#603 Snake River Gorge- Alexander Maksik

#603 Snake River Gorge- Alexander Maksik

This is from the 2013 Best American Non-Required Reading collection. Theo needs a job. He’s eighteen, his parents are struggling and his older sister is away with the Army. He answers an ad in the Penny Saver and the recruiter comes to his house. He is a fast talking salesman and convinces Theo and his parents that this is a great opportunity for someone willing to work hard.

What it turns out to be is a door-to-door canvassing gig selling magazine subscriptions. By itself, it’s a harmless job, no worries, right? Except the crew travels together, stays in sleazy motels by night and has a horrible caste system. Henry is at the top, with his own room, the top selling get the bed, everyone else gets the floor. The low man, called the bunker boy, is tied up all night to a chair. This doesn’t sit well with Theo, so he unties bunker boy. Retribution is harsh and swift for Theo, and just like that his “great opportunity” is done. 

There is some stuff here about class and privilege, but it’s clumsy and forced. The story itself was interesting enough without that theme.

Rating: 7-7-6-6 Total= 26

#42 Loteria- Kevin Gonzalez

#42 Loteria- Kevin Gonzalez

Hector is dealing with his father’s recent suicide and relocating his mother into the apartment of his father’s former mistress. As he tries to reconcile his fathers life and death, he contemplates his own.

There is little in this story that I enjoyed.  None of the characters are likeable…the father is a corrupt politician, a philandering, lottery-winning, money wasting coward who ran over his son’s dog. His son has schemed behind his back to become the executor of the will. His mother, pissed-off by his father’s mistress takes it out on the wrong woman. Hector himself is a cold, bitter loser that plays false victim to both his father and son. But neither are they despicable either.  There is just little in each to care enough about.

All three generations are named Hector, and I think we are supposed to see them as 3 aspects of the narrator.   The 4^th Hector is the giant cockroach in his apartment that he continually tries to kill, but can’t.  That is he can’t kill himself off like his father did.

His mother’s name is Socorro which means “help, I’m drowning.”

I just don’t get this story.  I thought at first that we were supposed to hate the father for mis-spending his lottery winnings, but it turns out he left than an ample amount in his will. Nobody seems particularly hurt, or needing, or anything that makes me want to hear a story regarding any of these characters.

Gonzalez tried to write in some cute allusions and metaphors that really didn’t work for me.  For example, among his fathers many suicide notes, he uses comas but never periods. Later he looks up at the night sky and notices: “In the sky the stars appeared like all the periods that suicide notes have forgotten.”  That just seemed forced to me.

Notable Passage: none

Rating: 6-4-4-4 Total= 18