The Book of Outcasts by Matt Nagin; An Anthology of The Bizarre, Satiric, Farcical, Uncomfortable, and Outlandish Among Us
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Matt Nagin’s The Book of Outcasts is a strange, satiric, farcical, outlandish, uncomfortable anthology about people who are considered outsiders. Many of them have unusual thoughts, unhealthy obsessions and fixations, are free thinkers in societies that do not have such luxuries, or have severe psychological issues that are potentially destructive or psychopathic. It is a captivating series of short stories that are impossible to get out of the reader’s mind.
The best stories in the anthology are:
“The Flames of Nirvana”- Married couple Jill and Jim are on an Alaskan cruise in an attempt to save their faltering marriage. The two reveal hard truths to each other that have potentially devastating and dangerous consequences.
This is a story that is drenched in ominous foreboding between two characters who are practiced in hiding what they are really thinking or feeling. Jill and Jim’s marriage consists of them saying short snippy things to each other like “How are you?” “Just fine” through clenched teeth and rolled eyes while thinking the worst of one another. They are at the point where they are constantly irritated with each other and instead of imagining a divorce, they think of the reasons that they shouldn’t (For the kids, don’t want to start over, don’t want to be lonely etc.).
Even the moments when they discuss separation, they then take the words back. The reasons for staying together are harmful to them, because they are wallowing in misery and despair and neither has the courage or awareness to actually make that move.
The Alaskan setting is symbolic of their marriage as they see different things. Jim sees desolation and cold, a barren and endless wasteland. Jill sees some beauty like a rainbow reflected in the ice or a pod of whales floating by but they are only temporary and only offer a fleeting bit of pleasure but it does not last leaving her more uncomfortable than ever. They are frozen and paralyzed by their revulsion for each other but indecision about freeing themselves from it.
Jill and Jim’s marriage is lying in wait for a violent act to occur. When it does, it opens the emotions that they had been trying to bury. It seriously states earlier threats that they made then took back. For the first time, they are forced to really see each other as they really are.
“Dandelion For All Eternity”
A brother doesn’t get along with his sister’s boyfriend. He stalks them with his Winchester rifle while they are on a swimming date at a lake.
This story is one of obsession and fixation changing into violence. We aren’t told any of the character’s names and very little about their backgrounds, just what we need for the story.The most important facets are their relationships with each other and the actions that they take as a result of that relationship.
The characters behave like they are in a love triangle. While it is not outright stated, the brother’s affection for his sister is obsessive and potentially incestuous. He constantly questions her appearance and behavior. He wants to possess and shape her into the type of person that he expects and sees the boyfriend as an obstacle to that ownership.
The world around them serves as a commentary to what the characters feel. The lake reflects the sister and the boyfriend’s sexuality as she hesitates to enter until he convinces her that the water is safe. Their swimming becomes less timid and more confident as they move together. At one point, the brother crushes a bluebird in his hand, destroying something fragile and vulnerable like his sister. His willingness to destroy his sister instead of letting her go is revealed at this moment.
‘The boyfriend gives the girl a dandelion as a symbol of their love. A dandelion is thought of as a weed, but it is also an object of great beauty and healing during the spring and summer. The dual nature of the dandelion is seen between the three characters. The brother is the weed, an intrusive presence that crowds the couple and causes destruction by his presence while the boy and girl are the flower, able to heal each other and bring out the beauty that had been inside.
“Valley of Darkness”
Sam Shepherd, a compulsive gambler, is in debt. After repeated efforts to win back the money are gone, he contemplates some violent and self-destructive actions.
This story is a character study of an addict. Sam enters casinos, believing that he has some control over the circumstances that his luck will pan out. Unfortunately, it always ends in money owed, broken trust, and desperate attempts to get out. His whole life is a cycle of wanting to get rich quick, going to a casino or betting track, placing bets, winning some, overconfidence, placing higher bets, losing, becoming frantic, losing it all, confrontations, and a frantic promise to pay them back later when he doesn’t have anything. It’s a cycle that Sam can’t break out of and at this point isn’t sure that he wants to.
Sam’s descent because of his addiction is like a descent into Hell. He becomes more inhuman as he loses the things and people that matter to him in the names of betting, winning, and losing.
He does unconscionable things to his family and to himself that would have been repugnant to him a few days ago. By the end of the story, his addiction is the one that is in control and he has nothing left.
“Nagin Vs. Nagin”
A fictionalized version of author Matt Nagin (we hope), is stalked by his doppelganger who is also named Nagin. Nagin’s Double trashes him on social media, steals his identity, mocks him in fictional accounts, and accuses the original of plagiarism. The conflict intensifies as the two seek to destroy each other’s reputations, jobs, relationships, and lives.
This short story is a combination of Poe’s suspenseful tales of dark selves and doppelgangers combined with the metafictional self-awareness of authors like Dave Eggers and Flann O’Brien. Nagin’s Double doesn’t just resemble Nagin, he is Nagin. Because he is Nagin, he knows his thoughts, process, actions, and can respond accordingly sometimes before the original Nagin acts.
