Animal Acts

by Cris Mazza

In a striking first collection of stories, Cris Mazza brings a startling vision to the familiar terrain of intimate relationships. The eleven stories in Animal Acts describe characters navigating an unsteady course through the turbulence of sexual desire. Set in unmistakably American landscapes—from sprawling West Coast cities to the dry, dusty scrub of rural Southern California—the work is populated by gym teachers, aging flower children, secretaries and artists—most of them strong, willful women.

The narrator of the title story holds the guests at a party spellbound with her fantastic retelling of another woman's perverse life—which may, in fact, be her own—thereby seducing a man who has previously eluded her.

Mazza's arresting narrative structures and sharp sense of the absurd make for a dazzling debut collection.

163 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Cris Mazza is the author of a dozen books of fiction, mostly recently Waterbaby (Soft Skull Press 2007). Her other titles include the critically acclaimed Is It Sexual Harassment Yet?, and the PEN Nelson Algren Award winning How to Leave a Country. She also has a collection of personal essays, Indigenous: Growing Up Californian. Mazza has been the recipient of an NEA Fellowship and three Illinois Arts Council literary awards. A native of Southern California, Mazza grew up in San Diego County. Currently she lives 50 miles west of Chicago. She is a professor in the Program for Writers at the University of Illinois at Chicago "

Reviews

[mark monday · Rating 2 out of 5]

back in the late 80s at UC San Diego, I was fortunate to have Cris Mazza as a creative writing professor (or lecturer? I think that may have been the case). the memory that sticks out to me the most from that class was an increasingly angry exchange between students and lecturer - although the anger came only from the former. a classmate had written a story featuring a dog and that dog's love for its owner. I don't remember anything about that story, which was no doubt mawkish and annoying. what I do remember clearly was Cris noting that dogs don't really feel love; that's just projecting human emotions onto an animal. Cris stated as fact, in an admirably calm and dispassionate fashion, that what dogs feel is loyalty and submission to their pack leader - in most cases, the human who owns them. any other feelings that humans think dogs may be feeling are based on naive sentiment rather than the actual reasons for how animals act. the class reacted in passionate dismay, escalating rapidly; Cris appeared alternately bored and amused by the uproar.

that perspective is certainly present in this collection. dogs do not love. even further, human barely understand that concept either. they barely understand sex. they completely misunderstand themselves.

Mazza's writing is flexible, nuanced, and rather chilly in tone despite the fervent emotions and outlandish behavior on display. stories about relationships and about people out of touch or too much in touch with their desires, often with a surreal bent. narratives toyed with; reader expectations messed with; lives and relationships clinically dissected. humans portrayed as bags full of fumbled goals, confused motivations, angry longings, unacknowledged regret. the prose is highly literary. I was repeatedly reminded of Joy Williams. or a more experimental, less sympathetic-to-the-human-condition Ann Beattie.

most interesting to me was the ongoing theme of how humans create stories to define themselves and others. in stories, paintings, music, sculpture, all forms of art. quite absorbing to contemplate and I loved how that idea came up in each and every part of this collection. less interesting to me was the ongoing positioning of fat women as villainous predators and/or objects of scorn or derision. the first time I raised an eyebrow; the second time was a big WTF; the third and subsequent times I could only think that someone has a problem they need to get over.

despite the admirable quality of the prose and the intelligence of the ideas on display, Animal Acts left me entirely cold. her characters didn't just annoy me, they felt both awkwardly unreal and unnecessarily repulsive. Mazza explores her characters' often escalated emotional states but also holds them at arm's length, sometimes turning them into caricatures of willfulness and resentment, in a way that I found increasingly off-putting. not only did I not like reading about them, my lack of empathetic connection with these appalling creatures made the experience a distinctly boring one for me. or perhaps I am just a sloppy sentimentalist who needs to find some sliver of joy in what he reads; I am, after all, one of those people who thinks dogs actually love humans.

here is the last line of the collection:

The passion on stage is in pantomime.

and that pretty much sums it up!


An Anecdote Unconnected to This Review

being quite the egocentric, self-satisfied asshole in college (gosh things have sure changed since then *cough*), I decided to conduct an experiment during the semester I took Cris' course, for my own private amusement. I enrolled in two creative writing classes simultaneously. no matter the assignment, I turned in the same story in both classes. in the first class (I think the lecturer was Mel Freilicher? memory fails me), I made sure my affect was warm and pleasant and supportive towards my fellow classmates; in the second - Cris Mazza's class - I made sure to be as arrogant and high-handed and critical as possible to everyone. as far as the lecturers' responses go, Mel was kind and Cris was silent. but as far as my classmates were concerned... without fail, my stories in the first class were held up as wonderful examples of creativity and I was asked to read them at various events and was eventually invited to edit the school's literary quarterly. and without fail, my stories in the second class were upbraided as obscure, perverted, needlessly dark. oh the many secret smirks I enjoyed in both arenas! in the end, I received the same grade for both classes (an A, which should go without saying).

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection full of catastrophic relationships, animals (mostly dogs), artists (mostly painters and sculptors) and musicians. Somewhat chaotic stories with energetic language I could appreciate but not many of the stories I’d ever read again. Loved “Nervous Dog,” where the dog completes the triangle in the relationship and the words in the dialog are like knives brought to a fist fight. Really liked the correlative in “Erasable Ink” where the drawings convey the emotions. Has a great ending, too. In “Animals Don’t Think About It” - mmmm, a neutered cat functions as a metaphor for artist’s block. “At Least He Didn’t Play a Tuba” has a great diversion with the elevator girl barging into the hotel room, but the ending was abrupt and seemed unearned.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got into these stories. There are some uncomfortably intimate places the author sometimes takes the reader. Serious grade stuff, with just a touch of the bizarre. Good stuff.