Glassworks
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 25
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass fall 2022
    • interview with Yuvi Zalkow
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • through the looking glass
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • award nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • newsletter
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 25
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass fall 2022
    • interview with Yuvi Zalkow
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • through the looking glass
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • award nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • newsletter
Glassworks

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.

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    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
    2Leaf Press
    7.13 Books
    Able Muse Press
    Abuse
    Agate Publishing
    Agha Shahid Ali Prize
    Alfred A. Knopf
    Alternative Book Press
    A Midsummer Night's Press
    Andrews McMeel Publishing
    Animals
    Apocalypse Party
    Aqueous Books
    Art
    Ashland Creek Press
    Atticus Books
    Autumn House Press
    Bedazzled Ink Publishing
    Bellevue Literary Press
    Belonging
    Black Lawrence Press
    Book Review
    Bottom Dog Press
    Button Poetry
    Cake Train Press
    Catholic
    Chapbook
    Chronic Illness
    Coffee House Press
    Cold War
    Collection
    Coming Of Age
    Copper Canyon Press
    Creeping Lotus Press
    Divertir Publishing
    Drama
    Dystopian
    Dzanc Books
    Editorial
    Essay
    Essays
    Fairy Tales
    Family
    Fat Dog Books
    Father
    Feminism
    Fiction
    Finishing Line Press
    Flash
    Forest Avenue Press
    Furniture Press Books
    Future Tense Books
    Gender
    Geology
    Gospel
    Graywolf Press
    Hadley Rille Books
    Harbor Mountain Press
    Headmistress Press
    Historical Fiction
    Holocaust
    Home
    Howling Bird Press
    Humor
    Hybrid
    Identity
    Illness
    Immigration
    Jaded Ibis Press
    Journalism
    Kernpunkt Press
    Knut House Press
    Language
    Lanternfish Press
    LEFTOVER Books
    Lewis Hine
    LGBTQ
    Literature
    Mad Creek Books
    Meadow-Lark Books
    Memoir
    Mental Health
    #MeToo
    Microcosm Publishing
    Midwest
    Milkweed Editions
    Mixed Media
    Moonflower Books
    Motherhood
    Multi Genre
    Nature
    Nonfiction
    Novel
    Other Press
    Painting
    Perceval Press
    Poetry
    Poetry Prize
    Poetry Review
    Politics
    Press 53
    Prose Poetry
    Race
    Red Bird Chapbooks
    Red Hen Press
    Relationships
    Religion
    Scribner Books
    Sexuality
    Shechem Press
    Short Story
    Son
    Spirituality
    Split Lip Press
    Spoken Word
    Stories
    Suspense
    Symbolism
    Tarpaulin Sky Press
    Tolsun Books
    Torrey House Press
    Tragedy
    Translation
    Travel
    Two Dollar Radio
    University Of Utah Press
    Unnamed Press
    Unsolicited Press
    Violence
    Wings Press
    Winter Goose Publishing
    Women
    World War II
    Yale Younger Poets Prize

    RSS Feed


Picture

glassworks is a publication of
​Rowan University's Master of Arts in Writing
260 Victoria Street • Glassboro, New Jersey 08028 
glassworksmagazine@rowan.edu
​All Content on this Site (c) 2022 glassworks