Tonight on Bibliocracy, 8 PM on KPFK: Bummer! A pregnant punk girl-woman abandoned in Vegas by her Mohawk-sporting loser boyfriend insists on losing even more, by way of fighting somehow for what is right. That’s the problem in the wry, funny, ironic and beautiful title story of Janice Shapiro’s new collection, with the enviable title Bummer. If you immediately appreciate the deadpan name itself as a kind of comic existential premise, you will delight in these honest, confessional, self-deprecating yet heroic stories of insight into the human condition, or at least the condition of women who make a lot of bad choices toward finding wisdom. About Janice Shapiro’s stories, Charles Baxter writes: “The breath of life flows through ever one, and you can feel the heart beating very close to the surface. Terrifically smart, with a kind of comic energy that can swerve at any moment into eloquent brokenheartedness.” Love, despair, irony, these stories evoke universals but place them directly, specifically in very recognizable environments, including Southern California, where Shapiro herself grew up. Janice Shapiro’s stories have appeared in The North American Review, Santa Monica Review and The Seattle Review. A screenwriter, she co-wrote the cult film Dead Beat. A Southern Cal resident for many years, today she lives in Brooklyn. Thanks for listening on the radio at 90.7 FM or online and downloadable on the KPFK archives, www.kpfk.org.
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