Patrick Somerville, "Trouble and the Shadowy Deathblow"

An out of work food scientist learns how to kill with his touch, but he can’t unlearn it.

(from One Story, Vol. 2, Number 10, October, 2003)

This story is pretty effin funny. The real-life absurdity of the existence of spray-on cheese experts is juxtaposed by the other-world absurdity of some regular snobby guy turning into a killing machine overnight. Somerville’s got a knack for including some details (what everybody’s wearing, because the narrator judges people that way) while leaving out others (damn, I wanna know how to do the Shadowy Deathblow! I been poking my co-workers all day). Overarching themes be damned, this story is a wily lil thrillride, a nearly believable tale with no moral. So much fun.
Coulda used an editor though, if you ask me, just to tighten it up a little bit. For instance, it’s hard to imagine a vaccum cleaner which could be pushed into somebody’s shins. That’s just too high. Feet, or ankles, I would say. Also, it’s “Rollie Fingers,” not “Rolly.” Little things. Not important. Sorry I brought it up. Geez.

This story was recommended by reader Ginny Brewer whom I do not know. She actually emailed me a PDF of the story. It was super super nice.
Thus begins Recommendation Week.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>