Toward You

by Jim Krusoe

Toward You completes Jim Krusoe's bittersweet trilogy about the relationship between this world and the next. Bob has spent several years trying to build a machine that will communicate with the dead. He's gotten more or less nowhere. Then two surprising things he receives an important message from a dog, and a former girlfriend, Yvonne, reenters his life. These events make Bob even more determined to perfect the Communicator, as he calls his invention, in the belief that it will change his friendless, humdrum life for the better. In the meantime, Yvonne's young daughter inhabits an afterlife she is trying to escape and would give anything to be reunited with her mom.

Toward You is a poignant story of longing, mistakes, regret, disaster, and, above all, hope.

Genres: Fiction, Magical Realism, Literature

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 11, 2011

About the author

Jim Krusoe is an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. His stories and poems have appeared in Antioch Review, Denver Quarterly, BOMB, Iowa Review, Field, North American Review, American Poetry Review, and Santa Monica Review, which he founded in 1988. His essays and book reviews have appeared in Manoa, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, and The Washington Post. He is a recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund. He teaches at Santa Monica College and in the graduate writing program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. His novel, Iceland, was selected by the Los Angeles Times and the Austin Chronicle as one of the ten best fiction books of 2002, and it was on the Washington Post list of notable fiction for the same year. His novel Girl Factory was published in 2008 by Tin House Books followed by Erased, which was published in 2009 and Toward You published in 2010, also by Tin House Books.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell]

You like weird, flaky storytelling that's even further out there then Barton Fink, Fargo and The Big Lebowski? Folks, I'm here to report Jim Krusoe out oddballs even The Coen Brothers.

Toward You takes its place as number three after Girl Factory and Erased in the author's trilogy about the relationship between this world and the next - and we're talking screwball doozy all the way.

"I'd been tinkering with the Communicator when I heard a short squeal of breaks outside my house and then a dull thud: the sound of a body being struck by a speeding car." So begins this tale set in a raunchy lower middle class neighborhood of St. Nils, small US city where half the men and women are unemployed and everyone spends their off hours eating, sleeping and watching TV.

Bob is the guy who hears the short squeal and dull thud. Bob opens his front door and witnesses the aftermath of the collision: the hit dog wobbles up his sidewalk and drops over dead. Bob reads the big brown dog's name on the oval nameplate of its thick leather collar: Bob.

Bob (the human) ponders what to do with Bob (the dog). Calling the city is out of the question on Thursday at five-thirty since city offices are now closed on Friday and with Columbus Day on Monday, the city wouldn't come by till at least Tuesday or even later. Dragging Bob the dead dog to his next door neighbor Farley's yard is also out - Farley works nights and he might be home looking out the window this very moment. Nope. Only one choice - drag Bob to his backyard and bury Bob under the anemic rosebush in need of fertilizer. "Bob would become the rosebush and the rosebush would become Bob."

After putting the finish touches on Bob's grave - making a grave marker by painting Bob over today's date over RIP in Old English lettering on a piece of scrap wood, Bob shares strokes of his backstory: an unsocial klutz in high school, flunked out of St. Niles Community College, enrolled in the Institute for Mind/Body Research where he 1) had a deeply emotional (for him) short-term relationship with fellow student Yvonne; and 2) began working on his Communicator so he could share messages back and forth with the dead. Saddened by Yvonne ending their relationship, he quit school and learned furniture upholstery, eventually starting his own business he named Bob's Upholstery. He continues to work on the Communicator in his spare time (no success yet but Bob senses he could have his first breakthrough).

And then it happens. The very next morning after burying the big brown dog, Bob's working on an antique chair when he hears someone knocking on his front door. Bob opens the door to see a woman and a young girl both with dark hair in pigtails, the woman's wearing a deerskin dress and moccasins and the girl in regular kid clothes and her arm wrapped in fresh gauze. Wouldn't you know it - the woman is none other than Yvonne and the girl, about age ten, is Dee Dee, her daughter.

Turns out, Yvonne is going door to door in her neighborhood (she lives a few blocks away) asking if anybody has seen a large dog that bit Dee Dee. More concerned with rekindling a romantic relationship than Dee Dee's health (possible contraction of rabies), Bob tells her 'no' but invites them in to share a cake he's baked. Hey, Bob! Why don't you tell the truth to possibly save a child's life? Nope. Bob is way too feckless and lonely to put Dee Dee ahead of himself.

Jim Krusoe frames his novel thusly where bizarre and weird lead to gobs more that's kooky, creepy, funky and freaky. Take a gander at a few clips that could be from the Toward You movie trailer -

Peeping Tom - Bob's feeling down, a real case of alienation from his true identity. To snap himself back into being his authentic self, Bob takes an evening walk. He comes upon Yvonne's house. One thing leads to another until Bob is up in a tree peering in at Yvonne brushing her teeth in the upstairs bathroom. Yvonne turns and stares out the window. Did she see him? Bob waits a few minutes before dropping down from the tree. Minutes later, wouldn't you know it - a policeman tells Bob, "We got a call about a prowler." Could be trouble, Bob.

