Book Review: City of Boom by Bonnie Bee

City of Boom by Bonnie Bee

Paperback, 120 pages

Expected publication: December 1st 2019 by Anti-Oedipus Press

I always look forward to books in the mail, but when they come from Anti-Oedipus the press edited by the author, professor and diabolical genius D Harlan Wilson I move stuff up to the top of the TBR. Any book he puts out I am interested in.

From the back cover:

A banished criminal. Two demons, a maiden, and a beast king. A holiday devoted to arson. Adventures in adult babysitting. Drugs, sex, and violence . . . In this innovative collection of short fiction, Bonnie Bee performs a delicate vivisection on pop culture and our collective unconscious to create myths out of common moments and legends out of unremarkable people. Through ancient allegory, modern celebrity, corrupted Shakespeare, and the shimmering oppression of West Texas, City of Boom reveals what we inherit from generations before us while showing how we cut out what’s dead to repair the living.

Let me start by saying that the events of the story didn't really matter to me during the experience of reading this book. Bonnie Bee is a talented writer, after reading this short novel I think her greatest strength is a strong voice. It is fitting that the book opens with a Kathy Acker quote, as I would have pegged her as an influence.

In many ways, City of Boom operates like a short story collection. Some of the experimental surreal tone of the paragraphs are so unsettling that reading this feels like swimming in the ocean. Bobbing to keep your head above water, just when you think you have a handle on what is going on a sentence, a genius turn of phrase dunks you under.

This makes sense as an AOP book, and from the binding genre title, Schiz-Flow Wilson is trying to create a sub-genre similar to the early days of Bizarro when the books came with "File Under Bizarro" on the back. I am here for Schiz-flow which makes for a fun and disorientating read.

If there was any negative it was a minor one. The last couple of pages got into what the back cover called a "vivisection on pop culture." This was the most entertaining part of the book, and I would have enjoyed more moments peppered through-out that were as razor-sharp as these moments towards the end. That said you should come to this book for wordplay and that happens on every page. Big thumbs up for fans of surreal and bizarro fiction.