The Metapheromenoi

Connell’s poetic, post-structuralist dark fantasy offers a phantasmagoric account of intertwining lives as bizarre and fascinating as it is perplexing. A nameless man visits a dentist’s office where Leaena, the woman he is enamored with, works. She is nowhere to be found, and the dentist informs the man that he’ll need a root canal. After a heavy dose of anesthetic, the dentist begins violently removing the man’s teeth. From there, the story fractures. Connell (Metrophilas) takes the reader through a menagerie of increasingly lurid incidents in the lives of Leaena, whose dedication to her son creates a rift in her marriage; Yves Hermite, who writes lecherous short stories; Jae-Yong, who questions whether cannibalism can cure his ennui; and Mrs. Cheng, whose dark secret is as bloody as it is unexpected. Though the voice is lyrical and the vibrant descriptions will grab readers’ attention, the jumbled perspective proves tricky to follow as the form switches between prose, poetry, and screenplay. Some readers of experimental fiction will delight in this complex, disorienting work, but most will be met only with confusion. (May)