Harare Review of Books

128 pages. Published October 15, 2024 by And Other Stories. Fiction anthology/Surrealism.

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There’s something of the shaggy dog about some of these stories (mainly, I mean the story called The Basement, which is like Alice in Wonderland with a boy; but also That Green Liquid, about an at-home demonstration that turns absurd). The journey is the point; I didn’t always know what was going on, which is excellent in this case.

The title story, The Thinking-About-Gladys Machine, both starts the collection with its sunny side, and ends it with its much darker counterpart, The Thinking-About-Gladys Machine (Negative). Beggar Street is nominally about a cigarette lighter, and has layer upon layer as Levrero takes readers deeper and deeper into a fanciful world. One-Way Story No. 2 made me laugh out loud, because how else was the protagonist to deal with the dog they couldn’t get rid of? The Abandoned House is a complete trip, and I don’t quite know how to describe it, but maybe: a group of people keep doing stuff to a phenomenally haunted house, and it keeps doing stuff back. It’s brilliant. Another bizarre house is in The Boarding House; Escher would find so much joy in it. The Stiff Corpse is another laugh-out-loud story, but only when you’re not the hapless protagonist. And in The Golden Reflections, a man who’s never late for work gets lost in time.

Mainly, Levrero is having fun, and often at the expense of his characters and of readers—and I was happily carried along. A quick read, I found this extremely charming, superbly imaginative, and delightful. I know I’ll be re-reading it often.

Many thanks to And Other Stories and Edelweiss for early access.

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