Bugsy & Other Stories

November 27, 2023
Each of the five stories in this intriguing collection from Frumkin (The Comedown) revolves around people facing medical crises. The standout title story features a 20-year-old woman nicknamed Bugsy because she “looks like a gritty gangster lesbian.” After dropping out of college, she works on a BDSM porn film, where she begins a tortured relationship with a performer that leads to self-harm. “On the Inside” takes the point of view of a child with autism, conveying his misbehavior and tics after his parents fire his doctor. Two other entries involve doctors and care. In “Fugato,” a psychiatrist is unnerved by the “throaty growl” he starts hearing in his head and he becomes self-destructive. The protagonist of “The Last Show,” having suffered a devastating brain hemorrhage, imagines herself as a guest on a talk show as her children consider a do not resuscitate order. Rounding out the collection is “Like and Subscribe,” in which Garrett Stillwater meets his crush, Dina Valentine, “the hottest girl on the internet” and hopes to woo her with an expensive pair of earrings. Frumkin excels at getting into the distinct and sometimes dissociated mindset of his characters. It’s an impressive depiction of life on the margins. Agent: Barbara Jones, SK Agency.

January 15, 2024
Short stories that explore identity and difference. Frumkin offers portraits of characters who don't know how they fit in. The settings range from New York City to rural hinterlands, but they all feature a protagonist seeking to understand their own identity and struggling to find authentic connection in an often-inimical world. The title story is told from the perspective of a college dropout trying to figure out a way to survive in Chicago. The narrator's life takes a turn when a woman who stars in and produces porn takes an interest in them and, eventually, invites them to join her household. What begins as a liberating experience leads to a psychotic break. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that the protagonist experiences a psychotic break while engaged in sex work. Mental illness and sex work are recurring themes. In "Fugato," a psychiatrist loses his grip on reality. "Like and Subscribe" is the story of a cam girl. In all of these narratives, the author seems to be mistaking taboo--or ostensibly taboo--topics for actual substance. "On the Inside" is difficult to critique at the level of aesthetics. It's told from the point of view of an autistic child named Benny and his mother. In an author's note, Frumkin writes, "As a neurodivergent person, my goal in writing this story was to expose the harmful practices that impact the autistic community," but adding that, in giving Benny a voice, he is not trying to speak for nonverbal autistic people. Given that autistic people have begun, in the last several years, to insist that they can speak for themselves, the author's suggestion that his own neurodivergence gives him license may not persuade all readers. None of these stories reads as if it's finished--"Fugato," especially, ends on a note that feels like the author was just done writing. Frumkin has written two well-received novels--The Comedown (2018) and Confidence (2023)--but these stories aren't up to their level. A largely unsatisfying collection from a skilled writer.

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January 1, 2024
Frumkin's (Confidence, 2023) clutch of five longish literary short stories has in common a bleak attitude toward life. In one story, a deeply depressed young woman finds a sort of salvation in the making of lesbian BDSM videos until the actress she's in love with leaves her for someone else, and she becomes paranoid. In another, an elderly woman who has suffered a stroke and is on life support, unable to speak, observes her hospital surroundings, remembering incidents in her earlier life and occasionally hallucinating. At the story's end, her family must decide whether to take her off life support. Another character who doesn't speak is a ten-year-old autistic boy who gives a first-person narration of his quotidian life. This story, a bit of a tour de force, is arguably the most interesting one in the book, but all five stories are eminently readable, extremely well written, with fully realized, memorable characters, and are sure to interest fans of the artfully unusual.

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