Zachary German

Young high school dropout Zachary German's EAT WHEN YOU FEEL SAD is, without a doubt, one of the strangest little books I've read in a long time. I wondered more than once if he intended it as an extreme parody of Hemingway, with its short unadorned sentences. For example -

"It's night. Robert and Tom walk past a beer store. Robert looks at it. He looks at Tom. Robert and Tom talk. They walk past a beer store. Robert doesn't look at it. Robert and Tom are in front of Robert's building. They look at the sky. They talk. They walk inside. They walk up stairs. They walk into Robert's apartment. Robert and Tom sit on the couch."

There are in fact multiple repetitions of these actions - walking, talking, being in front of Robert's building, up stairs, into his apartment, sit on couch, sit on bed, lie on bed, etc. ad nauseam. Sounds horrible, you say? Well, yes. And no. Because the story of Robert, from high school into young adulthood, searching (I think) for some meaning in his life, becomes oddly compelling. He has a job, although we never learn what it is. Instead we are privy to his empty, sad social life, and his interactions with several equally unfocused friends who seem to have no idea what to do with themselves. Robert wonders if he's gay, tries kissing a male friend, decides he's not. Has a few meaningless relationships with girls. Dialogue between Robert and his friends sounds a lot like the old Beavis and Butthead cartoons. He obsessively checks his email, gets online, checks his cell phone, texts, checks Facebook, downloads and listens to music, watches TV and movies - and the tunes, TV shows, films, books (and authors) are all carefully named, and even indexed in the back of the book. Robert, who is a vegan, buys food, fixes it, eats it, feels sad. He gets drunk. He vomits. He masturbates and feels sad. He wonders if he will ever have a meaningful relationship and feels sad.

Because Robert and his friends are constantly connected online or by cell phone, they don't seem to know how to have a proper face-to-face conversation without feeling - and sounding - awkward, often resorting to responses like: "No yeah I know. Yeah. I don't know."

I picked this book up on sale because it looked kinda strange, with its mustard stains on the cover; and it is published by Melville House, which generally picks its stuff very carefully. Well, I'm still kind of scratching my head over this book, which ends - NOT - "in media res." Avant garde? Cutting edge? Well, no yeah I know; I don't know. Bottom line: This is very strange stuff. I'm kinda glad I read it, but not really. I don't know.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER… (más)