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Volume 2, Issue 21
September 28 - October 11, 2000 |
Book Review by Cecilia Johnson
You walk into a bar and all you want is a drink. Well, before you have your whiskey, it might interest you to know a little something about that barstool you're sitting on. That barstool is the very same one Ronnie Harper was occupying the night his wife walked up to him and stabbed him in the neck. She didn't give a damn that the bar was full of witnesses. No, Mrs. Harper didn't give a damn about any-thing except her desire to spill her hus-band's blood. And, boy, let me tell you, there was a lot of blood.
It covered the floor. It covered the counter top. It covered the barstool right where you're sitting. Surprising? Shocking? Yeah, maybe if this was a regular bar.
But this ain't no regular bar, baby. This is a bar created by Ethan Coen -- one half of the famous Coen brothers filmmaking team who brought you such gruesome favorites as Fargo and Blood Simple.
In his short story collection, Gates of Eden, you'll find the drinking hole where Mr. Harper met his bitter end. And if you want to stay in this bar, kid, you better be prepared to be shocked. Watch out because the drinks here are strong, and the stories are so loaded, you'll end up with a hangover.
The story of Mr. and Mrs. Harper, 'It is an Ancient Mariner, ' is just one of the twisted tales you'll find in Gates of Eden, and true to the Coen tradition, the stories are never just scary and stomach-churning; they're funny too.
Meet Joe Gendreau from the title story, 'Gates of Eden', a federal field agent for the California Weights and Measures department. When he gets a hot tip that a fruit stand is cheating its customers by selling eleven ounce pounds of oranges, he goes to the owner's house to straighten out the situation. He is met by Miss Ohara, a Japanese woman who gets him drunk and seduces him. After several rounds of sake, Joe finds himself lying outside in a cold pool of water, naked. Not only does he have a raging case of diarrhea, his "sphincter quaking with the effort of staying shut," but his ass is also covered in bee stings. While he was passed out, Miss Ohara had placed a jar of bees over each buttock. But Joe doesn't fall into a rage. He falls in love.
From the incompetent private investigator who gets his ear bitten off by a hoodlum ('A Fever in the Blood'), to the boxer who couldn't win a fight to save his life ('Destiny'), to the husband who carries his wife's disembodied head around in his hand ('Red Wing'), Coen introduces us to one basket case after another. Sure the stories are savage, but they also make you laugh.
So if you decide to walk through the gates of Eden and into Coen's twisted land, be careful who you talk to. And definitely watch out where you sit. There's blood everywhere. A-