Good morning everyone,
This post will review “The Tiny Wife” by Andrew Kaufman. Of note, Lurk alerted me to this book in mid-January of this year. Thank you Lurk! Folks can learn more about him and his archival work by clicking here.
Andrew Kaufman’s publisher Friday Project released The Tiny Wife on New Year’s Day 2011. Kaufman previously wrote “The Waterproof Bible” which released in 2010 and he went on to write “All My Friends Are Superheroes” in 2013.
This is a difficult story to review because it is quite short, only 80 pages in print, and several pages have black and white illustrations occupying significant space across one or two pages. Tom Percival did the art and it was simple, but effective.
Details were sparse in the narrative and I do not want to disclose too much to maintain some surprises. Keeping that restriction in mind the most important factor to report is the dream-like nature of this short story. In a dream you might walk into a coffee shop where a walrus makes your drink. It is not real so you and all the other customers do not react to the fact that an enormous tusked marine mammal is behind the counter grinding coffee beans and operating the espresso machine. Instead, everyone acts normal and life continues as expected despite the unusual staffing.
Similarly, in Tiny Wife a woman’s entire body turns into candy and rather than going to the hospital she carries out her regular chores until eventually meeting an untimely end. Characters meekly accept improbable events and do little to change them.
Scant explanation is giving for the candy woman’s transformation nor for the many other people who suffer equally bizarre metamorphoses whether to their own bodies or to family members or to the physical environment around them.
Let me back up and explain how everything got started. Action begins on the very first page with a flamboyantly dressed robber who holds up several people at a bank in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In lieu of stealing money the robber takes something from each person which has the “most sentimental value.” Furthermore, he takes 51% of each victim’s soul which they now must re-grow.
In the days and weeks after the robbery the victims each experience something unusual which was meant to teach them a lesson. If they do not learn the lesson and figure out how to grow their souls then they will die. Some of them form a support group which accomplished precisely zilch. That is to say the support group did nothing to help the victims.
When asked why he committed the atypical crime the robber merely replied “Because it had to be done.” That may be enough rationale for the people who survived and benefited from the experience, but not everyone did. Nonetheless, that was all the “why” readers ever learned. The author gave even less information regarding the “how,” which is to say he gave nothing.
As for the Tiny Wife herself, Stacey Hinterland, her affliction was to shrink smaller by a increasing number of millimeters each day. The pattern was complicated and unpredictable until Stacey realized that she was diminishing smaller in perfect accordance with a “triangular number sequence.” This discovery led her to realize that her remaining days on Earth were numbered and that she would disappear completely in less than a week.
The resolution to Stacey’s problem was to be loved by her husband as their affection had diminished while raising a young child. Therefore, the main theme of this book was how a new parent’s love for their child results in a dramatic change in the relationship with their spouse.
The mysterious robber actually calls Stacey’s husband David and tells him what must be done, albeit in vague terms. Yet, David did not immediately change his behavior and try to save the woman he ostensibly loved. Rather, David and Stacey kept their routine daily schedule while she continued to shrink. Eventually, they made progress and achieved a happy ending, but this tale included an unexpected lack of agency and urgency. This is pure fantasy so that is perhaps fitting. Picture a nightmare in which one of your loved ones is a cake and for unknown reasons you cut a slice of them while they protest loudly. Then try to take meaning from that scary nightmare.
What I have written may sound negative, but it is merely intended to inform potential customers. They should not turn the first page if they are unwilling to accept a hefty amount of ambiguity and uncertainty. Personally, I appreciated the metaphors and the mix of mundane (problems common to every married couple with kids) and the fantastical (a baby shits money).
Overall, I recommend Tiny Wife. Readers seeking spicy sex scenes involving shrunken women need not bother. However, if you would enjoy a magical tale that addresses real-world problems, like keeping the torch of love burning under difficult circumstances, then you should appreciate this short story.
That is it for now folks. Stay tuned for another hot and fresh review coming to your screen in ten minutes or your money back!
This review was written by SolomonG and is protected under Fair Use copyright law.
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There She Grows 