Customer Reviews

Pure Slaughter Value: Stories

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I read in New York magazine that Bingham was "probably the best writer about New York living in New York," I had my doubts but after finishing this gloriously disturbing debut I left those doubts in the trash. This is the best collection I've read since The Puglalist at Rest

I loved Robert Bingham's " Lightning on the Sun " ( 5 Stars ), and the title of this book caught my eye, but I was rather dissapointed. The book is a collection of about a dozen short stories. The stories are mostly dark and often center on characters for whom a general malaise and casual indifference to everything is the norm. Several of the characters are young and successful people that are supposedly the " winners " of our world, so their indifference is meant to be more poignant. There is also frequent unpleasant endings as the characters' weakness, be it addiction, stupidity, laziness, leads him/her to disaster.
I choose this book becase I wanted negativism, so I was not dissapointed in the themes. The stories, however, just do not hit that nerve or give one that zing of recognition or discomfort that one wants from a short story. For example, one is about a man who joins his dysfunctional family at a post funeral wake and briefly makes out with his attractive first cousin. Another about a man who secretly visits an old lover while attending an out of town wedding with this finacee. A third about a man who realizes how he looks as he dances on the edge of an affair with an older, soon to be divorced woman. None of these stories really grabbed me. In fact I found that I was the one who was casually indifferent.
My favorite story was the one that gave the anthology its title. It is in fact, not a negative story at all, and is a bit out of place with the others. Perhaps I was expecting too much after reading " Linghtning on the Sun ", but I cannot really recommend this anthology at all.

I dont know why Gerry was raving about Lightning on the Sun but this collection of short stories is much better. It came first too.

I remember Rob Bingham giving me a pre-print corner-store bound copy with a cheap plastic cover for me to preview in 1997. I rolled my eyes and thought: here goes another Salinger wannabe. I read it and it turned out to be unpretentious. I liked Bad Stars a lot. It spoke to me with a bit of John Irving in it for flavor. It wasn't bad. In fact it was good for a first try.

He had misadventures in Cambodia enough to be a small time Tim Page and semi-real William Burroughs but he was just too young and too privilaged to know true desperation. I miss the guy and this is his best work. Can't say the same for what followed.