Reviews of Ordinary Genius
Kirkus Reviews
Plainspoken, sharply observed collection from O. Henry Award-winner Averill
(The Slow Air of Ewan Macpherson, 2003, etc.), first in a new series
focused on the nation's heartland. A dozen stories explore the unexpected
moments, surprises, shocks and setbacks of daily life in Kansas, a place where
"late summer has its own rhythm of days, as dawn moves more slowly into the
sky, as corn swells and stiffens in the fields." The author writes of couples
like Harry and Mavis, who while expecting their first child observe a naked
man running with a herd of deer that visits their land some mornings. The
sense of wonder this creates eases Harry's transformation to fatherhood in
some mysterious way. "Topeka Underground" is a midcentury fable about the
artist's place in a conforming society. A white-bearded man and his tiny wife
live in the basement of an unfinished house in a new suburban development.
Despite his father's warnings to stay away, a young boy who lives nearby is
drawn to the older couple by their unkempt lawn and eccentric habits. Once
he discovers the treasures they've created, he realizes how extraordinary
they are. "The Onion and I," another father-son tale, compares the earthiness
of growing onions to the aridity of cyberspace. Some of these pieces are brief:
"A Story as Preface: Running Blind" takes only a page to show a runner teaching
a blind friend, who soon outstrips him; and "The Summer Grandma Was Supposed
to Die" is almost as spare, although this account of a young boy being bitten
by a rattlesnake is marred by an unnecessary last sentence. The most fully
realized story, "During the Twelfth Summer of Elmer D. Peterson," takes up
many of Averill's characteristic elements-asolitary young boy, a rule-setting
father, a grandfatherly figure who fosters rebellion, and a powerful natural
setting-and polishes them to a fine point. At its best, this creates a landscape
at once realistic and fantastic, inhabited by characters whose eccentricities
make them fully human.
Publishers Weekly
Nebraska inaugurates its new Flyover Fiction series, edited by Ron Hansen,
with this slim, elegiac collection by the author of Secrets of the Tsil
Cafe. "Nothing ever happens out nowhere, at the edge of Moscow, Kansas,"
reads the first story's closing line-but of course the preceding pages
belie that, as Moscow births more than its share of preternaturally gifted
musicians and witnesses a few accompanying dramas. "Shopping" is a quick,
devastating look at the thorny relationship between a middle-aged gay man
and his crotchety father, a connection that shifts over the course of a trip
to the grocery store; "Midlin, Kansas, Jump Shot" is a short, poignant investigation
of the effects that grief and guilt have on a high school basketball player.
In "The Bocce Brothers," orphaned 12-year-old twins wager on a game of bocce
with a priest-if they win, he must reveal the name of their father-while in
the poignant "Topeka Underground," a young boy forms an almost wordless bond
with his strange, elderly neighbors. In all these stories, Averill illuminates
the magical in the mundane: just because the rest of the world flies right
over Kansas doesn't mean they're not missing out. Agent, Stephanie von Hirschberg.
(Apr.)
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