Iceland (American Literature) - Softcover

Jim Krusoe is the author of the novels Parsifal, Toward You, Erased, Girl Factory, and Iceland; two collections of stories; and five books of poetry. His stories and poems have appeared in the Antioch Review, Bomb, the Chicago Review, the Denver Quarterly, the American Poetry Review, and other publications. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lila Wallace Reader s Digest Fund.

Krusoe's whimsical, ironic debut novel (following his story collection, Blood Lake) conjures up Kafka on antidepressants, as Krusoe tracks the decidedly strange adventures of a typewriter repairman named Paul after one of his organs begins to disintegrate. Paul turns to an odd medical outfit known as "the Institute" for treatment and finds himself in a passionate interlude with the beautiful caretaker, Emily, in the swimming pool where the organs are kept. Emily disappears from Paul's life, only to be replaced by a carpet cleaner named Leo, who befriends Paul and then invites him on a trip to Iceland. Leo accidentally falls into a volcano, and Paul takes up with their tour guide, Greta; eventually, they marry and have two children, Inga and Ingo, but Paul's new family is killed in an avalanche. That tragedy sends him back to America, where he begins to hunt for Emily in piano bars, a search that leads to yet another affair, this time with a drug-addicted pianist named Calypso Sally. The financial crunch caused by her addiction transforms the duo into a cut-rate Bonnie and Clyde as they turn to robbery to make ends meet, though Paul still believes he will be reunited with Emily. Krusoe makes the wild plot twists work; his deadpan irony gives Paul a bizarre charm, and his ability to spin over-the-top yarns is superb, especially in the early going. The humor loses some bite down the stretch, but Krusoe's twisted, childlike observations on love, livelihood and the non sequiturs that dominate daily life are consistently entertaining and thought provoking.
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