Etgar Keret writes short stories—very short stories. The typical tale in Suddenly, A Knock on the Door transpires over the course of three or four pages. One of the narratives included here, "The Story, Victorious" lasts only three paragraphs, and is followed by "The Story, Victorious II," which consists of a single sentence.
But Keret’s tales pack a punch, despite their extreme concision. Often it's a literal punch. Most of the stories in this collection feature at least one character getting slapped, hit, thrashed or killed. Usually the beating or murder takes place at the end of the story, but sometimes a whupping sets the tale in motion. If this writer ever gives up fiction for journalism, he should apply for a job with The Ring.
In the strange world of Etgar Keret, even the killing of the narrator doesn't necessarily end a story. He sometimes takes us on a tour of the afterlife—and, in these stories, readers won't always be able to tell the difference between heaven and hell. In "One Step Beyond" we follow a convicted murderer, as he gets a lethal injection and enters the next world with a bad attitude. He’s hoping to get into hell and raise some hell when he arrives, but—wouldn't you know it —he shows up in a paradise of love and innocence (with a unexpected literary twist I won't spoil for you here).
Or how do we interpret the setting of "Lieland"? In this story, liars journey to a realm where all of their prevarications come true. If you leave work, telling your boss some fabricated story about your uncle getting into a car accident…well, in Lieland, the uncle actually shows up with all the injuries from the collision. If you spend money your Mom gave you for groceries on ice cream, and later tell her that a bully beat you up and took the cash, don’t be surprised if that bully confronts you in Lieland, gives you a drubbing and grabs your wallet.
After reading a few of these stories, you start seeing the pattern. From then on, you wait in trepidation, expecting the wallop, the accident, the sucker punch lurking around the corner. In this brief if turbulent book, a character can be sitting peacefully at an outdoor café, when a stranger commits suicide by jumping out of a eleventh-floor window and lands on his head. In another story, a young man learns that three of the guys who previously dated his girlfriend killed themselves —and you wonder if he will survive to the end of the next page. In "A Good One," Gershon travels to New York to sell his new board game to a toy company, but when he arrives at the corporate headquarters he gets beaten to a pulp by the building security guard. Sometimes the characters do something to deserve their comeuppance—Gershon made the mistake of insulting a New Yorker with a bad attitude—but more often than not, these folks are just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And, yes, there is a story here about a suicide bomber….
Like a Hollywood director who fills his films with slashers and shooters, Keret runs the risk of leaving his audience numb and insensate long before the grand finale. After so much violence, how do you keep the shock and awe from collapsing into schlock and blah? But our author has a few tricks up his sleeve, and toward the close of his book he presents an unexpected turnabout in his longest story "Surprise Party." There are more than a few surprises here, but the biggest arrives when birthday celebrant Avner leaves his office with a gun in his hand. He stops to ask the security guard to help him cock the weapon, and then proceeds on his mission. By this point we think we are wise to Keret's tricks, and think we can see what’s coming. But here, of all places, a storyteller finally violates Chekhov’s famous principle, and the gun is not fired. In the context of this short story collection, you could hardly come up with a more unexpected state of affairs.
This example notwithstanding, Edgar Keret may be a master of concision, but that doesn't necessarily translate into restraint. Until judges start issuing restraining order on fictional characters, you are advised not to empathize too closely with the protagonists in Mr. Keret's ouevre. Like many of us, they dish it out, but usually get it back in much larger doses. At least, the reader isn't on the receiving end of the injuries. In all honesty, it’s mostly a pleasure reading these tales of pain, and even if the characters go out of control, our author never does.
I haven't heard Keret read his short stories in front of an audience, but I suspect that they work far better in performance than most works of contemporary fiction. I've rarely been tempted to describe a modern author as a raconteur, but that may be the appropriate term for this compelling literary figure. These are the kinds of tales a favored dinner guest might share after the table is cleared and the last round of drinks are poured. Even the outrageous incidents in these stories—and they appear on almost every page—are very much in keeping with that tradition of oral narrative. You can almost here the storyteller warming up with the warning: "Let me tell you what happened, you’ll hardly believe it…."
And that may be the most challenging kind of tale to tell. All types of self-indulgence are allowed on the printed page, but the raconteur must work within the tightest of constraints. The pacing must be perfect. The story must have a compelling twist. And the end must always justify the means, taking us to a conclusion that seems fitting even if it's highly unexpected. Under ideal circumstances, you would sit around the table and listen to such narratives unfold, slyly spun by a consummate storyteller. But if you don’t have dinner company quite so scintillating, this book is the next best thing.