Thursday October 11, 2001

Grade:

C-

Hearing an interesting new story is always refreshing - what's not is hearing the same story six different times in the same book.

"Sam the Cat and Other Stories" is a collection of seven short stories that are basically the same story, revolving around the same themes in different settings, resulting in a feeling of overwhelming dŽjˆ vu.

"Sam the Cat" is Matthew Klam's baby. A writer for the New York Times Magazine, Klam has made his first attempt at writing a novel, and it shows.

All seven stories are based on combinations of the following themes: men as cheaters and womanizers, issues within intimate and familial relationships and the love/hate relationships with partners.

The book is meant to be an exposŽ on the "modern man," and each story reflects that particular aspect through a man's viewpoint.

"It's based on a certain type of guy who's defensive and misogynistic," Klam said.

The men in Klam's stories all have problems - sometimes with jobs but mainly with women. They hate their wives or girlfriends or just don't want to deal with them.

In one story, "Linda's Daddy's Loaded," Linda's rich father comes to visit her and her husband, Mike. Linda becomes incredibly stressed out because of the visit. Mike hates this. He reacts by exploring his own hatred of how Linda doesn't have a career or do anything with her time.

"She can be a pain in the ass. She doesn't know who to trust, so she has to trust me, but if you took an X-ray of the inside of her soul, you'd see loose pieces, with unmatched edges, floating around inside her," Mike says in the story as he reflects on Linda.

Every story is laced with multiple sexual occurrences that Klam describes in a variety of ways. Sometimes the descriptions are erotic; at other times, they are flat-out vulgar.

In another one of the stories, sex is what creates the tension between the couple, or rather, the result of sex.

In the story "There Should Be a Name For It," a couple named Lynn and Jack stuff their conflict into the chicken that Lynn cooks for dinner. The little bird is representative of the little child that Lynn recently aborted.

Jack begins to reflect on their relationship and talks about how he is sick of Lynn.

"She was sick now, and I was sick of her, I hated her little puffy knocked-up ass, she looked like a worried old hag, and out of nowhere I'm just not so sure of anything. Why I all of a sudden don't love her," he says.

The one saving grace of Klam's book is his title story, "Sam the Cat," which was published in the New Yorker before it was included as part of the book.

Fresh and funny, "Sam the Cat" focuses on Sam - a womanizer who has problems with his girlfriend, Louise, and ends up becoming infatuated with a woman who isn't really a woman.

At one point in the story, Sam and Louise are in bed together, and he begins to think about the man, John, who he cannot get out of his mind.

"You could tell he was very slim and in shape," Sam narrates, thinking of John. "There I am, horned out and at the same time queasy with the weirdness of it. Sam the cat, he bad and naughty."

Klam's style is engaging and witty and keeps the reader involved. He writes with a conversational tone that reads more like a diary than a narrative. Perhaps when he gets a more interesting plot line, he can let his real talent as a writer show.