"The Dead Fish Museum" is a collection of eight stories by Charles D'Ambrosio, six of which have appeared in The New Yorker earlier. The theme of human suffering and difficult (to the point of being depressing) situations they find themselves in runs as a common thread between the stories.
In "Screenwriter", which I consider to be the best story in the collection, a successful screenwriter fighting for his sanity in a depressing psych institution meets a ballerina who likes to burn herself.
Her arms floated away from her body as though she were trying to balance a feather on the tip of each finger. Then she jumped around, modern and spasmodic, as if the whole point of the dance were to leap free of your skin.
The story leaves us with a less than pleasant drug-fueled night of self torture by the ballerina while the writer looks on. For the sake of everyone's sanity, including mine, her torment didn't turn him on.
"Drummond & Son" tells the story of a typewriter repairman whose wife has left him, leaving behind a mentally unstable son. One of the central incident that transpires in the story is... Continue reading
