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The Withdrawal Method (2008)

by Pasha Malla(Favorite Author)

3.69 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0887842151 (ISBN13: 9780887842153)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

House of Anansi

review 1: Stellar inagural collection by Toronto author Malla, who possesses a finely tuned, utterly contemporary voice. The world of these stories is off-beat and unpredictable. It's a place where relationships between men and women are more likely to be strained and broken than not. The author's great strength is writing compelling narratives that flow smoothly toward conclusions that surprise and satisfy. Mostly, these stories are about men and women failing to connect. Written with humour and compassion. A fun read.
review 2: The calibre of a short story collection is generally gauged by how well the stories "play together". Pasha Malla is certainly the kind of writer who has the instinct to make short stories hold together in a thematic cohesion. And if we were to e... morevaluate this collection, we would find that it does resonate. The subjects in the stories themselves, from the future drying up of Niagara Falls and an allegorical tale of filmmakers following the lives of fathers from adolescence to eventual death, places Malla in a heritage reminiscent of acclaimed UK author, Will Self. This collection is certainly quirky, irreverent, and filled with novelty that breaks with the stale formulas for short story writing. At times, Malla unfurls his tale with the mystique of Borges, and other times it reads like Jerzy Kosinski's Steps. Not that Malla could in any way be called an emulator since his voice is candidly his own. These stories, no matter how fantastical their premise, resonate with a realism where things don't always add up, resolution is deferred, and so much is left unsaid.No matter how esoteric some of the tales may appear, they each operate as a kind of camera's aperture, offering the reader a small but poignant vignette on the human condition (without the overbearing woe and preachiness of an existentialist primer). There are times, however, where the technical prowess of the stories almost seems to take precedence over the stories themselves, but this should not be considered a critical deterrent. Malla's work cuts across two axes: the surface horizon of lighthearted reportage matched with the vertical depth of emotional involvement. Occasionally saucy, other times salty in its language, arranged with a bouquet of immediate catch-on references, The Withdrawal Method oscillates between the euphoria and dysphoria of tales that prove hard to abstain from. less

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