A Finely Tuned Apathy Machine
Mark Paterson
Exile Editions
$19.95
paper
158pp
978-1-55096-087-3
Two stories stand out. “The IGA Kissing Bandit” is worth the price of admission on its own. Men friends dress up one of their group as a woman to try and trap one of the workers at the local IGA, a clerk known to kiss female customers after helping them with their groceries. The young men are forced to deal with issues of sexual identity and homophobia. “Lost Dog” tells of a young man who comes to see his “cool” friends as they really are and ultimately sides with an outsider.
Many of these stories are quirky, some are harder-edged, and all of them work except for “Her Plastic Daisy and the Canadian Water to Grow It,” where the political points seem awkward and cliché-ridden. Overall, though, A Finely Tuned Apathy Machine is a very strong collection. mRb
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