Customer Reviews

Things We Didn't See Coming

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This collection of short stories was released in February and is definitely going to get some big press. The author, Steven Amsterdam, is a native New Yorker who moved to Australia in 2003. He is youngish and it comes through in the feel of these stories: one unlike any others I can remember. I've read many collections before, but often it seems they are told by an older `voice', usually an introspective older man or woman. In the case of my beloved Tim Winton short stories, the voice changes throughout to different people and different age ranges. These however have a snarky young voice, a male narrator, and it spins things around quite a bit as the topics are different as well. The pace is fast and the humor is biting. Amsterdam makes visual pictures of a future Australia that are brutal and painful and heartbreaking.

In "The Theft That Got Me Here", a young man who lives with his grandparents, one of whom is suffering from Alzheimer's, is greeted with a surprise:

...Grandma opens the door and she's fine. She's standing on her own, not holding the walls, nothing. She's been off the map for six years and now she's looking at me like a professor. Not speedy and scared, like she was on the last treatment, but simply there, her old self. And this isn't me on drugs. It's her on drugs.

In "Dry Land", Australia goes through a rain cycle that doesn't end. For years. All that dry, dusty outback becomes a series of lakes, and the rain never stops. People are forced to evacuate, and while they try to hold off, leaving becomes inevitable. The narrator observes that "Despite all the feelings we think we've got for our loved ones and our attachments, when push comes to shove most people figure out how to travel light."

The author blurb on the back states that Amsterdam is a psychiatric nurse as well as an author. I'm certain that his experience in health care has made him more aware of the more subtle layers of fear and anger, those that he exposes so well in this collection. It's not in the big details that he reveals them, but in the little details, the little inflections and asides. An unusual collection that is a fun read from someone we're going to hear good things about!

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. While the book is a collection of short stories that could each stand alone, I felt that it read like a novel as the stories, presented in chronological order, follow the life of one particular character through his experiences in a post-apocalypse world. The short story format allows the author to envision a host of different disaster scenarios plaguing the world, from climate change to a government run amok to a terrifying virus, thus making this book very different from other books that try to describe living and surviving in a post-apocalypse future. All in all, a very interesting read.

Somewhere in the landscape between Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" and David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas", lies Steven Amsterdam's "Things We Didn't See Coming". With spare, succinct writing, Amsterdam creates a full, if dyspeptic world, though not nearly as brutal as McCarthy's. The book is made up of chapters that could each be a short story, but nevertheless work as a novel. Plenty there to chew on and then it sticks to your ribs.

Except for the great Mad Max movies, films and books about post-apocalyptic, dystopias aren't normally my cup of tea. I'd prefer to read about how characters deal with familiar problems in recognizable situations not too far removed from my own. But I can say I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of linked stories about a world that's come apart after a Y2K meltdown.

Some reviews have noted the fact that the book doesn't have a table of contents indicates the author intends these stories to be more a novel than a collection. They do feature the same unnamed narrator, dealing with different crises at various stages of his life. But the novel or collection debate quickly becomes irrelevant because it's such a a great read.

My joy in the book resulted from how well the relationships are portrayed. Right from the outset you feel sympathy for the young boy who's trying to stand by his worrywart father while his mother, who he prefers to call by her first name instead of "Mom," has had about all she can take of her husband's fears, which surprisingly prove entirely too well-founded. After the first story, in the dystopian world the family falls apart - each going their separate ways.

Unlike a science fiction novel, this book doesn't expend a lot of energy explaining the exact details of this new world, such as the oppressive government that runs it or how the old world order broke down, or even the exact location of where the events take place. I assume it starts off in the United States because the family is listening on the radio to a New Year's celebration from London before the cataclysmic midnight hour has hit for them. There are references to socialistic-sounding governments, and Barricades that go up and down between the cities and rural areas. But most of the geographic references are only the most general - the North, the South, the West, the Coast, the desert. The plagues - floods, viruses, food shroateges, explosions - are specific, with great portrayals of their impact on the people left behind. Interestingly, while early on they do not seem to have electricity, in later stories they have computers. The one interesting twist is that while the society seems fairly backward without a lot of modern, pre Y2K amenities, the one major advance is in medicine and the development of drugs that can cure just about anything.

What's great is that the narrator has tremendous survival instincts, but he's no Hollywood-esque macho hero. He's scrawny, out-of-shape, at times embittered, and a kind of doormat for his main love - Margo, who shows up in three of the stories. It's interesting to see his constantly shifting perspective from a loyal-to-his dad pre-teen, to a troublesome teenager, to a cynical twentysomething, to an idealistic young man, and then when he's at forty and very sick, looking for some reconciliation in his life. He's a worthy companion over the course of his travails. And there's a rather awe-inspiring inventiveness at work in the creation of all the new and varied tribulations he has to endure in this beleaguered world.

The nine stories/chapters in the book are:


1. What We Know Now - 22 pp - A man believes the world's excessive "interdependence" will come crashing down with the advent of Y2K, so he packs up provisions from his apartment and takes his wife and son on New Year's Eve 1999 to his in-laws' country house. His wife and in-laws are skeptics and concerned about his excessive worrying, but they still play along. The only one on his side is his young son, the narrator.

