The Run Fantastic by Luke Kondor

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Until The Run Fantastic, I had never read Bizarro Fiction. I'm not sure why that is, as I've seen several films (some based on books) that I think probably qualify and have enjoyed them all. Things like John Dies at the End, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, most of Terry Gilliam's oeuvre, and maybe even Big Trouble in Little China. I think I expected its literary twin to feel more like a Troma film and less like Donnie Darko. Luke Kondor has evangelized me, and after reading his tale of Ampersand Jones I am now a convert to the wiles of Bizarro.

The Run Fantastic does in a relatively short book what I rarely get anymore: I felt something. I read plenty of horror, science fiction, and fantasy, and I get a somewhat regular doses of mild fear, wonderment, and awe. Perhaps I'm desensitized, but I rarely read a book that takes me on a whirlwind tour of wicked humor, scalpel-sharp human commentary, love and loss, failure, insurmountable expectations, hopefulness, and at times a profound and moving melancholy. That last bit in particular hit pretty hard.

There's gore, but it isn't gruesome. Instead, Kondor is showing you up close the impermanence of our organic humanity, and what happens when life stops running. The imagery of Ampersand's story felt like something far more mythic. Each character or obstacle he encounters resonate with metaphors, as if you took The Divine Comedy and the Odyssey, put them into a blender, and topped the whole dish with an extra helping of The Wizard of Oz. And then, when you weren't looking, Luke slipped in a dose of that creepy as hell Return to Oz (1985) sequel that gave ten year old me nightmares.

It's been a while since I was as invested in the fate of a character as I was in those last ten pages of Ampersand Jones's marathon. It lays bare the profound pains anyone feels who is navigating those liminal spaces in their lives: entering adulthood, quarter-life/midlife/late-life crises, grief, death, and whatever might come after. Luke has a lot to say about the lengths we'll go to avoid those things, all the while trying to convince ourselves we're running toward our problems instead of away from them. I don't want to spoil it, but damn Luke stuck the landing.

So grab a copy, make sure you're well stocked on bananas, put the Blue Öyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" on loop, and enjoy yourself a really good book. And if you hear someone whistling behind you, don't worry. That's just the man with too many names. And while it's true that he's a slow runner, he always wins the race.



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