Book Review - My Volcano

Originally published in Broken Pencil, Issue 97.

John Elizabeth Stintzi; 347 pgs, Arsenal Pulp Press, https://arsenalpulp.com/; $23.95

It has had happened and the world does not remember it… and maybe it’s for the best—like a stationary bicycle this grotesque apocalyptic cacophony moves but doesn’t get far.

1

On JUNE 2, 2016; a volcano emerges and grows in Central Park affecting all characters and earth, creating a Hieronymus Bosch-like phantasmagoric kaleidoscope of physical transformations, and making the theme of body prevalent as characters turn into thistle-like creatures, clay lemons, demigods, etc. Their minds are often on their former lovers with the themes of loneliness, longing, and grief.

2

On MAY 9, 2022, J. E. Stintzi’s My Volcano emulates our distracted and desensitized present with a distant narrative voice, a rash of characters, and 232 micro-chapters that rapidly switch between storylines. While perhaps aiming to critique this distracted and desensitized reality we are living, the conjunction of the two extremes – distracting narrative frame and unprecedented global events – ultimately replicate the same sensation and cause the reader break out in loss-of-interest hives. (Counterintuitively, partial antihistamine is reading in long blocks.)

3

And as grotesque as the landscape, actions, characters, and their experiences seem, the lack of goals, MacGuffins, and direction leave reader wonder “Where is this going?” Perhaps the thesis adviser to the character only known as “white trans writer” reflects on this: “...she didn’t think the book worked. There was too much going on ... obscured the goals …. The reader got lost in the movement—the whiplash—…” (p.202) Well—Amen.

4

ON MAY 16, 2022, like tombstones, full pages are dedicated to real-life LGBTQIA2S+ and BIPOC murder victims. While introducing a non-fiction narrative element, the relation with the mythical storyline remains a mystery. But oscillating between non-fiction, mythology, and folklore, the novel may be an attempt at new literary genre: non-fiction fantasy. In this case, framed in time by volcano’s existence, the bizarre and mythical receives all of reader’s attention while reality of these people being murdered goes overlooked, lost in the distraction.

5

On JUNE 2, 2022, the ending amuses, then infuriates.

6

On JUNE 3, 2022, if you enjoy the endless parade of bizarre, sensationalist, apocalyptic stories disjointed by the impatient Internet’s digital narrations in real life, J.E. Stintzi’s My Volcano’s analog non-fiction fantasy version may work for you. Otherwise, it may bore and irritate.

Originally Published in Broken Pencil, Issue #97