soon; this is the mark of a good writer.

I'm normally not a big fan of short stories. I buy anthologies and feel lucky to find one story that doesn't bore me to tears.

So I guess I wasn't too disappointed when I attended a writing conference in New York to find that "The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories" had sold out and all that was left was "Candyfreak." It's hard to be bored by candy.

But I enjoyed reading "Candyfreak," so I tracked down a few of Steve Almond's stories online. Well, OK, several stories. None of which bored me, and a few of which I liked. I felt I owed it to him to buy his book(s).

My personal favorites here were "The Problem of Human Consumption" and "Summer, As In Love." Almond is at his best when writing about star-crossed and otherwise failed love affairs. These stories struck me as more romantic than the ones in his first collection, "My Life In Heavy Metal," which I suspect would have a greater appeal for young men (although I liked "Valentino").

On the lighter side, "The Soul Molecule" was also weirdly enchanting.

I have only a few niggling criticisms. The ending of the title story seemed too dramatic for the story. The main character in "I Am As I Am" seemed too adult in his viewpoint (which may have been intentional). And I won't even go into stallions versus soldering guns.

These were all petty in the scheme of things.

What I really didn't get was "Larsen's Novel." I mean, I (apparently) lead a more sheltered life than Larsen, but from the excerpts I guess his book was about as inspired as my own first endeavor. Is Almond hinting at something here? Like maybe this is why I can't sell my first novel? This is more truth than I'm prepared to handle in my current fragile state.

A book of short stories is like a box of chocolates. No, no, just kidding. But Steve Almond's second collection of short fiction, "The Evil BB Chow and Other Stories" certainly is a delicious treat.

Almond most recently garnered critical acclaim for his non-fiction book, "Candy Freak," a tale of one man's quest to record (and consume) the last independent candy bars in the U.S. While not fiction, the book showcased Almond's gift to mix serious and bust-your-gut funny scenes into one narrative. A talent that has blossomed since his first collection of stories, "My Life in Heavy Metal.," which was more autobiographical, full of self-depreciating humor and well worth a read.

In "The Evil BB Chow," he now uses humor to even better effect, catching the reader off guard with hilarious phrases and insights, making the sum of his scenes equal to more than their parts. He has upped the ante for his characters as well, creating intimate portrayals of everyday life that delve into very difficult situations, with dire consequences.

In the title story, we learn how a smart, savvy woman falls for a schlub, only to regret it. "Appropriate Sex" is the story of a college teacher's flirt with disaster, in the form of a student who isn't "interested in appropriate sex." In my favorite story, "The Soul Molecule," the narrator, Jim, finds himself being initiated into a family of "abductees" over brunch. At the point when the family has laid it all out, and Jim realizes they are not kidding and are waiting for him to accept their truth, he stops and notes, "It was that look you get from any kind of true believer, this mountain of pity sort of wobbling on a pea of doubt."

There are disturbing stories here as well: "I Am As I Am" is about a teenager who accidentally smashes a catcher's head with a bat in pick-up ball game; "The Problem of Human Consumption," in which a widower and his daughter trying to move on, and "Skull," which offers much more than we ever wanted to know about a girl with one eye.

The only sour note for me was the lengthy "Lincoln, Arisen," not so much because it was hard to follow, but more because it didn't seem to fit with the collection. A period piece, albeit with a fantasy slant, and a pattern of surreal dream sequences just knocked me out of "The Evil BB Chow"'s enjoyable universe.

Overall, this is definitely a blue-ribbon book. Almond's style is incredibly pleasing, flowing from the page in a stream of clarity and carrying the reader through both the heartbreakingly sad and the uproariously funny. Almond is the kind of writer who you wish was your friend, so that, maybe over drinks at a bar, he might continue to tell you the stories that wouldn't fit in the book.

"The Evil BB Chow and Other Stories", like all of Steve Almond's writing, is honest, explicit and hefty. Covering themes of unfulfilled longing, deep friendship, physical intimacy, and family ties, the stories in this book are about what connects people and what pulls them apart. The characters range across the cultural landscape of America-Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass are portrayed, as are immigrants, graduate students, the young, the old, the eccentric, the marginal and the upwardly mobile. These characters are morally complex, hungry, flawed and memorable.

