Fiction writer Padgett Powell is tough to categorize. His first novel, Edisto (1984), an American Book Award nominee, was a reasonably straightforward coming-of-age story often categorized as a "southern Catcher in the Rye." After that he shot off in several directions with short novels and stories of Dixie weirdness (Mrs. Hollingsworth's Men; You & Me), culminating in The Interrogative Mood--a novel (of sorts) consisting entirely of questions. Powell's story collection Cries for Help, Various contains a taste of his previous interests, characters, humor and existential ponderings.
In the opening story, "Horses," the narrator has somehow corralled 50 stolen horses in a 7-Eleven parking lot while cowboy poets drink coffee inside and plan to "reverse history" by giving the horses to Indians. One story imagines Janis Joplin in grade school with a discordantly eloquent Charles Dickens, "his cute boy knees and his difficult man mouth." Powell also riffs on South American anacondas and parrots, salamanders cooking pancakes, Boris Yeltsin and a martial arts-trained Asian piano student.
Holding Nicholson Baker-like minutiae and wackiness together is the world-weary, Beckett-like existential angst of each protagonist. These aging guys (and the characters are mostly men) seem genuinely bewildered by their lives--but not despondent. In "Hoping Weakly," one seems to sum up Powell's take on our absurd world: "I hope for something. It is not a strong hope.... I hope weakly for that which I see weakly. I'll be okay no matter what." When entering Powell's world, set aside algorithms and let his words take you away. --Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kan.