The Sabotage Cafe

May 7, 2007
A
fter examining the lives of children in his well-received short story collection, Short People
, Furst explores the pains and perils of adolescence in this first novel, with mixed results. Rebellious Cheryl, 15, slips into her Doc Martens one day and runs away from her stifling suburban home. She ends up squatting with a group of dead-end anarchist kids in a seedy section of downtown Minneapolis: music, drugs and sex follow. Furst strives diligently to convey the angst and confusion that go along with a conscientious young person growing up in an avaricious late-stage capitalist environment (the book's pretty explicit about that). There are headlong lyrical passages, but they sometimes collapse in melodrama: “It was as though, drilling toward his pain, she'd tapped her own, and now they were bleeding together.” Some of the infelicities may be intentional, however, and part of the book's unconventional conceit: Cheryl's mother, who narrates, has been diagnosed with “Schizotypal Personality Disorder” and seems to have a clairvoyance that allows her to monitor and chronicle her daughter's exploits, which are similar to what she went through around that age. Furst eventually clarifies and reconciles these issues in the end, but the payoff isn't as powerful, or as unexpected, as it needs to be.

June 1, 2007
By the author of an acclaimed story collection, "Small People", this debut novel involves the psychotic Julia and her teenage daughter, Cheryl, who runs away from suburban Minneapolis to live an uncertain life on the streets in the punk world of the 1980s. Cheryl lives in a condemned building, formerly called the Sabotage Café , where Julia hung out in the 1960s. Cheryl befriends a beggar named Jarod and his dog (named Dog) before joining Trent, who becomes her boyfriend, and a gang of hapless teenagers who beg and steal to buy drugs and alcohol. After Dog is brutally killed by Trent and his gang, Cheryl sets fire to their empty building and returns in desperation to Jarod. Skillfully and ingeniously written, this gripping account presents the devastating effect of a mother's emotional instability on her child. The twist at the end clarifies the exaggerated events in Cheryl's life but does not soften the graphic cruelty and squalor of teenagers living on the streets. Highly recommended but not for the squeamish.David A. Beronä , Plymouth State Univ., NH

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