cover image Corrections to My Memoirs: Collected Stories

Corrections to My Memoirs: Collected Stories

Michael Kun, . . MacAdam/Cage, $22 (241pp) ISBN 978-1-59692-195-5

The cover's spoof of A Million Little Pieces sets the tone for this comic collection of writerly kvetching and obvious corporate parody. Kun (A Thousand Benjamins ) is a trial lawyer in L.A.; many of the 22 rifflike pieces satirize forms of legal communication, including the companywide e-mail. There's a weirdly threatening notification of the death of one "Iris Magruder of Albany, New York" (whose "intellectual property" includes sayings like "maybe next time you'll like your mother more"); the lame corporate award: "When I was first informed that I'd been nominated in the category of Best Interoffice Email (Nonviolent) (Nonsexual), I was touched"; and an instruction manual for a paper shredder: "Remember, the Whisper Shred 1600 is not a toy, it just looks like one." Sandwiched between each of the pieces are "Publisher's Notes," the kind of encomium-like letters that sometimes are tacked to the front of galleys: "You can certainly understand why we'd pay $50,000 for that one. Or why the Bloobedy-Bloodbedy Society would award Michael the Blah-Blah-Blabbedy-Blah Prize for it." The Corrections this certainly isn't, and many pieces aren't really stories, either. But there are chuckles to be had as Kun hits huge targets with a birdshot-spraying air rifle. (Jan.)