Sam the Cat: and Other Stories Paperback – May 29, 2001

This much-acclaimed collection still may be one that average readers (and not book critics) will either love or hate. It's obvious why Klam has won so much critical phrase. He has a very distinct and unique voice. All of the stories are told in the 1st person except for the final story, "European Wedding," which rotates point of view among the bride, groom, and an older man who thinks he's the bride's biological father. All of the narrators in the 1st person stories, and the groom in the final one, are disaffected young men - who have trouble connecting with their partners and the other people in their lives. They may worship their significant other's bodies, but there's little else about their partners that they take joy in.

That may be the problem for some readers - no one's dealing with tragic circumstances here. All the problems are of the navel-gazing variety - young men who can't be happy even though they're dating beautiful women, taking exotic vacations, getting millions of dollars from their father-in-law or getting married on a beautiful French estate. (We should all have such problems!)

If that doesn't bother you, and you're willing to read about the neuroses we all carry around that make it difficult to enjoy the good things life delivers, then you can't help but admire how effectively Klam explores male discontent. As many reviewers have noted he is absolutely fearless in exploring how far our darker sides can take us: a "yes" man whose only escape is beating on his dog, a fiancé who acts out his reservation about his marriage by sleeping with a woman he's repulsed by, a guy who belittles and ridicules his best friend in a wedding rehearsal dinner toast when he should be paying tribute to him.

It's a chronicle of men behaving badly, driven by their angst and ennui. Ironically, the most likeable character here is one the who might have everyone scratching their heads. It's not clear whether the narrator in the opening story, "Sam the Cat," is gay or not gay, but his passion for a guy who has suddenly captured his interest and his willingness to take chances and make a fool of himself in the process demonstrates a drive, ambition and life force that many of the characters in the stories that follow don't possess.

The seven stories in the collection are:

1. Sam the Cat - 26 pp - A story that garnered a lot of attention when it first appeared in The New Yorker. Sam is a ladies' man who becomes obsessed with a guy he first mistakes for a woman. He brings the guy flowers and even puts on make-up, hoping he'll look better for him. It's not clear if Sam is realizing he's gay or is simply bored with his endless and easy conquests of women and is now excited by the opportunity to gain something he's never had - when the risks of failing and making a fool of himself are all still in the cards.

2. Not This - 35 pp - Vince, a man with women troubles, escapes from his New Haven home to spend Labor Day Weekend at his brother's in New Jersey. He's assumed his brother has it all - a good job, a beautiful wife, a nice home by the water. But when he spends more time with them, he discovers the grass isn't so green down in New Jersey - his brother does PR for the legitimate businesses run by a Mafia family and the brother and his wife may not be able to have children. His brother asks Vince if he'll be a sperm donor, which makes it harder to be around the beautiful wife, especially when she's in her bikini. The brother has to remind Vince, "The doctor does the transfer, not you."

3. The Royal Palms - 29 pp - A couple on a Caribbean vacation are struggling to get their marriage back on track. The wife, fearing she's put on too much weight to still be attractive, is no longer interested in sex. They meet another vacationing couple that seem to have it all together - they're fit, attractive, and have interesting careers. They get drawn into their circle only to discover their marriage is in worse shape than their own. The days and interaction with the other lost souls on the island offer some hope of renewal for their marriage.

4. Linda's Daddy's Loaded - 28 pp - A young husband wonders if his wife has lost all her ambition and drive because her rich father - a TV news anchor - has showered them with money. They live an extremely affluent life, but the husband knows something's not quite right with everything coming so easy. When the father - whom they've had very little interaction with comes to visit - the husband's anger at being nothing more than the recipients' of his largesse angers him and he takes it out on their dog. Every problem he encounters - getting sick of his job - is addressed through the father's money and contacts. Even though he knows things were better when they were younger and struggling, the easy road is too hard to turn down.

5. There Should Be a Name for It - 22 pp - A young co-habiting couple very much in love had to deal with getting pregnant. The man wasn't ready and talked his girlfriend into getting an abortion. An argument that erupts while they're preparing a chicken dinner -- with the uncooked chicken feeling like a representation of the unborn baby -- makes it clear how upset the woman still is over what they did. While they remain together, it becomes clear the decision they made will continue to color their relationship.

