Grégoire Bouillier’s The Mystery Guest is a small but powerful volume about love lost and – eventually – gotten over. Bouillier’s ex-girlfriend calls one day and invites him to be the “mystery guest” at a party of a friend of hers. This invitation causes Bouillier to go on a frantic and manic head trip wondering why she invited him, whether he should go, and – when he decides to go – what gift to buy the woman he does not know.
The memoir is both funny and thought-provoking. Bouillier’s mania results in many memorable sections on turtlenecks as undershirts and the rationale behind gift wrap. But, as the story unfolds and he comes face-to-face with the ex-girlfriend who left with no discussion several years prior, Bouillier also gives the reader a meditation on how we move on from past love.
Twin Study: Stories is a collection of short stories by Stacey Richter which has garnered attention for her interesting narrators. I agree that her narrators are not standard in any way, but a few of them cross the line between wacky and annoying. A few, like the one in “Habits and Habitat of the Southwestern Bad Boy,” I find unsympathetic and hard to listen to. This may have been by Richter’s design, but if I’m going to read a store told by someone a bit offensive, I need to feel some modicum of sympathy for them. This is not the case in a couple of Richter’s narrators. These narrators are in the minority, though, and many of them, such as the one in the title story “Twin Study,” are both funny and sympathetic. Richter’s stories shine when the reader can see through the quirky voice of the narrator into her pain.