I'm also sold on "The Evil BB Chow" because it so clearly pushes the use of language. It is commandingly well-crafted writing. The stories are infused with intensely beautiful visual descriptions; nearly poetry.

This is a deeply satisfying book that continues to reward me after a second and third reading. Strange, gorgeous stuff.

Steve Almond's obsession to satisfy his sweet tooth fueled the intelligence and humor of 2004's "Candyfreak." It's not surprising, then, that the characters inhabiting the dozen stories in "The Evil B.B. Chow" are "freaks," though of a less carb-addicted variety. Instead of chasing after elusive GooGoo Clusters and Owyhee Butter Toffees, "Chow"'s characters attempt to capture and retain love, redemption, and acceptance. Almond's humanity and empathy -- not to mention his sharp, elegant prose (the final paragraph of the title story could've been cribbed from Fitzgerald); his steady pacing; his handling of occasionally shocking (but never gratuitous) sexual material; and his ability to orchestrate surprising-yet-inevitable character reversals -- make this collection sweeter than "Candyfreak" and weightier than his first story collection, "My Life in Heavy Metal."

Razor-sharp humor balances the book's recurrent failed relationships, deaths, feelings of loneliness and acts of deceit, but Almond's more interested in epiphanies and ambiguity than cheap yucks. Plus, Almond demonstrates that the best humor stems from loss, which means that if we're laughing along with Maureen and Marco (from the title story) over the epithets she's assigned her exes -- "Behind the Music" Man, The Incredible Rowing Man, The Sperminator -- our tone is slightly shameful and nervous because we've all labeled our failures similarly, or, worse, we wonder how we've been labeled.

Ultimately, though, Almond's stories have more to do with the ripple effect of isolated moments than with reductionist labels. In one of the collection's more powerful stories, "I Am As I Am," a single swing of a bat at a pick-up baseball game shows how fate and circumstance can shatter a boy's preconceived notions about security, permanence, community, and self. In "The Problem of Human Consumption," a widower and his daughter simultaneously and silently remember a day with the deceased wife/mother, but from very different perspectives. This memory at once explains the father & daughter's distance and their unspoken connection. "Human Consumption" also contains one of the book's many thematically resonant passages:

"These are the mysteries that consume [Paul] as he sits on his daughter's bed with his hands in his lap. They [the mysteries] matter as much as any of the others, the fact that people die for no good reason, that they choose to hate when love becomes unbearable, that a certain part of them, starved of happiness, gives up, shuts down, goes into hiding."

Where there's hiding there's seeking, and plenty of stories are about seeking for things lost long ago -- usually blind love or blissful naiveté. (In Almond's world the two are synonymous.) Though he keeps intrusions to a minimum, a narrator will occasionally note characters caught in a significant moment as it's happening, flash forward and then note both how the characters interpret the present moment from the future and how the moment impacted the arc of their life. This device is a huge risk because it flirts with one of fiction's deadly sins -- sentimentality. In this regard, Almond is like a trapezist who thrills his audience with feats of ever-increasing danger without ever falling, and this is what makes him an artist of distinction rather than just another talent. A line from "Summer, As in Love" shows that risk is where it's at: "...without risk there [is] no danger and...every story, in the end, is about danger."

Equally impressive is Almond's avoidance of contemporary lit's favorite safety net -- irony -- a pose often used by writers too clever for direct emotion and too distrustful of their audience's ability to distinguish sincerity from schmaltz. "The Idea of Michael Jackson's Dick," a story that takes place on the porch of a house in a "neat little southern city, where [three professors had] come to cash in on the emerging field of Cultural Studies," begs for a little ironic nudging and winking. Putting aside how easy it is to goof on MJ, the blend of tabloid rhetoric ("'He's got a dick...I've seen photos'"), factual errors ("Jackson [was]...beyond traditional categories of truth") and academese ("'Michael Jackson has become dependent on his own mortification...what's known as the Fame-Flagellation Nexus'") might lead you to believe that Almond's commenting on how Ph. D's turn their fetishes into careers. Instead, it's a heartbreaking exploration of the fragility of childhood, of how lost innocence can poison adulthood.

