New Yorker Fiction Review #269: "The Shape of a Teardrop," by T. Coraghessan Boyle

 

Review of the short story from the March 15, 2021 issue of The New Yorker...

This is the sixth story by T.C. Boyle that I have read and reviewed in the eight years I've been writing these New Yorker fiction reviews. For some probably very well-documented reason that I am too lazy to research and find out about, he goes by the somewhat more clumsy name "T. Coraghessan Boyle" when he writes in The New Yorker. 

Whatever the case, the man always writes a damn good story, as is the case with "The Shape of a Teardrop," a darkly-humorous and wry story about a young man still living with his parents -- and tormenting them through his willful joblessness and insolence, it should be added -- at nearly 30 years old. His parents attempt to evict him. He attempts to sue them. His child, whom he chooses not to see, along with his child's mother, grows from an infant into a rambunctious grade schooler, all while he stubbornly chooses to do the wrong thing. Boyle manages to make light of it, and we get the impression that Justin will eventually come around and acknowledge his son and make right with his parents. But it's a mainly a sad story of intransigence and spite.

No doubt about it, this was an entertaining story; however; it suffers greatly from an unlikeable main character. Justin is the classic "anti-hero," the person whom you desperately want to do the right thing, but who doesn't. That's fine, but even an anti-hero has to have something likeable about him. I suppose his passion for his pet fish is one thing. But otherwise, this story is a little weak in that regard, and therefore I was never invested in the outcome. I mean, look...it's a short story. It's not meant to be War and Peace. It's meant to entertain you for a half hour or so. But if this is the best of the stories in T.C. Boyle's upcoming short story collection, I won't be reading it. Let's face it, I probably wasn't going to read it anyway. Boyle also has a novel coming out later this year called "Talk to Me."