Customer Reviews

Stories from the Tube

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Don't buy it for the brilliant story "A Bird Accident," which vividly illustrates what happens when art gets run over-- not once, but a few times-- by commerce; don't buy it for the hilarious and terrifying ministrations of "Dr. Mom," a woman who won't stop until her kids have the very best of EVERYTHING; don't plunk down your cash for an ecstatic, cleansing homage to the blinding whites of "Tide"; no, buy it for yourself because... You're worth it.

The dust jacket blurb contains comparisons to Barthelme, Borges and David Foster Wallace. These are flattering comparisons and are well justified. Sharpe's work does in fact remind one of these masters. That is what the trouble is. These stories would be even more original if these geniuses had not already done the same thing. The ideal reader for Sharpe would be someone who had never read any of them. The technique is to introduce us to perfectly ordinary contemporary Americans (mostly in Manhattan or California) and then have them shock us by doing utterly bizarre or supernatural things. It's a long way from Checkhov, Mansfield, illiam Trevor or Alice Munro, where the action flows from the character. He does better when he keeps his feet on the ground and some of his stories contain sharp observations and brilliant insights. I ordered his novel "The Sleeping Father." Each story is connected in some way to a TV commercial. Not being so fortunate as to own a television set I probably missed some of the references.

This book is great, not only sharp and funny but oddly affecting. The smartness goes somewhere, which is a treat.

Sharpe's stories add life to the flat existence of our culture's strange little filmic sales pitches. His humor is dark and the characters are fully-formed, not like some hack actors, but rather like the folks down the street. One of my favorite books of the year.