Almond provides the necessary details to create a solid impression in your mind, but leaves enough details out so you're forced to invest parts of yourself. Even after closing the book you'll find yourself dis- and reassembling the stories' pieces again and again, constantly revising your own final version. If this isn't the mark of a great book I don't know what is.

Note to those who think they know Steve Almond's work--you don't. At least not until you've read The Evil B.B. Chow. I've known Steve for years, and have been anxiously awaiting the publication of this collection because, excellent as they are, his first two books don't show all the facets of his talent the way this one does. I've always been impressed with Steve's range, and in The Evil B.B. Chow you get the whole picture. "The Soul Molecule" veers toward the realm of speculative fiction with hilarious results; "Larsen's Novel" turns the title character's own bad writing into an art form; "The Problem of Human Consumption" manages to break your heart without ever leaving the confines of a teenage girl's room; and "I Am As I Am?"--Well, I'll let you read it. It may be the best story so far by one of the best story writers out there working today. Unless you've been keeping up with all the stories Steve has published in a whole slew of magazines in the last several years, you don't quite have a sense of how outstanding and varied his fiction is--get this collection and find out.

Almond's best stories to date---isn't it strange to encounter a writer who treats the human condition with such gravitas? A powerful collection.

I've read all of Steve Almond's books, the first one cold, at that (My Life in Heavy Metal), and I was instantly hooked. In The Evil BB Chow, Almond continues to dazzle without being showy, with amazing, poetic economy. Almond's words linger after you've read them, and you will find yourself thinking about certain stories days later. The Evil BB Chow may single-handedly pull the lost art of short story writing back from the abyss. Whether you're a writer yourself, or just like really compelling prose, you can't go wrong following Steve Almond from project to project.

Once upon a time, I ordered whole slew of literary magazines to get an idea of the landscape. I read hundreds of stories, and what I saw impressed me. There are an awful lot of talented writers out there.

But one story in particular stood out from all the rest. It was called "Larsen's Novel," and it achieved something that seemed almost magical to me. It was smart, tender, touching, laugh-out-loud hilarious and, I swear, edifying. I became an instant Steve Almond junkie.

This collection includes "Larsen's Novel" other equally bewitching stories, most notably "Wired for Life" and the title story, "The Evil B.B. Chow." But those are my personal preferences. If you love a writer who bravely digs into the deepest corners of the human psyche, you'll buy this book and choose your own favorites--stories that will find a place inside you and never leave.

Steve Almond's first two books, My Life in Heavy Metal and Candyfreak, are among my favorite things published in the last few years, but I think that The Evil B.B.Chow is the first collection to display the full range of Almond's talent and interest. Yes, there's still plenty of sex to go around (and the Haviland candy factory does make a cameo appearance); but we also visit with purported alien abductees, watch a ten-year-old grapple with a staggering tragedy of (perhaps) his own doing, and even spend some time in the fractured consciousness of Abraham Lincoln.

Steve Almond is both highly prolific and highly accomplished, and he's written stories in many different modes and genres. The common thread, certainly in this collection, is a profound sadness underlying the humor and hijinks. Almond's characters spend a lot of time immersed in sex, pop culture, and the finer points of social engagement--but the secret of these stories is that they're really intense studies of how people use these seemingly shallow pursuits to distract themselves from pain, loneliness, and emptiness. Almond is a writer of tremendous humanity; it takes sucha writer to make a sloshed argument about Michael Jackson into something almost heartbreaking.

The payoff in this book comes in moments like the climax of the story "Wired for Life" (my personal favorite), in which the main character, a sex-starved young professional woman, shares a brief, transcendent moment of empathy and emotional honesty with the middle-aged Chinese-American immigrant repairing her computer. Almond plumbs situations like this--which are also comical, often shocking, sometimes titillating--for all of their sadness, but he also finds the hope in them. In the end, it's hard not to love these characters and their silly, misdirected lives.