Contacting the Dead - Bob constructs a homemade helmet out of egg cartons to better hear all those vibrations coming from the other side (the land of the afterlife). Bob starts hearing strange sounds. Are they the 'Terminal Waves' you're so keen to tap into, Bob? Still wearing his special helmet, Bob takes a stroll outside. Guess who spots him doing all this? Wouldn't you know it - the very same policeman. This could mean more trouble, Bob.

Voice from Beyond - "Does it surprise you that my best friend here is Bob? Well, Bob is my only friend." So speaks Dee Dee now that she's dead. And the Bob she's talking about is Bob the dog. By switching to Dee Dee from the beyond, Jim Krusoe adds more weirdness to his already bugged out tale.

I could add additional clips featuring that police officer, Dennis the psychopath (owner of Bob the dog) and next door neighbor Farley, but I'll stop here and say you'll have to read for yourself. Oh, if only the Coen Brothers would make a film of Toward You, it might be a box office smash, coining a new category - The Superweird.


American author Jim Krusoe, born 1943

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book years ago, and didn't read it at the time, because I wanted to save it for the future. I'm that way with a lot of my favorite authors - I try to read their works slowly and not completely. Unless a doctor or wife or something calls me and tells me that I'm dying, and I better start reading that book, because time is very (for me) short. So I finally read this book, and funny enough, it is sort of about death - but mixing with life. Jim is sort of the combination of Boris Vian and Thorne Smith - yet contemporary. Although his stories can take place anywhere in the 20th and 21st century - he does have an ear for screw-ball narratives. 'Weird" screwball tales, but nevertheless he has an ear in that world, but with his sensibilities.

"Toward You" is pretty much a tale of an inventor, who is an oddball, but he's in a community of oddballs. It deals with an invention that reaches the 'other side' of the deathly world - and a police officer doing his job, and a deceased dog and.... it goes on. A superb Krusoe novel.

[Anthony Chavez · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Goodreads First Read giveaway book. I really like the way Krusoe paints a picture with his words. I liked the main character Bob in this book, getting inside his head and hearing the random thoughts and ideas he had was fun. I thought the addition of the Mind/Body institute and how it played into the lives of Bob and Yvonne was very interesting but it left me wanting to learn more about it. The normality of all the characters and their problems was very believable, and the random events that occur were great. You got Dennis the obsessive dog owner who can't cope at the loss of his Bob (the dog) and his creepy connection to Bob (the person), Steadman the small town beat cop who is nearing retirement and wants to break this pyromaniac case and although he likes and connects with Bob does think he is odd and keeps showing up to rain on his parade, and then the communicator, I liked reading the communicator chapters and seeing into the world of the dead and what Dee Dee was thinking or doing. But all in all it left me wanting more. Maybe I need to reread it but i never understood why Dee Dee and Bob were together or alone, and although i sometimes like endings such as this one (the fight and Bob just walking away from it all), I didn't quite get the fire and Bob seeing Dee Dee and Bob, or what appeared to be them, walking toward him.

Btdub, the book itself is beautiful, i love the layered pages and cover art.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Toward You completes Krusoe’s trilogy about resurrection. In this tale Bob is trying to build a machine to enable him to communicate with the dead. When his ex-girlfriend’s daughter dies from rabies, finishing the Communicator becomes his foremost task.

[Megan Miller · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was interesting. Revolved around lamenting the past and searching for the truth within what has happened. I mostly kept waiting for the plot to thicken, or continue or something... but it never really did.

[Wildwomble · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this book was excellent! It walked the line of humor, surrealism and horror really well. If you like Haruki Murakami you should read Jim Krusoe!

[Jonathan Gruber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty weird and funny like his other books, but this one was a bit too rambling and open ended - more like a novella than a book. My least favorite of his, but still had some great moments

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

For some reason I really enjoyed the first book, Girl Factory, in this sort of trilogy better than the second two. Krusoe spins what I would describe as tales of comic absurd-ism. Little lives not quite connected to reality tempered with a connection to or a desperate need to connect to the afterlife.

In this volume, a furniture upholsterer named Bob has been working his whole life on a "communicator" that would allow the living to hear from the dead. But the communicator seems instead to be taking the focus off a the more important things in his life - like his work and relationships with the living. A dead dog and and encounter with an ex-girlfriend kick off the plot such as it is.

Krusoe has a way with sketching witty vignettes with these desperate characters - some goodhearted others not - that makes the reading enjoyable. But the story in this and the previous novel (Erased) just don't have the movement and zip of the first. It as if the absurdity and word play has take over and the plot and characters have become flat. There are some funny moments and times when he captures the true awkwardness that can be involved in social situations; captures the internal monologues and self-deceits. But it didn't feel like the book had a pay off; it just sort of drifted to an ending of sorts.

