Book Review
The Terrible Event
by David Cohen
The title story of David Cohen’s new collection chronicles the administrative preparation for the launch of a memorial – to what we are not informed, but the inference is a catastrophic incident involving the deaths of many. The launch would coincide with a conference and a school visit. The chronicler is a key member of the administration of the event, and the emerging details reveal a darkly comic, Kafkaesque farce foregrounding bumbling bureaucracy, as well as the absurdity of both acquiescence to political correctness, and extreme, absolutist protestation.
‘Mr Cheerio’ details the exploits of a pair of social justice warriors acting in defence of a contingent of homeless peoples known as the Culvert People, whose use of public amenities, and seeming claim to the Charter of the Forest, have made them targets of public abuse. Overshadowing the escalating extremity of their activism is its disingenuous nature. In ‘Bugs’, recently divorced 46-year-old Mark accesses the storage unit he has retained since his bachelor days, uncovering a ring-pull talking Bugs Bunny doll. He spends hours compulsively activating the voice from his childhood. Soon, however, the iconic catchphrases seem to be deleted from Bugs’ lexicon. Worse still, Mark begins to notice a correlation between the inexplicable edits and advancing diminishment of his own mental acuity. What develops is a descent into madness, not unlike a darkly hilarious, banal, suburban parallel to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
In ‘The Holes’, our narrator begins a new job as a part-time customer service rep, assisting Lana, who has been working remotely since before anyone can remember. Curiosity soon gives way to obsession with the mythical Lana. ‘A History of Walking’ is a personal reflection on a lifetime’s worth of the simple act of ambulation. ‘Andrew’ is a deeply satisfying emotional purge, as a consequence of comparison to one’s superior. There is an Andrew in all of our lives.
