Literture

Karkowsky’s debut collection is as quirky as its misspelled title and his folksy nom de plume suggest. With deft use of second-person perspective, “Real Creamy Ice Cream” dips the reader into the consciousness of an amnesiac obsessed with the very dessert that causes his condition. In the playful allegory “The Baby Store,” a couple considers purchasing a “courtroombaby” or a “churchbaby,” while a poorer man and wife embrace the opportunity to buy a “junkbaby.” In “Listening to My Son,” a softening prison lifer beseeches his newly incarcerated son: “Don’t get killed in an ugly way!” And in “Jimmy Dreams,” former president Carter “urges himself toward purposelessness” as he fights insomnia and shares a moment of existential dread with Rosalyn. Other stories—like the paranoid rant of “Breakfast Sex,” in which the art of miming and “that old Quaker Oats guy” are discussed in relation to sex addiction—flout the conventions of “literture” (including plot, resolution and character), but consistently project voices as strong as the laughs they elicit. (Dec.)