6. Issues I Dealt With in Therapy - 48 pp - A young man travels with his doctor girlfriend to a lavish resort for the wedding of his good friend. He hardly sees him anymore because his friend has become a big-time wheeler/dealer in the Democratic party during the Clinton Administration. While the narrator still has a small-time job as an activist at a "nonprofit that attacked the military-industrial complex," the narrator can't help but feel jealous that his friend has accomplished so much more than he has, even though he sees the emptiness in his friend's life. The friend's main preoccupation during the weekend is whether Al Gore will helicopter in for the weekend and leave his friends duly impressed with how important and connected he is. The narrator's jealousy reaches a boiling point when he has to give a toast to the friend during the rehearsal dinner. While dealing with all this, the narrator also has to sort through the mixed feelings he has about the doctor he's involved with, whom he hardly ever sees because of the demands of her career.

7. European Wedding - 51 pp - A man flies to France to get married in a house that was in his future mother-in-law's family for centuries. The man has such deep misgivings about the wedding he sleeps with an overweight woman he has a business association with and who repulses him the night before he has to leave for France. Once at the family home in the French countryside, he is surrounded by women - mothers, sisters, cousins. All the men, who were scheduled to arrive later, get stranded in the United States because of a hurricane. The only other man on the premises is an older gentleman who suspects he may by the bride's biological father because he slept with the bride's mother when her husband was dying. Knowing nothing of this, but chasing her own demons, the bride keeps quizzing this man, looking for some tortured history about the house and her mother's family. She half hopes to discover her family might have been Nazi sympathizers, in the strained hope that such a legacy could explain why she is so unhappy. Surrounded by family, neither the bride nor the groom feels ready to take on the big adventure they both have deep reservations about.

I was so disappointed in this book. It was recommended by The Master himself,Stephen King, in the introduction of his book Everything's Eventual. I love, love, love the short story format. Sam the Cat seems disjointed and difficult to read. The story themes seemed almost the same through each short story. Boring. I guess I am just spoiled rotten by Stephen King's writing style. I did read each story and I was not sad when the book was finished. All I could think was "Well, that was wasted time out of my life that I can't get back. " My usual feeling when I finish a good book is much different. I'm usually sad it's over and I want more. I won't be seeking other books by this author.

Love this writing

Half these stories are great. All are intriguing. But to get through them-- I did it quickly-- you need a tolerance for privileged white dudes who can't find happiness no matter where they look.

I couldn't put it down. I laughed so much. I've been giving it to all my friends. It's such a perfect gift because everyone can relate to someone in Matthew's world. I can't wait for his novel. I've even joined his fan club.

I bet this is some publisher's attempted answer to Sex and the City, mansized, but substitute "black" for "women" in these stories, and no house would have touched this book. One of the more revolting moments was when a woman was having an abortion, and the narrator "wanted to shout...get me out of this room before I'm seared and split open, before I develop breasts myself." *Before I develop breasts myself*? I'd have even stayed with the guy's loathing of women if the writing were interesting, but it's not. Really bad use of bookstore space.

The six stories by Klam remind me of a now-nearly forgotten writer from the 1920s, Ring Lardner. In short tales like "The Golden Honeymoon" and "You Know Me, Al," Lardner managed to convey the viewpoint of upper middle class strivers who in first-person narratives let on more about themselves and thier desperation in Middle America than the speakers realized. For Klam, the 1990s, like the 1920s, show bumptious go-getters elbowing aside the sorts who Klam focuses upon here. Five of the six stories are first-person. Other reviewers tell of their highlights.

What I add to the other comments is that, yes, Klam's range is limited, but for a first collection, the stories are more subtle beneath their often self-deprecating gallows humor. Here the men who would've been hustlers on the sales floor in Lardner's time, the Rotarians and the golfers. Now, they are the guys who probably were frat boys at college, on their own a decade or more later, all with "relationship baggage," all in what often are serial partnerships with women who they shy from committing to, for once the (pre-marital, unlike the 20s) honeymoon fades, the meaning of their often cluttered, materialist, and vapid lives hits home and hard. Klam uses metaphor sparingly, taking pains to give what over 200 pages may seem too same a tone, but one that I believe accurately conveys a vocabulary and consciousness of society's ambitious but conflicted latest entrants into the rat race and approaching middle age.

Klam in the last story, "European Honeymoon," strives for multiple characters and a third-person stance that is a bit more clumsy, but tries to make a bigger "statement" than the more attention getting tales like "Sam" and "Issues", as marriage loomos over its characters as well as Alsace's past history and the loss of connection in post-war Europe and America among a family. I look forward to reading more of him, and I hope that he does not burn brightly and flame too quickly like, say, Fitzgerald from the same 20's!