Whether he is an actual person assuming his name, a supernatural entity, an alternate personality, a fictional character, or a paranoid delusion is never answered. What is apparent is the Double is haunting Nagin and Nagin responds by haunting him back. It gets to the point where no one is certain who is the original Nagin, the narrator or the double.
Of course the fact that Nagin himself is the author telling the story of the two Nagins adds another meta layer to the story. He is commenting on what the fictional version of himself is doing just as that version is commenting on another version.
It could be an admission of mental illness, different aspects of his personality, or just having fun with narration. It introduces questions on the nature of reality and fiction and how they can merge so we cannot tell which is which.
“The Visitation”
Seymour Herkimitz tells his nephew an unbelievable story of alien abductions, pop culture spread across galaxies, and cannibalistic creatures from another world.
The dark humor in this story is provided by Seymour’s narration. We are told by his nephew that he used to be a stand up comedian in the Catskills and he always gives a performance. He definitely gives one here with an offbeat situation made even stranger by his after action reporting. To encounter aliens in a UFO would be an unique experience in and of itself, but that the aliens were singing Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow” and planning a trip to FAO Schwartz adds another layer to the oddity.
Whether one can believe him, it can’t be denied that Seymour tells a fascinating story to keep his listener occupied (even though his curious but annoyed nephew really wants to get back to filling out mortgage applications). He does what many storytellers do by taking a specific moment, elaborating with his own thoughts and opinions, going off into a tangent, and returning back to the original point.
For example when Seymour mentions that the aliens took him to a Knicks game, Seymour then explains that advanced aliens populated our planet so our NBA games are just a simulation of what exists in outer space. The games come complete with alien versions of players like Yao Ming and superfans like Spike Lee. (He also points out that the Knicks are “just as lousy an organization in a distant dimension.”) He is the type of person that you could simultaneously listen enraptured while wondering when he is going to get to the point.
The ending is somewhat predictable but it makes a person question how much of Seymour’s story was true and how much was fiction. After all, the details are silly and farcical. He tells the story in a tone that is a combination of a breathless kid describing a movie or a mentally ill person giving into the hallucinations that surround him. It suggests that maybe those among us who are the strangest and most eccentric might be the ones who are often right.
“Song of Doom”
A man is serving a life sentence for the murder of his daughter. He thinks about the murder, his guilt, and how much his life has changed since his incarceration.
The Narrator’s first person point of view is that of someone who is consumed by guilt, fear, paranoia, and negative thoughts that spiral towards insanity. He starts out coherent as he recalls his prestigious and successful life outside and his relationship with his daughter which was once loving but then became conflicted and accusatory after she reached puberty and began dating older men.
His complicated emotions of his daughter’s murder hover between detachment and remorse. He describes the motive and methods of the murder, the struggles before it happened, and the act itself as succinctly and clearly as possible as though he were viewing someone else do it. It is where he is the most understandable.
However, before and after that moment reveal different emotional responses. He chides himself in all caps saying that murdering your own child is the worst thing that a person can do. He goes into enraged rants about the food and other daily things in prison life jumping from one complaint to another. He forgets certain things like who the assailant was that raped him in prison. He is understandably punished not only by the law but by his own mind which is unraveling in his confinement.
“Get Your Implant”
In the future everyone is given brain implants. James Sanderson, who refuses to get one, suffers through a reversal of fortune because of his rebellion.
This Science Fiction story hearkens to a familiar theme in the genre, rebellion vs. conformity.The corporation that created the implant has the United States in a stranglehold and they maintain it through coercion and threats. Technically, they can’t force anyone to take the implant but they make life harder for those who refuse like James. James is deprived of his job, home, money, friends, girlfriend, and family all of the people and things that made him who he was. They end up with a shell of a person because of their regulations.
The creepiest part is we do get into the head of someone who has the implant. They have been completely programmed to think and say what is required. They have no free will and deride those without the implant no matter the reason.
They aren't told to hate them or view them as an enemy but view them with condescending concern as though their refusal was a mental defect that needs correction. It explains how the people who have the implant act towards James as someone who needed pity and outside control in his life.
“Whose Pandemic Is It Anyway?”
During a fatal airborne virus, contestants are encouraged to invest in gold brick currency in a pyramid scheme. The only catch is they have to knowingly spread the virus and infect as many people as they can.
This is a bleak cynical satire that takes a savage look at society's need for entertainment. Everything is for sale. Everyone is lying. The opening reveals this as we learn that the host, Eduardo Ramirez who claims to be a Mexican immigrant is actually Dave Brooks, an American playing a part. He is a willing ringmaster in this circus because he sold himself for fame and now sells everyone else.
This cynical jab shows that entertainment is often based on image and lies. The gold brick pyramid might be worthless but the show and audience build it up. The people behind the scenes prepare the lie and the consumers feast on it. Everything on the show is an image to sell people to advertise a few moments of glamor and wish fulfillment when they are surrounded by poverty, crime, disease, and death.
One of the most haunting passages is when people are caught by contestants and the audience in the studio and at home cheer for them to be infected. In an era of mass exploitation, everything is entertainment. Illness and death are treated like sporting events.
Humanity and compassion are lost in the rush of getting their next entertainment fix. They are desensitized to pain. They cheer it on just to get that rush of seeing someone suffer for their pleasure.
