Thirst

June 1, 1998
Kalfus veers between whimsical postmodern playfulness and a darker realism in the 14 stories of his skilled, versatile first collection. He demonstrates a sophisticated comic flair, best seen in "The Joy and Melancholy Baseball Trivia Quiz," which describes a number of entirely fictional baseball records. Sometimes, however, Kalfus's whimsy gets the best of him, as in "Invisible Malls," a reworking of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, an extended literary joke that wears thin. At the other extreme, some of his forays into more conventional fiction such as "Rope Bridge," about a man's desire for a friend of his wife's--are a bit pedestrian. Kalfus is most successful when he mixes his different approaches into the original sort of magic realism he creates in the title tale, which concerns an erotically charged encounter between a virginal Irish au pair, Nula, and a Moroccan student, Henri Tatahouine, in Paris. The hallucinatory quality of Henri's account of his life leaves Nula emotionally blistered, as though she had been in the Sahara. The comic, horrifying "Cats in Space," which tells the tale of a group of kids who use helium balloons to launch a kitten into the air, is similarly effective. Though uneven, Kalfus's collection is ambitious and daring, with smart, fluid prose and an abundance of surprises.

May 15, 1998
Kalfus's first work of fiction, this collection of 14 tales is an interesting mix of settings, characters, and themes. In "Bouquet," we meet a young Irish au pair who comes face-to-face with her sexuality in a science museum in Paris. Then in the title story, she meets a young Moroccan who explains what it is like to be truly thirsty and exposes her to a world that she has never known. There is a story about a man living a double life-or is he? In "Rope Bridge," a husband, a wife, and their son go to New Hampshire to visit the wife's college roommate, only to have the husband constantly think about having sex with the friend. In the longest story, we meet a foreign officer and his American wife as they face the poverty and hopelessness of his home country in the form of a destitute family and their sick child. The other stories cover such varied ground as Kubla Khan and shopping malls, a young prisoner looking for a suit for court, a high school student's trip to Bulgaria, and a surreal baseball league. Well written and very moving, these stories explore the common themes of love, family, duty, and class in a fresh and open manner so that one comes away with a new perspective on age-old questions. Recommended for all fiction collections.--Robin Nesbitt, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., OH

May 1, 1998
The 14 stories in this collection are stylistically wide-ranging, buoyed by witty narrators, diverse protagonists, and enticing settings: the locales range from New York, to Paris, to a jungle in Southeast Asia, to suburban Long Island. They engage the reader's attention and imagination from start to finish. In the title story, a Moroccan student, Henri, persuades an Irish au pair, Nula, to join him for a drink in a Parisian cafeby explaining to her in vivid detail the consequences of life in an arid country. In another story, "Night and Day You Are the One," a contented yuppie's double life--completely separate realities--in New York City falls apart when the metaphysical rules he had come to accept prove flexible and pesky. "Invisible Malls" is an outright paean to Italo Calvino's novel "Invisible Cities," only this time Marco Polo tells Kublai Khan of the great shopping malls he has visited. At once fantastic, absurd, and satirical, "Thirst" is a perverse commentary on and comical prediction of U.S. culture. ((Reviewed May 1, 1998))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1998, American Library Association.)