Knockout

January 25, 2016
In this collection of fiercely funny and often satirical portraits, Jodzio (If You Lived Here You’d Already Be Home) focuses on the quirkiness of everyday people. These stories share a casual and comic tone, and many feature an unnamed narrator. In “Ackerman Is Selling His Sex Chair for Ten Bucks,” the protagonist attends a neighbor’s garage sale. The narrator reveals that he was having an affair with Ackerman’s recently deceased wife, Elaine, and attends the garage sale in hopes of getting a glimpse at the life he could have had. “The Piss Test Place” revolves around a guy who gets a job at a drug-testing center after his metal band breaks up. While dealing with a ruined engagement and his ailing father, the narrator of “Our Mom and Pop Opium Den” has his family business threatened when a large opium chain opens on the same street (though set in America, the exact locations are left vague). The premise of each story is clearly defined in its title and opening paragraphs, but these narratives avoid predictability. In the title story, a man learns how to incapacitate living creatures by pinching their necks, a skill he learned during his time at a drug-rehabilitation facility. Later, while trying to adjust to life at home with his father, a friend recruits him to steal and sell a tiger. Each sentence conveys the notion that anything could happen, and most of the stories lead to purposeful but surprising conclusions. Jodzio’s clean, quick, biting prose demonstrates a firm grasp of storytelling. He grounds the oddness of each narrative with believable human interactions: poignant moments where characters share meaningful connections.

January 1, 2016
A breakout book of short stories that packs a wicked punch. This is Jodzio's third story collection (If You Lived Here You'd Already Be Home, 2010, etc.). A Jodzio story's lineage is by way of George Saunders, Kelly Link, and Mark Leyner. His roots are in flash fiction, and he has learned how to put a little more meat on those bones. These 17 well-crafted tales, most first person, most short, are tight, funny, and bizarre--each is its own absurd world made real. The characters are misfits and losers who can't seem to get a break but remain hopeful dreamers. In the title story, two guys just post-rehab have discovered how to knock out animals using a Spock-like pinch behind the neck. When they try to do it on a neighbor's tiger in order to sell it for drug money, things go terribly wrong. "The Indoor Baby" is about an agoraphobic woman who's convinced that the "womb is the most indoorsy organ of all" and won't let her baby go outside. A son who runs his mom and pop's opium den must compete with a brand-new big-box Opium Depot store across the street. In "Ackerman Is Selling His Sex Chair for Ten Bucks," the narrator misses Ackerman's wife so much he has to buy something she once sat in. In "Duplex," the longest story, a young man rents a room from Jayhole, a retired bounty hunter, whose previous roommate killed himself because he couldn't take Jayhole's perverse sense of humor. Some stories are too slight and a bit dull, but the others are sharp, shiny, and dangerous. Dark, grim, and sardonically funny, Jodzio's stories stick like gum to the side of your brain and won't shake loose.

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