Kit Schluter exhibits a sure hand in his chapbook The Good in Having a Nuclear Family. I know he has spent some time in Mexico and now I can’t help but wonder if these stories were conceived under the influence of peyote. They make a mockery of reality in the very best way possible, bending the rules of the universe as they see fit.
Just check out this opening: “After completing a draft of a children’s book called The Hatter’s Tripod Wife, the Maid who Was Secretly a Children’s Book Author fell into a flower bed, then she fell into a bottle of bleach. When she crawled back out the neck, her hair was white, and her skin even whiter. So the Master’s Cat mistook her for a great, human-sized mouse, and she licked her lips with appetite well-whetted and stomach all agrumble.” Pg. 22
Transformation is a key component in these tales – nothing should be taken for granted here.
And this one that opens the collection: “Today I sat in the shallow sea trying to pet the foam of the waves as if it were a dog. // The foam approached, I reached out, and it ran away every time with such determination that it disappeared, like a cat. // For this I loved the foam, and reached toward it with even greater obstination.” Pg. 7
The very best of these stories remind me of Daniil Kharms
Kit is also a stellar illustrator and a translator as well.
