The Fat Artist by Benjamin Hale

Published by Simon & Schuster on May 17, 2016

The Fat Artist is a collection of stories that (with one exception) range from good to excellent. Starting with excellent:

“If I Had Possession Over Judgment Day” follows a man who is scraping by, working two jobs with a wife and baby and a truck that won’t start, a man who can never get ahead because his bank charges him fees for having no money, a man who wants to kill his wife’s former boyfriend. The story also follows a man who wants to make artistic porn with his teenage niece. Clearly, nothing will ever go well for any of the sharply drawn characters. The story is gritty and funny and infused with the blues.

“The Fat Artist” is about a (fat) artist who has made his body into an art object. He puts himself on display as an ode to consumption. The story is written as an autobiographical meditation on what it means to live one’s art, to crave fame, to personify Oscar Wilde’s observation that all art is useless. The story can be read as an allegory of, or as satirizing, artistic creation, or as a meditation on the meaning of art. Readers who aren’t grossed out by the story should be amused, but I think the story’s best moment is a brief tribute to the life and art of Franz Kafka, whose story “The Hunger Artist” is here turned upside down as self-indulgence replaces self-abnegation.

“The Minus World” is alternately funny and gloomy as it tells of a young man who is trying, without much motivation or success, to get over his drug addiction and make something of himself. His new job -- collecting squid from fishermen for marine biologists at MIT -- gives him a chance to feel both good and bad about himself, another chance to mess up a fresh start. If only life were a video game, he could conquer it. The story has an unfinished feel, but that’s consistent with the young man’s unfinished life.

Three other stories are quite good:

The protagonist in “Leftovers” is good at rationalizing -- his affairs, his drug addicted son, his career advancing the interests of an uncaring corporation -- but isn’t good at compassion. The plot is conventional but the story is very funny in a morbid way.

A Congressman dies in the arms of his long-term BDSM provider in “Venus at Her Mirror.” Rebecca (a/k/a Mistress Delilah) then plans her response the Congressman’s death. The story is interesting, but more a character sketch than a story with a plot.

“Beautiful Boy” is another character sketch. It might also be read as a celebration of New York City drag queens, or to New York City architecture, or to the beatification of celebrities who die violently.

Only one story failed to impress me. In “Don’t Worry, Baby” stoners get stoned and fly on a plane while their baby cries. They are wanted for crimes of protest. The crying baby triggers an epiphany in the mother. If the story had a point, it eluded me.

On the whole, the stories take a bright look at the dark side of life. Benjamin Hale’s prose is creative and energetic. The stories showcase a writer of great promise.

RECOMMENDED