Human Oddities: Stories [Paperback]

Noria Jablonski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 30, 2005

In Human Oddities, by newcomer Noria Jablonski, we meet Siamese twins, newly separated, drag queens, and seedy hospital orderlies. A corpse washed up on the beach, cancer diagnoses, and tummy tuck operations all intrude abruptly into characters’ lives; sadness is interrupted by hilarity. Jablonski’s characters cope with the drama of the body and what it means, what it feels like, to be marked as different.

If Ludwig Wittgenstein’s belief that “the human body is the best picture of the human soul” is right, what does that say about the diseased body, the less-than-perfect body? Without flinching, Noria Jablonski shows us the passions and longings of her characters, made more vivid by their bodies in doubt, on hold, in transit. Her earthy, pungent characters and deadpan narrative style leave their mark on a reader.

With the blunt, gritty impact of a Diane Arbus photograph, these are stories of lives not commonly recorded, and the characters—often physically unique, some might say monstrous—are delivered with compassion, dignity, and a hopeful, therapeutic humor. Brought to light, they deepen our understanding of the human condition, revealing us to ourselves.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her stark, startling first book, Jablonski gestures toward the abject and the sublime. These nine stories hinge on the damaged contemporary body;battered, conjoined, disfigured by plastic surgery, abandoned, intoxicated, in drag or rendered uninhabitable by obesity, desire or deformity. With freak-show imagery tempered by sympathy, Jablonski conjures outcast protagonists, from the overweight orderly Andy who collects ventriloquist dolls in "Big Guy" to the cancer patient in "Wanting Out," arrested at the Canadian border with pepper spray and prescription drugs while fleeing her disease and her failed marriage. The first three stories follow one family's history, from a woman's obsession with her abusive ex-husband in "Pam Calls Her Mother on Five-Cent Sundays" to the forces that create that situation in "The Good Life." The other stories, at their best with the quiet hope and surreal flotsam of "The Monkey's Paw," wander from raw victimhood in "Big Guy" into histrionic camp and alcoholic relapse in "The End of Everything." Like some of Jablonski's characters, these compelling but overreaching stories sometimes can't bear the weight of their own existence, too elusive and voraciously complex to allow for traction. But the book, by articulating violence, loss, suffering and self, does maintain a powerful voice and forward motion throughout.
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Review

"An exciting debut that rises to the risks it takes." -- Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint (August 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1593760841
• ISBN-13: 978-1593760847
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,945,212 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Our Mothers, Our Hells, October 26, 2005

By 

S. Rush "boyaremyarmstired.com" (California USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Human Oddities: Stories (Paperback)

Human Oddities, Noria Jablonski's short story debut, is teeming with the kind of people your mother warned you about. It's even got some mothers of whom your own mother might not approve. In fact, Part One of the book contains three tales focusing on just such a matriarch. Seen from the viewpoint of the narrator, the Mommy who emerges from Jablonski's pages is narcissistic and neurotic in ways that could shame Joan Crawford. Moreover, her vanity is married to a severe brand of body dysmorphic disorder that pushes her from drugs to cosmetic surgery in ever more desperate bids to alleviate a smidgen of her self-loathing.

While this expos' of common, household dysfunctions is enough to justify the book's title, the more obvious Human Oddities occur in Part II. Here we enter a sea littered with hominid flotsam. "One of Us" features Siamese twins - the second set we meet in the book. "Monkey's Paw" climbs inside the world of an infuriating relationship on the skids and the unrequited devotion that allows it to survive. "Big Guy" examines the kind of faceless, working class stiffs, who consider sex with, well... stiffs. "The End of Everything," the last and most accomplished story in the collection introduces transvestites and murderers.

In this final tale, Jablonski flexes her writer's muscles to add complexity to a life that outsiders might carelessly dismiss with a single epithet. Interestingly, it is here that the mother figure, who has haunted so many of the previous tales in the form of a monstrous and carelessly selfish antagonist, takes shape as the alter ego of the main character himself.

All the stories in the collection exude a quiet desperation examined unflinchingly and with an eye toward everyday details that forces the reader to see a reflection of themselves in those from whom they would most like to avert their gaze. Human Oddities was number three on the bestseller list at Atomic Books in Baltimore, between Playboy Brunettes and 101 Diseases You Don't Want to Get - two more books full of people your mother doesn't want you to meet.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Must Read (esp. for Gaitskill fans!), November 8, 2005

By 

MuffinTop (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Human Oddities: Stories (Paperback)

I never write reviews, but after reading Human Oddities, I felt compelled to tell others how great these stories are. Jablonski's writing is reminiscent of early Mary Gaitskill- raw, honest, and lovingly concerned with the details of life that make most people avert their gaze. But Jablonski is sweeter than Gaitskill, less incisive. Her writing invites you to embrace her characters' psychic and physical deformities in one big group hug.

I loved all the stories. But the conjoined twins in "Pam Calls her Mother on Five-cent Sundays" made me want to cheer, I loved them so much. "The Monkey's Paw" was one of the best renderings I've ever read of the 'magical crush' - that connection you had with someone where it seemed so damn meant-to-be and yet, and yet... I also loved Big Guy, but then I've been known to grieve in really debasing ways too. ;)

I think it's Jablonski's first published book and it has some of the crackliness and self-consciousness that you find in the early work of someone still finding their groove. But still, read this book. It is kind and smart and will touch you in funny places.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars interesting folks, July 6, 2006

By 

Patricia Lounibos - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Human Oddities: Stories (Paperback)

Jablonski is a story weaver to keep and eye on. Her characters are carefully constructed. I thouroughly enjoyed reading this collection. The thread of connection is body image but each story is unique and intriguing. I suppose if one has exhausted the threshold of unusual and interesting folks in their lives then perhaps they might be put off by this book. I relish in newness and oddities of all kinds.