book buzz:empty rooms lonely countries by christian a. dumais

Empty Rooms Lonely Countries by Christian A. Dumais

"There’s no such thing as one story. If we were books, we’d be anthologies. Life isn’t linear enough to allow us the cohesiveness of a novel. We are just little stories made up to look like one, memories with endings that lead to another that lead to another…some sweet, some bitter. Life isn’t a specific genre, so sometimes you may find yourself split up into separate sections in the library. One week you’re a romance, the next you’re all thriller, most weeks you’re just the usual fiction."

This quote from Christian A. Dumais’s short story "Bookends" is the perfect description of his book Empty Rooms Lonely Countries. The 27 stories in this collection -- previously published in the magazines City Style, GUD, Crash Test and others – are personal vignettes of the author’s life that are entertaining as separate, stand-alone stories but are breathtakingly brilliant when combined into an anthology. Each short story included here – some whimsical, some witty, almost all poignant – flows into the next, creating a stream-of-consciousness effect that makes the author’s musings more powerful.

These stories are about love, essentially: the search for love, the pain of lost love, the disillusionment of love gone wrong, the joy and excitement of new love, and nostalgia about past relationships. "Cowboys and Indians" is a funny tale about a guy posing as a S.W.A.T. officer to crash a party, but it’s also about the bonds of friendship and the "I’m Velcro in a world of zippers" frustrations of looking for a date. "The Illusion of Swing" is about a writer writing about swing dancing, at first, and then becomes a bittersweet metaphor about swing being an illusion that keeps people stuck in the past reminiscing over the good ole days instead of breaking new ground and having new experiences.

The narrator of the humorous "Father Groove" performs a friend’s wedding ceremony and then has other guests thinking he’s a priest and calling him "Father" all evening. In addition to exploring the seduction potential of his new identity, "Father" references his parents’ long, solid, loving marriage. In "The Fifth Ocean" our narrator gives a moving wedding toast about his belief in love:

"Here is to Childhood, when all the colors are discovered, all the monsters are possible and Pez candy is the only thing worth fighting for.

Here is to Dreams, where we make up some new colors, all the monsters lurk in the backdrop, and our castles in the sky become worth fighting for.

Here is to Adulthood, when all the colors become gray, all the monsters become our bosses, and our castles fall from the sky.

And then to Love, where all the new colors from the dreams come to life, all the monsters cease to exist, and we discover that the only thing is worth fighting for is the Princess we ask to live in our castles in the sky."

Dumais has great insights into human nature and a cleverly cynical way of expressing those insights: The run-on sentence about an out-of-control life being like a run-on sentence. Striking up a conversation in line for the bathroom at a costume party with a guy dressed as Death and discussing love and death. "Adulthood is another one of those odd myths, like complete happiness or gargoyles."

Despite the third quarter dragging a little bit, I absolutely loved this book. Empty Rooms Lonely Countries is bittersweet and touching, with some really funny bits here and there. There are moments of sagacity and wisdom like I’ve rarely seen before, but it’s oh so sad – heartbreakingly, hauntingly, beautifully so.

Book Buzz: A+