COMMON SENSE & OTHER TALES OF DISILLUSIONMENT

In Saxsma’s collection of short stories, characters come to grips with their lack of agency as they navigate miserable situations.

In “Drive You to Violence,” Linda, an office worker, comes home late from work to find her husband and children sitting in front of the television. They are waiting for her to start dinner and imploring her to follow the instructions for the “box dinner helper”: “Don’t add steps or take steps out. Just follow the box.” As “Curse the Writer” opens, a director reads a new script, knowing that he’s the studio’s second choice, while his relationship with his partner, Dennis, continues to fall apart. In “He Had a Receipt,” Parks, a legal assistant in a world where robots are house servants, finds an unexpectedly sentient robot in front of his office, asking to check in for an appointment. Overindulgent cashier Andy Dibbler plans to propose to his less tolerant boyfriend, Brian, in “Common Sense,” while dodging calls from a debt collector. Finally, in “What’s in Your Head, Chris Cooper?,” the titular character goes missing in 1999 after deciding to hold an art exhibition; in 2022, his family wants to re-release a documentary that features details of his disappearance. The premise of each story is simple and somewhat desolate, in keeping with the collection’s title; indeed, for each tale, there’s a growing sense of foreboding as the pages turn. Saxsma’s prose style is minimalist throughout, and his dialogue especially shines, employing repetition and occasionally longer, impassioned speeches to heighten the absurdity of misunderstandings and the tension between characters to great effect—especially when stories come to a shocking end. Some characters, though, are more sympathetic than others; the director in “Curse the Writer,” for example, comes off as flat and petulant as his vision for his film remains out of reach, while the protagonist's internal struggle in “He Had a Receipt,” as he represents a robot client, is brilliantly handled.

Tense and surprising stories with an existentialist bent.