“Comedy, Italian Style” by Rachel Suleymanov / The Brooklyn Review
“We once spent time building the man and now we just quietly wait for him to surrender.”
What’s the word to start this week’s story appreciation?
Is it courage? It might be.
Insane would also work.
Maybe it’s a phrase: a cultural nose-thumbing.
No, it’s more straight forward than that. I think it’s ballsy…
Nope. I’ve got it!
Chutzpa.
When I started reading “Comedy, Italian Style” (7,500 words) in The Brooklyn Review, I actually gasped out loud.
I never thought I’d be in a situation where I’d need to use a content warning in these posts, working as I do with so many august literary publications, but I’m going to now. Not because of anything in this story that’s completely-off-the-charts offensive by today’s standards. But because the main character is so completely…not likeable…that it may not be your cup of scalding tea.
Also there is a good deal of blue language. So the red flags are up. If you tip out, please visit with us on Friday for another Shoutout author Q&A!
All that said, Rachel Suleymanov has achieved something miraculous with this story and it’s 100% worthy of your attention and study; for both what it sets out to do, and for what it achieves.
“Comedy, Italian Style” is a love story, and Suleymanov damns the torpedoes and leans on every hot button there is to press while simultaneously standing on, never mind touching, the third rail of gender relations.
Ambition!
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So let’s get to it.
Here’s the opening paragraph:
“It’s fucking disgusting when my wife doesn’t put her ass on the toilet seat to piss. She claims it’s efficient. I find it abhorrent of course, thinking about her piss flying everywhere. I’m flossing, I tell her. She always insists she’s “almost done,” but it never quite finishes right away. That’s another thing about Shannon—she never stops pissing.”
So we’ve met our first-person narrator, named George.
Oh, George…
After I read that paragraph, I flew right back up to the byline to see what guy had the audacity to type it out, never mind think it up. The fact that it’s written by a woman will necessarily change everything about how you process the whole of the piece.
George’s voice is crystal clear. And his motivations are clear, too, even though they’re appropriately subtextual. I’ve known a few Georges in my life, and Suleymanov absolutely nails him. If you can get past the effrontery, there’s a Portnoy’s Complaint-era Rothian vibe to “Comedy, Italian Style” that’s good, dirty fun. It’s like driving past a lethal crash of two clown cars; just bouncing red-ball-noses and bloody, oversized shoes everywhere.
For instance, here, when George rides Shannon for not washing her hands post-pee:
“Here, is this good?” Shannon maniacally washes her hands and shakes the cold water off directly onto my face.
I wipe my face and close my eyes. I can hear Shannon standing akimbo. I imagine breaking a glass bottle over her head, but instead, I simply remind her:
You’re supposed to wash it for the length of two Happy Birthdays. You ape.
My gasp transitioned to lol.
So you’re likely thinking, well, anyone can sketch out a horrible character, but where’s the art?
Where are we going with this?
Two answers.
First off, we’re going down.
Just spiraling down with George as he makes one bad decision after another. Increasingly so, until the decisions are just terrible, the absolute worst. All of them tragically and hilariously and heart-breakingly bad (no spoilers, but the urge is so strong.)
This is no small feat. It’s a high-wire act and Suleymanov keeps perfect balance—just the right mix of offensiveness, humor, pathos and straight-up humanity—to keep us reading and not ball-peen-hammering our screens back into the rare earth metals from whence they sprang.
What?! He’s asking again?
I am.
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Secondly, there’s the B-line.
George is a writer, and between all the A-line goings-on, he’s working on a retrospective for a magazine, thoughts of which bubble up above the waterline of the story throughout. The piece will be an appreciation of the storied career of the Italian film star and cleft-chin-patent-holder. Marcello Mastroianni.
As George puts it:
“When Marcello acts, he never seems desperate. He doesn’t throw himself at the camera or crease his brow beyond a single, virile wrinkle. He’s simply a man, recognized for being a man. Today, being a man is an immutable disease, a mental and moral disfiguration requiring tremendous guilt and self-doubt. We once spent time building the man and now we just quietly wait for him to surrender, taking with him in death his pathetic and transgressive manhood. Shannon waits for this day, I’m sure of it.
And…wait for it…
“Marcello is stubborn and lush, a stern jaw with melting eyes, his legacy as relentless as his life. He grew a beard when he dated the angelic Catherine Deneuve. I never thought it suited him, but he did as he pleased, as he ought to have done. I almost want to write, “he does as he pleases”.
Suleymanov fans out the arc of Mastroianni’s career via a handful of short descriptions of his pivotal film roles, each of which cozies up snuggly alongside George’s delusional current-day take on how the sexes relate.
We watch Marcello age and stoop across time just as George’s descent approaches peak husk-hollowing.
Props, too, for Suleymanov’s depiction of Shannon, George’s faithful wife. It takes real skill to capture another character’s essence when it’s viewed through the scrim of the main character’s first-person telling. Especially when the shading is so dark.
Check out this beautiful turn:
“But [Shannon] once told this joke, I’ll never forget it; she scratched herself on something inconsequential like a cardboard box, but the scratch remained for weeks, it stupefied us both, and when our mutual friend, Laurie, asked her about the scratch, Shannon simply quipped:
“This is the scratch that fucking could.”
She said it, just like that, just very plainly with a tinge of whimsy, like that folktale “The Little Engine That Could,” but Shannon didn’t need to explain it to me because I understood it all very quickly and I knew right then and there between the rosé and this stupid little joke about the scratch, I knew I’d marry her.
George does hit rock bottom, I’m happy to say (versus the alternative.) It’s a hard landing, so it ain’t pretty. But there’s laughter attached to it, which is something. Especially considering that the whole of “Comedy, Italian Style” circles a misspent life.
At the very least, we don’t wrap up the read awash in bloody clown shoes.
So what does Rachel Suleymanov teach us here? For me, this story is another lesson in the undeniable power of swinging-for-the-fences. In the bold tackling of big topics and the use of the subtleties of craft and nuances of character to sand down the corners and polish the brass to a high shine.
As for George, when his number finally comes up, it’s entirely possible his epitaph will read “he did as he pleased.”
But what about the rest of us?
The Brooklyn Review is a literary magazine from the Brooklyn College MFA in Creative Writing program, founded by Allen Ginsberg and John Ashbery. They publish a print issue in the spring and digital content throughout the academic year.
The Brooklyn Review accepts submissions during two annual reading periods: February 1 – 28th and September 1 – 30th, so they’re currently open. Get in there, champ!
They’re looking for fiction that offers “urgent, atmospheric narratives; deeply inhabited characters; formal invention; precision of language; self-aware humor; and generally polished, thoughtful stories.” They typically publish stories between 3,000 and 7,000 words, and request that you send only your best work.
Check out more of Rachel Suleymanov’s wide ranging, multi-media work at her website.
A big thank you to Rachel Suleymanov and The Brooklyn Review for the bounty that is “Comedy, Italian Style.”
Again? Seriously? Third time’s charmed!
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