David Hayley: The Suicide Kit

Reviewed by FEDERICO MONSALVE


David Hayley's collection of short stories The Suicide Kit has imprisoned dwarfs and necrophilia. It has a doctor who makes his female patients undress and stand on their heads. He then places his chin between their legs so he can see how he'd look with a beard.

Hayley's got a 'Nam veteran returning to Saigon to "rescue the boys" who ends up in a spiderweb of pimps and drugs. Hayley's got sad, dumb people doing sad, dumb things over and over, and it is painfully funny.

This book is a circus for the depressed, company for the miserable, and proof that no mater how low you've gotten, there is worse, much worse out there (or so we hope).

Of merit is "The Typing Pool", a well-crafted vignette with enough corporate angst to vindicate the hard-working and unappreciated assistants that keep middle-management happy and fat.

Hayley's influences come from surrealism and sci-fi and he is concerned mainly with the rising angst of the petit-bourgeois who, stuck in menial jobs and the stagnation of the suburbs, become almost subhuman. A bubblegum Kafka, perhaps.

Yet with that at hand, the book is an act of comedy. Hayley tries to mimic the contemporary themes and comedic style of American writer George Saunders (although lacking his breadth of imagination and absurdity) and from time to time hits a funny bone along the way. The jokes wane from absolutely hilarious to punchlines that are delivered poorly and have little merit other than to amuse at the expense of others.

This debut title is a mixed bag of blessings, but one that would have been better to let age. There is a lack of depth in almost every department except his characters, which jump out with an amusing sadness.

The Suicide Kit is too fluffy to question anything, yet it's a well-crafted infomercial for a kit that is bound to build your Narcissus complex by comparison.

Publisher: Vintage

Price: $29.95