The First Thing Smoking

Rating:
Summary: Literary Jazz
Review: In Binnie Kirshenbaum's promotional blurb on the hardcover dust jacket, she describes Eubanks' writing as "excruciating beauty most often associated with jazz." I think that this description is apt in that the literature for much of work does whirl like a literary jazz. However, it also doesn't have much of the traditional short story structure, which also made it a bit "excruciating" for me as well. The 210 pages felt like 400+ to get through. While Maceo's troubles are interesting as the character moves within these stories, the formlessness of them doesn't leave me with much that is memorable. The last story "A Lie In 7 Parts" with its Brazilian setting, the lovely Ada, and the sexually-warped German Hans was perhaps the most interesting; although, Maceo is hardly that noble or likeable there. I did find interesting the character study of being a black guy who at times feels too light to be black, at times too black to be light, too ghetto to be suburban, and too suburban to be ghetto. The inner conflict was interesting, but the meager outward action rarely took these themes and illuminated them. The stories seemed to swirl around Maceo who was in the stories and through whose eyes we see the stories, but still never seemed that integral to them. Nelson Eubanks is certainly creative. His eternal run-on sentences perhaps reflect a touch of Hemingway in structure. If you want to read something less than ordinary, this may be it. But like some jazz, this is hard to pin down like trying to describe the feel of the wind on your face. This was an interesting work, but not so memorable. Taxi!

Rating:
Summary: The Stowaway
Review: Nelson Eubanks composed a symphony with his collection of short stories entitled THE FIRST THING SMOKING. Filled with the sweet melodies, melancholy movements, and cacophonies that a recurring main character experiences throughout his life, this work takes fiction to new heights with its innovative prose, enthralling plots, and engaging characterizations.

Set in venues from New York to Brazil, THE FIRST THING SMOKING's central character Maceo is a protagonist with whom I could sympathize with, gape at, and learn to love. The stories chronicle his life from a young child in New York, to an adolescent at his aunt's rural home, to a grown man in Brazil. Injected between these stories of Maceo are short two page reflections on subjects such as young girls in Brazil being auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Eubanks' writing style is inventive and captivating; he uses short, sharp sentences for emphasis and effect. The delicious combination of the writing and the stories made THE FIRST THING SMOKING a bewitching experience that I would recommend to all readers.

Reviewed by CandaceK
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

Rating:
Summary: Haunting stories from a powerful voice
Review: This engrossing collection of stories and vignettes really impressed me. The voice, which develops along with the narrator, becoming more serpentine and mature as the book goes on, is genuinely new and powerful. Eubanks has a great sense of the rhythms of language, and how they can be used to evoke mood and convey thought. This is emotionally complex material, full of love and guilt, repressed anguish and tempered joy. It's exciting to come across a new writer whose work I know I will always look forward to.