Glassworks
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • masthead
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 21
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass fall 2020
    • interview with Porsha Olayiwola
    • new book reviews
    • new opinion editorials
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • fall 2020
    • spring 2020
    • fall 2019
    • spring 2019
    • fall 2018
    • spring 2018
    • fall 2017
    • apprentice 2017
    • spring 2017
    • fall 2016
    • spring 2016
    • fall 2015
    • spring 2015
    • fall 2014
    • spring 2014
    • spring 2012
    • winter 2012
    • fall 2011
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews >
      • Ed Briant
      • Eugene Cross
      • Josh Denslow
      • Christopher DeWan
      • Katherine Flannery Dering >
        • Aftermath
      • Eric Dyer
      • Julie Enszer >
        • Avowed
      • Mitchell Fink
      • Olivia Gatwood
      • David Gerrold
      • Cynthia Graham
      • Ernest Hilbert
      • Paul Lisicky >
        • The Roofers
      • Scott McCloud
      • Jan Millsapps
      • Anis Mojgani
      • Pedram Navab
      • Kelly Norris
      • Porsha Olayiwola
      • Michael Pagdon
      • Aimee Parkison >
        • The Petals of Your Eyes
      • Brad Parks
      • Chris Rakunas
      • Carlos Ramos
      • Mary Salvante
      • Jill Smolowe
      • Jayne Thompson
      • Julie Marie Wade
      • Melissa Wiley
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • photography
    • audio
    • video
    • new media
  • archive
    • read past issues
    • order print issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • newsletter

Review: Not Everyone is Special

2/1/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Laughing at Life's Hurdles
Review: Not Everyone is Special

Christopher M. Comparri

Josh Denslow
Short Stories
7.13 Books, pp. 175
Cost: $9.85 (paperback or e-book)
Each of us finds a way to cope with the hurdles and pain that life throws our way. Some turn towards their work, others to more destructive means. Then, there’s Josh Denslow. In his collection of stories Not Everyone is Special, Denslow covers a range of topics with his characters: from being a child of divorce, to being a survivor in the aftermath of a friends’ suicide, to being a little person in today’s world. His approach is to use humor not only to build up the narrative in each story, but show how people use it as a form of self-preservation and self-defense in ways that are true to real life, even when he is putting a character in a world where people have superpowers like being able to get the wrinkles out of shirts by patting them down with their hands or extending and retracting their facial hair in real time.
In the title story, Denslow tackles the issue of divorcees who can’t move on by having the readers follow Cameron, a single dad who is trying to discover his superpower in a world filled with mundane superpowers. Cameron is obsessed with the idea that if he just discovers his superpower, it will somehow bridge the gap that split him and his ex wife apart so that their family can be restored. The struggles that Cameron experiences are often made easier for him to bear through the use of his own internal dialogue every time he encounters a failure to discover his superpower: “But then again, I know a guy who can turn pepperoni into sausage. He envies my ignorance.” In a world where superpowers range from walking on water to being able to change your eye color, Denslow is able to convey one simple message: a superpower doesn’t have to define you.

One particularly difficult but overlooked topic that people don’t often talk about is being a survivor of something as heart wrenching as someone close to them committing suicide. In “Punch” the humor that Denslow utilizes with his character skirts the line of being on the nose without ever crossing it: “After the preacher talked about how Chuck was called away too early (no mention of how), I talked about the time I hit him and broke his glasses. I got a few laughs, choked with tears of course, but it felt good to smile while remembering my best friend. I almost told them about the time I beat his high score in Tomb Blaster, but I didn’t want to brag. It was his day after all.” Denslow builds a narrative around a character that dives headfirst into events that he has absolutely no place in rather than come to terms with the lack of authority he has in his own life. The pervasive feeling of the story was that there was something he could have done to prevent Chuck from taking his own life but the reality was that there was nothing he could do. 

