Title:
THE FEET SAY RUN
Author: Daniel A. Blum
Publisher: Gabriel’s Horn Press
Pages: 349
Genre: Literary Fiction
At the
age of eighty-five, Hans Jaeger finds himself a castaway among a group of
survivors on a deserted island. What
is my particular crime? he asks. Why have I
been chosen for this fate? And so he begins his
extraordinary chronicle.
It
would be an understatement to say he has lived a full life. He has grown up in Nazi Germany and falls in
love with Jewish girl. He fights for the
Germans on two continents, watches the Reich collapse spectacularly into
occupation and starvation, and marries his former governess. After the war he goes on wildflower
expeditions in the Alps, finds solace among prostitutes while his wife lay in a coma, and
marries a Brazilian chambermaid in order to receive a kidney from her.
By
turns sardonic and tragic and surreal, Hans’s story is the story of all of the
insanity, irony and horror of the modern world itself.
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If there is an actual name to this island, it is unknown to
us. We have chosen to call it Illyria. We’re not exactly sure where the name comes
from. Some book perhaps. But it no longer matters. The name has become our own—mythic and
melodic-sounding. As though, if we keep
calling this place Illyria,
keep pretending it has some magical allure, people will want to come. Someone will come rescue us.
I am not complaining, particularly. Well, maybe I am. But I probably shouldn’t be. So far fate has proven a fair enough agent. The beaches are sandy, the water clear and
turquoise, the reefs plentiful. The
island is wreathed in a soothing white foam.
On shore there is the shade of palms and palmettos and eucalyptus. At least we think it is eucalyptus. We call it eucalyptus. Maybe it is just some kind of fancy magnolia
though. Who the hell knows?
There are fruits in relative abundance—though what they are,
we aren’t sure. Some are purple. Others are yellow. Some vaguely sweet, others sharp and abrasive
on the roof of the mouth. There is a
variety of coconut that grows in conjoined pairs to look like the buttocks of
an African woman. We call this
ass-fruit. When I offered some to
Conrad, he said to me, “I’m not into that shit.” As though I were suggesting something
perverse. As though fear of this fetish
object outweighed the need for sustenance.
“What shit are you not into?” I asked.
“Ass fruit,” he said.
“Ass.”
“It’s not real ass, Conrad,” I said.
“Well, it’s not a real fruit either,” he said.
“What do you think it is then?” I asked.
“A joke,” he said. “A
sick joke. Like the rest of this
place.”
God is playing a joke on us.
That is a common theme here. It was funny the first time someone said
it. Now it is just annoying, like a
child saying, “knock-knock” to you over and over, more and more emphatically,
as you refuse, just as emphatically, to ask, “Who’s there?”
The other common theme here is that none of it is real. We all died when the boat went down. And this is all just a dream. Conrad suggests this a couple of times a day,
each time choosing a different angle, a different inflection, in a vain attempt
to keep the joke fresh. If you suggest,
gently, that this joke no longer strikes you as uproarious, Conrad will
immediately jump into a long denial that he is joking. “I’m not fucking kidding,” he will
tell you. “I really mean it. I think
this is all a dream.”
Perhaps Conrad is right.
Because honestly, I did not believe, until my current predicament, that
deserted islands still existed. I
thought these islands were all owned by former tennis pros and former tyrants,
or inhabited by caricatures of primitive tribes who sell carved bamboo flutes
to flabby tourists in checkered shorts.
If it is a dream, if this is my Land of Oz and I am soon to
wake up, then it is curious how, from time to time, little bits of Kansas
wash up upon our shores. Whenever we
wander further down the beach, away from our settlement, we find Styrofoam
packing peanuts, Styrofoam bowls, #3 plastic take-out containers with their
familiar, triangular recycle symbols (apparently the previous owners of
these containers ignored this particular environmental imperative).
The restaurant take-out containers are the most
distressing. More mockery from The
Almighty. More of his levity. Ha ha.
We bring them back to our camp and wonder what twenty-first century
foods they once held. Pad Thai or Kung
Pao Chicken or Shrimp Korma. From some
restaurant from the other world. Thank
you, God, for delivering us this practical joke. Ha ha.
You’re fucking hi-lar-ious.
About the Author
Daniel A. Blum grew up in New York, attended Brandeis
University and currently lives outside of Boston with his family. His first novel Lisa33 was published by
Viking in 2003. He has been featured in Poets and Writers magazine, Publisher’s
Weekly and most recently, interviewed in Psychology Today.
Daniel writes a humor blog, The
Rotting Post, that has developed a loyal following.
His latest release is the literary
novel, The
Feet Say Run.
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