From I Am an Executioner: Stories by Rajesh Parameswaran
Knopf, 2012
Gopi isn’t what he wants to be, and life has done nothing to help him. But Gopi has always tried to be someone else, impersonating is a way into the life of someone he wants to be, even if it’s pretend. Gopi has been fired from his lousy job at CompUSA. Instead of collecting unemployment he tells his wife he has a sales job, and disappears each day. It is a standard trick of the painfully unemployed. Lie. Tell everyone you have something, when you don’t. It’s easier to lie. Who isn’t going to believe you?
Gopi checks out some books from the library and decides that he is going to be a doctor that specializes in women’s troubles. It’s hilariously ambitious, and can only lead to catastrophe. Gopi easily fools his wife, and she thinks the books he is reading are his solution to their inability to have children. Gopi is fooling people without trying. He occupies a small office that was once housed veterinarian’s office. The place still smells of piss, but Gopi manages to get it cleaned up. I was surprised by what he could get through the mail to help outfit his fledgling office, but persistence is the key to life, and Gopi is ready to practice medicine.
The world knows nothing of Gopi’s trick, and I had no idea how far Parameswaran would push the nuts and bolts of this story. By the time Gopi has performed his first surgery, I was looking at this story with my hands over my eyes. The results are harrowing. I ask you this; where did Rajesh Parameswaran come from? Regardless of the provenance, this writer has is a serious threat. I am bursting at the seams about this collection, and have held back some of the most delicious details from this story. Believe me, when you read this, you will be telling everyone you know about this book.