That Girl Who Writes Stuff reviews HIGHLY IRREGULAR STORIES by Richard Grayson

That Girl Who Writes Stuff has blogged about Highly Irregular Stories:

Highly Irregular Stories by Richard Grayson

Aside from finding dirty bits on the internet to flash at you, I spent part of my weekend sunning myself like a walrus and reading Richard Grayson’s Highly Irregular Stories.

The book is a compilation of four out-of-print chapbooks (Disjointed Fictions, Eating at Arby’s: The South Florida Stories (my favorite), The Greatest Short Story That Absolutely Ever Was, and Narcissism and Me.

If you are unfamiliar with the bizarre tales of Mr. Grayson I have much to share with you.

He’s odd.

A very odd man indeed.

And funny, funny, funny.

I could describe his stories’ weirdness to you but that’d be like talking through a bucket of water.

You really need to be submerged in it too to get the full effect.

But if you insist . . .

Here are few of the sections I highlighted and smiley-faced in my copy.

I’m a geek, I know.

Just let it be.

I also realize that only showing you nuggets from his stories is a little like showing you a box with a severed finger in it and running off giggling. . . . you need some context.

That’s fine.

I understand that.

And for some reason still don’t care.

So, enjoy the severed nuggets:

From Disjointed Fictions:

Ordinary Peepholes:

My eye catches an unauthorized advertisement scrawled on the subway map across from my seat:

FOR A GOOD LAY CALL 969-9970

It’s bad enough that this is my sister’s phone number, but what really hurts is that the handwriting is unmistakably my father’s. (p. 7)


Escape from the Planet of Humans:

She is tall, slightly chubby, with frizzy long brown hair and a scar on her nose. She wears a flannel shirt over a turtleneck, faded jeans, work boots, hoop earrings and a red kerchief. She reminds me of something else.

Our eyes meet once. Neither of us really smiles.

I look down at her application to graduate school and mentally note her name and address. I hand another man two dollars and receive some coins back in return. Then I go home and I write this letter:

Dear Rebecca Archer:
You don’t know me but I stood next to you today at the copy center. You are the most beautiful lesbian I have ever seen. Good luck with your grad school applications.
Sincerely yours,
(My name)

Guess what happens next (p.41)


Eating at Arby’s: The South Florida Stories:

I’m not even going to show you a passage. Just know that the funniest two characters you are ever going to meet play here.


From Narcissism and Me:

Some Arbitrary Answers:

I ask my mother what kind of birth control she uses.
“Headaches, she says. . . . .

I ask my brother’s girlfriend’s father’s grandmother’s doctor’s dentist’s mother’s therapist’s rabbi what life is all about.

“Headaches,” the rabbi says. (156 -7)

Get your copy here