Short Story Review: Shawntera, by Jeff Parker

Shawntera, Jeff Parker
From American Short Fiction

A story that starts with the main character holding a brick, and coming out of the dentist office thinking about the guy who knocked out his teeth, you think it's going to be a certain kind of story. But Jeff Parker is in a different kind of business, and 'Shawntera' is a story you're not expecting.

Shawntera, the lead character, is a classic slacker slash loser, a literary kinsman to Bukowski or Denis Johnson's Fuckhead character, and this story is a loose bildungsroman of a day in his life. He's been tasked by a friend, Two-face Jud, into escorting his kid around the zoo while Two-face Jud friend sets up an underground strip club in the living room. Meanwhile the guy who knocked out his teeth, Mike Fox, stays on the margins, the source of their conflict a nagging mystery.



While at the zoo, Shawntera is forced to part with his beloved brick. He checks it at the door, then escorts the kid, known only as Little Man, past an exhibit of house cats, and watches a gorilla kill a pigeon. It's a story where not much happens, except when things do, and you keep wondering where it's going, and then it kind of gets there. Police get involved, folks get busted, and Mike Fox hovers mysteriously like an absent prankster God.

You get the idea, is the point. You think, this isn't a realistic story. Or maybe it is: It rides the edge of bizarro but doesn't tip over. It's a great balancing act. There's plenty of low-key snark and outsider cleverness going on here, but in the end there's a sympathetic kindness about the voice that takes the edge off and delivers a nice after-feeling.

There are passing allusions to God, as Shawntera is referenced more than once as being 'Jesus' age,' an idea that 33 is the age when things start to decay, and the ominous specter of middle age, a resurrection into mediocrity, looms ever larger. I saw another allusion to Johnson's Jesus Son in this reference, and though Parker says it's just a coincidence, he also admits that Johnson's work is one of his favorites. This is why I have a policy of not believing much writers say about their work, though I'm fascinated by the way they talk about it. I'm pretty sure he ripped it off, but in one of the better ways, so I'm cutting him some slack.


This is the second story in America Short Fiction's most recent issue. ASF, on the whole, likes to take chances with voice and form, while still presenting professional, assured voices. The next story is about an immortal giraffe who once lived in Dante's garden, and the one after that is about a guy who carves his family out of trees in mourning. I'm digging these stories, and finding it a refreshing collection just off the mainstream.