Humor as a tool can be tricky and there are times when it felt like the humor was a square peg trying to fit into a circular hole. In “Too Late for a Lot of Things” the story revolved around the plight of Keith, a person of short stature that is constantly plagued by his height in one way or another. Playing an elf in a Christmas themed amusement park that is open year round, the reader is confronted early and often with the passive shaming that the character has to endure. While this is done effectively at times to make the reader uncomfortable, the humor that usually acts as the balancing measure on this scale falls short of building empathy for Keith: “I’m only steps away when I’m suddenly pushed backwards, as if Charlie has a force field around him. The candy cane smacks into my face, and I land flat on my back.” The idea of a little person charging at someone who has just mocked them because of their height only to fall short in acting upon their aggression came off as a bit more slapstick comedy than the usual quick jabs of insightful humor that are woven throughout the rest of the collection. 

The shortcomings of one story however are not reflective of the thing that Denslow does best: use humor as a tool. It comes in quick spurts and never leaves the reader wondering how callous the author or characters are. Instead, we are left thinking about times we have reacted in a similar manner when tragedy has reared its’ ugly head in our lives and some sense of comfort comes with knowing that the way you reacted in those moments doesn’t make you a monster. In those times, it is kind of nice to not be so special.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    book reviews by glassworks editorial staff



    Archives

    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    March 2013
    December 2012


    Categories

    All
    Able Muse
    Abuse
    Agha Shahid Ali Prize
    Alfred A. Knopf
    Alternative Book Press
    Andrews McMeel Publishing
    Animals
    Anthea Bell
    Aqueous Books
    Art
    Ashland Creek Press
    Autumn House Press
    Bedazzled Ink Publishing
    Belleview Literary Press
    Bellevue
    Berlin Wall
    Black Lawrence Press
    Book Review
    Bottom Dog Press
    Brassbones And Rainbows
    Button Poetry
    Cake Train Press
    Catholic Guilt
    Chapbook
    Chris-rakunas
    Chronic Illness
    Coffee House Press
    Cold War
    Collection
    Coming Of Age
    Copper Canyon Press
    Divertir Publishing
    Drama
    Elroy Bode
    Ernest Hilbert
    Essays
    Eugen Ruge
    Fading Light
    Fairy Tales
    Family
    Farm
    Fat Dog Books
    Father
    Feminism
    Fiction
    Flash
    Furniture Press Books
    Future Tense Books
    Gdr
    Gender
    Geology
    Glassworks Book Review
    Gospel
    Greywolf Press
    Haiti
    Harbor Mountain Press
    Haute Surveillance
    Hepner
    Historical Fiction
    Holocaust
    Howling Bird Press
    Humor
    Identity
    Imagery
    Immigration
    Jacquline Doyle
    Jaded Ibis Press
    Johanne Goransson
    Journalism
    Jude Ezeilo
    Katya Apekina
    Language
    Lee L. Krecklow
    Lewis Hine
    LGBT
    Literature
    Lori Ann Stephens
    Memoir
    Mental Health
    #MeToo
    Midsummer Night's Press
    Midwest
    Milkweed Editions
    Mixed Media
    Modern Poetry
    Multi Genre
    Multi-genre
    Nature
    Nature Writing
    Nonfiction
    Novalee And The Spider Secret
    Novel
    Other Press
    Painting
    Poetry
    Poetry Prize
    Poetry Review
    Politics
    Press 53
    Prose Poetry
    Race
    Red Bird Chapbooks
    Red Hen Press
    Relationships
    Richard Siken
    Sarah Caulfield
    Sexuality
    Shechem Press
    Shirley Bradley Leflore
    Short Story
    Sickness
    Social Issues
    Son
    Sonnet
    Spine
    Spoken Word
    Steve Royek
    Stories
    Surveillance
    Susanne Dyckman
    Suspense
    Tarpaulin Sky
    Tears For The Mountian
    Tolsun Books
    Torrey House Press
    Tragedy
    Travel
    Twodollarradio
    University Of Utah Press
    University Press
    Unmitzer
    Unnamed Press
    Violence
    William Glassley
    Wings Press
    Winter Goose Publishing
    Women
    World War II

    RSS Feed

Picture

260 Victoria Street • Glassboro, New Jersey 08028 
glassworksmagazine@rowan.edu

All Content on this Site
(C) 2021 glassworks