Black Vodka

April 21, 2014
Levy, author of the Booker-shortlisted Swimming Home, proves with this collection that her precision and unusual imagination are well suited to the short story form. The 10 spare stories included here explore the desire for a change in identity, in oneself and in others. In “Cave Girl,” the narrator’s sister undergoes what she refers to as a sex change, but instead of being surgically transformed into a man, she merely receives a cosmetic makeover to become “another kind of woman”—one who is more overtly feminine. In “Stardust Nation,” one man appropriates another’s memory of childhood trauma. Frequently, both personal and national identities are in play, as in “Vienna,” where a man dubs his aloof lover “middle Europe,” or when, in “Shining a Light,” a British woman, separated from her luggage in Prague, is adopted by an amiable group of Serbian expats. In the particularly strong title story, an ad executive with a hunchback perceptively notes that his date, an archaeologist, is more interested in him as a specimen than as a lover. The closing story, “A Better Way to Live,” offers a sense of hope after the downbeat preceding entries, as two people, both orphaned as children, find a new home with each other. Levy’s talent is evident throughout—though the stories themselves can be unsettling, their evocative language invites the reader to settle in.

Starred review from April 15, 2014
This collection of ten very short stories by Levy (short-listed for the Man Booker Prize for her story collection, "Swimming Home") takes place in familiar European cities--London, Dublin, Vienna, Prague, and Barcelona--and features characters who are either deformed, displaced, or deranged. Deformed, as in the title story, "Black Vodka," in which a successful ad executive with a congenital hump on his back meets an attractive archaeologist who takes a more than scientific interest in him. Displaced, as in the story, "Shining a Light," in which a young woman traveling to Prague loses her luggage and is helped out by a group of Serbian refugees who have lost everything. Deranged, as in "Stardust Nation," another story about ad men, in which Nick, suffering a mental breakdown, assumes the identity of his boss and his boss's shocking, trauma-filled past. VERDICT Levy provides fragmentary glimpses into the fascinating lives of people at odds with their surroundings and profoundly disturbed by their previous experiences. Edgy, unsettling, and intoxicating.--Barbara Love, formerly with Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.

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