Monkeybicycle Front to Back - Part 5: From the Desk of JoJo Self

...gosh I seem to be turning these out rather slowly. ...I suppose there's nothing wrong with letting this become a months-long project though, is there? I can help keep Monkeybicycle 6 on the radar or whatever.

Corey Mesler's story "From the Desk of JoJo Self" is one of my favorites from Monkebicycle 6, and perhaps because of this, I have been avoiding this review, wanting to do the story justice. A few of the things I like about this story--

~Mesler's voice. Distinctive. Confident.

~Its fantastical elements: a magic desk swallows the craptastic sci-fi/fantasy manuscripts of agorophobic loser JoJo Self and delivers them to the desk of editor/frustrated writer Herman Newtix. Mesler's whimsical treatment of this premise reminds me a bit of the films of Charlie Kaufman.

~I became involved in the story... partway through, I realized I had stopped reading critically and was reading for fun, to find out what would happen next. This is worth something, I think, when a writer can invoke that sheer, childlike joy derived from storytelling.


I'll admit when I began reading, I had concerns. I sometimes have trouble identifying with sad sack male geeks, especially when they neglect their personal hygiene. I've an "ick factor" to contend with ...I will own this as my own personal issue, perhaps a byproduct of fagalicious shallowness. Although, in my defense, I must also note that in real life, the whole woe-is-me socially marginalized hetero male geek thing sometimes masks some ugly-ass misogyny. Yes, there are many geek misogynists, and I bristle when I hear them compare their marginal social status with systematic disenfranchisement of women, people of color, poor folks, Queer folks, etc, as though they are at all comparable ...And so when Mesler introduced the character of Candy, I was a bit worried she would prove to be a one-dimensional cipher in a geek boy fantasy wish fulfillment scenario. Thankfully, Candy is a woman of action, with plenty of chutzpah, and the story came alive for me when Mesler switches to her POV as she travels to New York to confront Newtix. Admittedly, everything Candy does she does to assist others, which some feminist critics might "problematize," but I was willing to forgive this, because I felt Mesler respected her and imbued her with some dignity. Candy was my favorite character.

I enjoyed this story and hope others enjoy it as well.