Things We Didn't See Coming - Steven Amsterdam

It’s the end of the world 1999, Prince said that, or was it REM, before they sold out and Bill Berry walked away? I’m stunned at the amount of collections that make their way out into the world, especially interconnected collections. Every agent and editor worth their salt has told me that collections don’t sell. Funny, I see a half dozen from every major publisher three times a year, so something ain’t right. Sure, collections are always followed by a novel, and when the writer was signed on, he or she handed in that novel too, but what writer working today doesn’t have at least two or three novels in a drawer?

Australian writers have been on my mind lately, especially Richard Flanagan’s Unknown Terrorist and the fantastic A Fraction of the Whole. So it was no shock when Steven Amsterdam’s book, Things We Didn’t See Coming landed on my desk (Winner of the Age Book of the Year Award, in Australia). This book has been billed as a collection that is set in a “not-too-distant dystopian” future. Now you have my interest. What We Know Now opens the book, and its a warming up of things to come, and I don’t think we’re in for easy ride. A family is suddenly and with some enthusiastic urgency packing up their car to head out to the country on New Years Eve. It’s 1999, and our narrator is the son of parents that he likes to refer to by their first names. He gets a laugh about packing vegetables into the car, when they are headed to the country. Dad isn’t laughing, he knows the end is near, at least he fears it, and it drives his every action. Mom, well, she’s not convinced the end is near, but she’s on the fence too, and will do anything to keep her husband on the right track. But when Dad hears his neighbor is going to work the next day, he tells his son, “he’s a dead man.” It’s scary what parents know, or what their children think they know.

There is a wonderful electricity surrounding this story, we feel alone, and vulnerable while not really knowing what’s next. It’s a unique talent, this story delivers through matter of fact chatter and tight prose interesting moments, especially when a father and son meet in the woods under the funky lights of near by fireworks. There are moments when your parents do things that you don’t understand, and won’t ever fully comprehend, and Amsterdam captures that blinding innocence perfectly. There isn’t any fat on this story, and the chatter is razor sharp.  I don’t know what’s next, but I’ll bet there is a novel attached to this collection.

Related posts:

1. Things We Didn’t See Coming, II – Steve Amsterdam Let me tell you more about this book: this narrative comes at you slowly but it’s sneaky, like a garden in spring, one day you wake up and it’s all...
2. Things We Didn’t See Coming III, Steven Amsterdam The hard times continue in this ever-evolving and riveting collection from Steven Amsterdam.  I will say that my all time favorite novel about the end of the world, The...
3. Things We Didn’t See Coming IV – Steven Amsterdam You’ve got to get up pretty early in the morning to pull one over on the characters in the story Cake Walk, the fourth short story in Things We Didn’t See Coming by Steven Amsterdam.  This...
4. Steven Amsterdam JR: In the middle of last year I came upon a great collection of short stories from Steven Amsterdam; Things We Didn’t See Coming. I jumped on it and tried to...
5. TV, Ben Loory in The New Yorker JR: I’m all for a guy getting a story published in the New Yorker, and James P. Othmer, (FOB), is a fan of Ben Loory (he told me that he’s been...