2. The Theft That Got Me Here - 23 pp - The narrator is now 17. Whatever meltdown must have occurred after Y2K, the world is now socialist and, at least in the countryside, heavily Christian. People were forced to choose between living in a rural or an urban environment. The former suburbs are now a wasteland and there's a guarded barricade separating the city/country divide. The protagonist, after getting into some trouble, is asked to stay with his grandparents in their now urban home. But they want to sneak to back to the country. The grandmother has been suffering from Alzheimers' but in a lucid moment, she manages to persuade the barricade guards to let the three of them through. As city-folk driving a small, not big, car, they're immediately recognized as not being "rurals" and they're attacked with a bombardment of the abundant food the rurals have. Joining their grandson's new lawlessness, the grandparents partner with him to steal water and a big car and consider staying in the country, on the lam, permanently.

3. Dry Land - 23 pp - The country lands are overtaken with floods. The narrator, now 23, works for the government in Land Management, forcing people to leave their homes before the waters rise above them. He does his job, without trying to get too caught up in the plight of the displaced. After years of surviving under harsh conditions, he always has his eyes out for anything left behind that's worth stealing. But when he encounters a 46-year-old woman and her 17-year-old daughter, squatting in a luxurious home, he may be in for much more than he bargained for.

4. Cake Walk - 21 pp - At 25, the narrator is now involved with a woman, Margo. A viral plague has killed off most of the population and he and Margo are camped out in the desert. He is concerned that over the course of their relationship Margo often disappears for days - sometime to go off on her own, other times to be with other men. When he encounters a man with the plague - and has to stay high in a tree to avoid getting infected -- he vows to change his ways and stop relying on petty thievery to get by. But Margo, whom he met when they were both in the act of committing a robbery, may have other ideas.

5. Uses for Vinegar - 19 pp - At age 30, the narrator is working for the government again, giving out grants for living expenses to the residents of an oil-drilling town that burned down after an explosion. Since the events of the last story, Margo left him for another man. She has schemed her way, with her new lover, into the camp to try get some of the money the narrator's doling out. She swears she wants to reunite with him. He wants her back, but isn't sure if she means it or is just up to more of her scheming swindles. (The title comes from all the varied ways ways vinegar can be used -- to lessen the stench of the fire, get rid of her lice, and to ward off stinging bugs.)

6. The Forest for the Trees - 26 pp - Margo and the narrator, who is now age 33, are living of a life of luxury - staying in fancy converted hotels, getting lots of access to food and all the new fancy, designer drugs they could want because they have teamed up with a wild and powerful female senator, Juliet. It's an age of free, open and often bizarre sex and marriage contracts called "practical unions" that must be renewed every 18 months. The narrator and Margo's union is up for renewal and to gain some stability for him and Margo, the narrator is hoping that Juliet will enter a three-way practical union with them. A bi-sexual who mostly preferred women in the past, Juliet was actually able to advance her political standing by having open sex with the narrator in sex clubs. So he's hoping that she'll see this three-way union as a way to further enhance her political career.

7. Predisposed - 25 pp - The narrator is 36 now charged with taking care of a boy, the only child in the relatively safe and secured community they're living in. The viral plague left most men, including the narrator, sterile. The boy, Jeph, as one of the few hopes for the future of the community run by elders. Spoiled and obnoxious, Jeph takes advantage of his exalted status. By stealing some of the narrator's hair when he was sleeping, Jeph was able to get a rundown of the narrator's current medical status, which reveals he has the onset of several illnesses, including skin cancer. The boy wants to break away from the community for an adventure, and the narrator agrees, hoping he can gain access to the new, advanced drugs that could treat his illnesses. Their break-out becomes a difficult, trying journey.

8. The Profit Motive - 22 pp - After a period of extended violence, there is a truce, and the new government is looking to recruit workers who don't have too checkered a past. The narrator is one of the lucky few who have an opportunity to interview for a job. But the interview goes a bit weirdly, with the interviewer testing how he'll respond to temptations. The narrator knows everything is being monitored and he keeps trying to second guess what the appropriate response should be to all the tests they put him under.

9. Best Medicine - 16 pp - The narrator at age 40 is leading an adventure tour for people with terminal illnesses. There is a great line about how these people are "hungry for everything, like last-minute shoppers, trying to take home the whole store." He decides to take them to a shaman, who might provide traditional remedies to their illnesses. Without giving too much away, here's where the novel-like aspects of the book bear full fruit.

Things We Didn't See Coming is the story of one young boy, 9 years old on the eve of the millennium, and his subsequent journey through a world irrevocably changed by Y2K. As the world falls slowly apart and suffers through drought, flood, fire and disease, he teeters on the fence of petty crime and respectable government employment and experiences all facets of the evolution of human civilization.

The writing is beautifully stark, poetic and chilling, and the story twists and turns along with his fortunes and falls. This is not a book for the faint-hearted; there are few redeeming moments and little happiness in his journey through his teenage years and adulthood. The characters are flawed, but fit completely in the story - alliances are easily broken and every person is focused on their own and their families survival.

I enjoyed Things We Didn't See Coming immensely - Mr. Amsterdam's writing reminded me of Tim Winton or Ian McEwan and I was more than surprised to learn Things We Didn't See Coming is his debut novel. I look forward to reading more of his work in the very near future.