420 Characters

September 19, 2011
By turns cheeky and cherubic, these 420-character shorts from the author’s Facebook page encapsulate in pithy form entire plotlines or character studies. Known largely as an illustrator featuring surrealist juxtapositions and startling cut-outs (Beach’s artwork appears here intermittently), Beach injects these tidy depictions with a similar boundless, mischievous imagination. “Zuma Pedley hailed from Lubbock, came to LA in ‘02 with his guitar, some songs, and an ugly dog”; “‘Don’t drink the tap water,’ she said with science in her eyes.” Unforced, thoughtful, occasionally profound, these might be the beginning of story ideas, such as “I sit in this room in the castle’s turret and fashion animals out of twigs and string,” or a snippet of history: “Vera ‘Wooly’ Lamb dressed like a man, and could outcuss, outshoot, and outdrink anyone in pants, Little Rock, 1922.” They might even be a kind of rune for reflection, such as “I keep my friends in a box under the bed, categorized and separated, secured by blue rubber bands that originally held broccoli.” Or an exotic love story: “I cork her navel with a ruby, bring her saffron and pomegranates.” What they are, if not gimmicky, is sly, surprising, playful, puzzling—and great fun.

October 15, 2011
Eclectic, vivid moments in time, delivered in the exacting limits of social media. Well, this is one hell of a way to mitigate the boredom of those monotonous Facebook updates. Celebrated illustrator Beach, better known for designing album covers for Weird Al Yankovich and The Flying Burrito Brothers, here turns his uncommon sensibilities to the written word, composing a small fortune in vignettes that originally appeared as Facebook updates. There are a few recurring themes and characters, but most stories exist as such gems on their own that it's easy to gobble them up like popcorn. An early standout finds an elderly narrator staring at a picture he (or she) painted long ago, struggling to excavate its original meaning. A miner reflects on the closing of his workplace for 27 years: "Where am I going to go every day, what am I going to do with all that sunshine?" Some are completely nonsensical: "I don't have to listen. I own the ocean," is just a couplet in one preposterous paragraph. Others are simply, evilly dark: "My hands are bound, and I am pressed against the spare tire. If there was a God, I would believe in him. The lid comes down and I am in darkness. It smells of oil and gas and rubber." Certainly some will argue that this is just another folly of the blogs-to-books phenomenon exemplified by Stuff White People Like and other humorous texts, but this book has more in common with bold, impulsive flash fiction than it does with the featherweight detritus of the Internet. These moments, even if not all of them are universal to the human experience, are theatrical, instantly recognizable and slide off the tongue with the cacophony of a Tom Waits riff. Don't miss the bonus section on the author's website, where celebrity narrators Ian McShane, Dave Alvin and Jeff Bridges lend their unique cadences to Beach's miniature snapshots. An adroit experiment that marries linguistic restraint to literary cool.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

August 1, 2011

There are some books you like, others that you don't, and that rare book that you like in spite of yourself. This book fits into the latter category. Originally posted as a series of status updates on Beach's Facebook page (which limits each entry to no more than 420 characters), these stories might easily be read as little more than a novelty, the first cousin of the Twitter novel or those books that appropriate the abbreviated language of texting. But it takes the reader only a few pages to realize that Beach's book is more than simple experimentation. The language is sharp and driven by a droll wit that attracts and repels, with results both endearing and estranging. Given Beach's background as an illustrator, it should come as no surprise that many of these pieces have an almost cinematic immediacy to them, and the unexpected, almost surrealistic twists make this a sharp and wonderfully funny debut. VERDICT Like a tasting menu, these stories add up to something wonderful. Readers of short fiction will love this one.--Chris Pusateri, Jefferson Cty. P.L., Lakewood, CO

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2011
No, there aren't 420 characters, as in men, women, and children, in artist Beach's first book of fiction. That is the number of letters, spaces, and punctuation marks allowed in Facebook status updates, a form he uses to striking effect in 160-plus short-short stories. Renowned for his intricate collages, a suite of which are reproduced here in full color, Beach brings his great gift for unexpected juxtapositions to his brief yet richly evocative and crisply visualized tales. Linked by reappearing characters, these microdramas of malaise and desire have an outlaw element, wry humor, frissons of creepiness, and bursts of beauty. Drifting in time, Beach's potent little stories tell of love and family gone horribly wrong, drunkenness and desperation, dreams and wonder. A man is trapped between a swarm of bees and a bear. A gal rides a horse in a hiked-up wedding gown. A boy fantasizes about heroism and love as he leaps from a high trestle into a river. Thousands of starlings pulled the locomotive through the sky. Beach's concentrated improvisations are emotive, disarming, and resplendent.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)