Pound for Pound

Unfortunately, it's been quite a disappointing month for me, reading-wise.  Don't get me wrong, it's been fabulous in terms of buying books, with new novels from Bernard Cornwell and Rachel Joyce coming out, plus Books are My Bag, but that sort of thing is not going to lead to a happily every after for my strained bookshelves.  So, to try to get back on track, I decided to read something short.  It turns out that, at just 88 pages, you can't get much shorter than 'The Tiny Wife' by Andrew Kaufman.

'The Tiny Wife' by
Andrew Kaufman
(The Friday Project, 2013)

'The Tiny Wife' is the story of a very unusual robbery and its consequences.  An unconventional thief with a gun enters a bank one Wednesday afternoon, but he doesn't want money.  Instead, he steals one item of sentimental value from each person in the building before making his escape.  This seems odd enough, but soon strange things start happening to the victims...

Andrew Kaufman's work is certainly an acquired taste.  It's magical, surreal, off-the-wall, creative, fantastical, hypnotic, peculiar and, on the face of it, rather random.  But this writer knows exactly what he's doing.  Even a story as short as this makes you think and look at things a little bit sideways for a while.  The best comparison I can think of is a fairy tale, in which tricks teach lessons and the normal rules simply don't apply.

If you like the sound of this sort of tale of the unexpected, then I would recommend this book and other work by Andrew Kaufman.  I do have one caveat, however.  This isn't really a book.  It's a short story.  In fact, it's not even really a short story.  It's a 88 pages of short story, with illustrations, and 24 pages of 'Born Weird', written by the same author, so it's more like a promo for another book.  I didn't realise this when I picked it up, so would've felt a cheated if I'd paid the full price for it.  No short story is worth £6.99.  A few pounds, definitely, but not the same as a full length novel.  Also, I don't like paying to be advertised to.  Fortunately (or unfortunately for the publishers) and perhaps proving theories suggested in my post about 'All My Friends are Superheroes' right, I found this book for £1 in a discount shop.  While that was too far to the other extreme, it's hard not to wonder whether it wouldn't have ended up there if priced more reasonably in the first place.

All I can say is this; Mr Kaufman, please stop teasing us and publish a book of short stories.  I'd be more than happy to pay full price for that.

Related Posts

'All My Friends Are Superheroes' by Andrew Kaufman
'Fragile Things' by Neil Gaiman