[John Pappas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jim Krusoe's new novel isn't quite an allegory, but it doesn't have the fully-fleshed out sense of realism that other writers of quasi-speculative fiction, like Steven Millhauser, pursue. Conceptually, the conceit of this novel is intriguing: a lonely furniture re-upholsterer spends the majority of his time attempting to contact the afterlife using a machine of his own design called the Communicator (something, not incidentally, that impressed his long-lost love from college years ago). Practically, however, the plotting is too convenient and some of the subplotting (for example, DeeDee's monologues from the afterlife) are unnecessary or irrelevent. As a result, a fundamental underlying unity is missing. Still, the portrait of a terminally lonely, self-deluded man obsessively using technology to connect with the past is a prescient and pathetic satirical critique of a culture that uses the technologies of the day to keep some version of the past omni-present. The development of the main character's lack of moral engagement with the world and increasing ability to rationalize his behavior, as well as his own lack of reaction to his despicable lack of action, is shocking. Krusoe's ability to depict, somewhat comically and almost sympathetically, this kind of character, so selfishly able to stand by and not act, makes me want to read something else by him.

[Keri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really torn between two and four stars. I know, I know. There were parts that I really quite liked and I found it to be an engrossing read...if only to find out what Bob (Human Bob, as I had to come to think of him--but that's a whole other issue) would do next.

The characters rode a pendulum of believability. One moment I felt as though all of our very human desires and dreams and secret selves were wrapped into these characters, and then the next one showed a turn of personality that surprised me again. Perhaps that was the most engrossing part.

Certainly "ordinary" life captured in a unique voice. If absurd stream of consciousness (from multiple POVs) is your thing, you've got a winner here.

[Pete Camp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bob is a lonely heart who has been pining after Yvonne, a woman he met at the Mind/Body institute and who shunned him for the institute’s founder. Their paths reconnect years later when Yvonne knocks on Bob’s door with her young daughter, Dee Dee, in tow. Dee Dee has been bitten by a dog which was days earlier hit and killed outside Bob’s house. Not having any tags And not knowing how to find the dog’s owner , the dog also being named Bob, he gives the animal a decent burial in his backyard.
Sadly Dee Dee contracts rabies and dies . Bob is trying to develop a device he calls the communicator to contact the dead. Short, zany quirky story with an eclectic cast of characters. Themes of happenstance and “ what if” are explored and above all the unique enigma of the human condition

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is my favorite of Krusoe's afterlife trilogy. It seemed have both more focus and more heart than the other two. There are still the coincidences and unlikely events so crucial to Krusoe's stories, not to mention the resistance to "easy" allegories that insists readers take the absurd at face value. But the introduction of multiple voices opened up the possibilities of the story in an unexpected way that kept resonating after I'd finished, whereas as the other two felt novels felt more final, for lack of a better word.

[Seth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll just point to my review of Erased, with two modifications: (1) I thought Toward You's ending was less sentimental but (and I'm still debating this), perhaps, a bit too writerly and (2) this review of the book (http://therumpus.net/2011/05/toward-you/) quotes my favorite line from the book (the one about Bob's attempts to rekindle a love interest), which I enjoy so much that it makes me wonder if I should bump the rating to five stars.

[Uwe Hook · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not a mystery/fantasy guy. But, since my parents died, I'm in the Green Room, dealing with the possibility of death. And, this book kicked me in the butt in weird ways. The story is fine, the premise interesting, the writing dry. But, the topic of being able to communicate with the dead, kept me interested. That's why I love books. As a move, 20 minutes in, I would have given up. As a book, 50 pages in, you want to know how it ends. So, it takes you on a journey. One that I enjoyed.

[Vanita Nemali · Rating 1 out of 5]

So I don't believe in this talking with dead people business but this author has three books in this surrealism genre that I wanted to explore.

NYT review link below if you are interested:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/boo...

Didn't like the book, the main character is too depressing.

[Danarae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Full of elements of magical realism, quirky characters and spot-on dialogue. And it's hilarious, too. I can't wait to read more by Jim Krusoe. Check out my full review in the March/April edition of ForeWord Reviews. http://www.forewordreviews.com/

[Jason Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the author's first book so much that each one after has only been good. I woul recommend this book to anyone who like serious/comic fiction. There are many great moments in this book, I just wanted another "Iceland" and this wasn't it for me.

[Rupert · Rating 3 out of 5]

I devoured the first fifty pages, I could't put it down, but I felt like it petered out some after that. Felt like a lot more could have been done with the police officer and "The Wagonmaster". Definitely will continue to explore this author, though.

[Jamie Grefe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful, warm, uplifting, sad, and funny. My first encounter with Mr. Krusoe, but certainly not the last. Already, I can feel this book lingering inside and the end alone is worth the price of admission, even though the entire journey is what makes it so special.

[Ann Kaplan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Jim Krusoe. This book is no exception. I think I needed a break from that tone, but then I picked up a similarly deadpan novel. Anyway, if you like Krusoe, this book is for you. If you're not sure, then pick up any of his books and take it for a spin.

[Marco Kaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was a great closer to Jim Krusoe's triology on the afterlife and communication. Here is my full review at the Rumpus: http://therumpus.net/2011/05/toward-you/

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hyper-stylized dialogue in a subdued setting make for some disarming comedy. Jim Krusoe's wheelhouse, really. Quite a book.

[Erin Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

very, very funny.

[Sarah Yasin]

This is highbrow bizarro fiction (nothing less than what I aspire to myself).