Yellow Bricks

In this, Brodsky's first book of short fictions, you're likely to find yourself in absurdity's line of fire, the ammo consisting of an insurance agent, adept at selling policies covering impregnation by aliens; a milquetoast husband, whose nagging wife communicates with him via Post-it Note commands; a quarter-ton Jujyfruits addict, who receives direct-from-the-factory shipments of his sole source of sustenance; a family man, who abruptly leaves his wife and kids, then returns, just as abruptly, two decades later, ready for dinner; and a ravenous traveler, overcome by the Tex-Mex mystique of a Missouri hotel restaurant, whose mascot is a three-foot-long iguana. In addition, you'll be shot through by the armor-piercing language and ballistic behavior of a South St. Louis auto-factory-assembly-line worker, a man's man, who appreciates the finer things in life: brewskies and pigskin action.