Cartas a Kevin

by Stephen Dixon

Rudy, a goodhearted fellow in New York, has been trying to phone Kevin Wafer, a kid he knows in Palo Alto, California. Only trouble is, one thing or another keeps getting in the way. For starters, Rudy doesn’t have a phone in his apartment, and he can’t manage to get a dial tone on his pillow or his alarm clock. When he tries to use a pay phone, the phone booth gets carried off by a crane, deposited in a warehouse, and left with Rudy trapped inside. What’s worse, the only repairman who shows up can’t help because he’s due to leave on his vacation and won’t be back for a month. Rudy tries to call for help, but all he can get on the line are other people locked inside other phone booths located other in warehouses all over the world. The only sensible thing for Rudy to do is to sit down with his trusty portable typewriter and write Kevin a letter, telling him what’s happened. Like Bob Dylan’s “115th Dream,” Letters to Kevin obeys a certain logic, but it’s a shifty, nighttime logic that’s full of surprises. Letters to Kevin is an absurdist, screwball farce, and certainly Stephen Dixon’s wildest and weirdest book ever. It’s also, sneakily, one of his most affecting.

Genres: Literature, Fiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published May 17, 2016

About the author

Stephen Dixon was a novelist and short story author who published hundreds of stories in an incredible list of literary journals. Dixon was nominated for the National Book Award twice--in 1991 for Frog and in 1995 for Interstate--and his writing also earned him a Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Academy Institute of Arts and Letters Prize for Fiction, the O. Henry Award, and the Pushcart Prize.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is heartening to read an 80-year-old author publishing a work of such unapologetic nonsense. After a lifetime spent writing anxious autofiction, imagining the worst possible scenarios for himself and his family, and exhausting them to a realm beyond therapy, Dixon earned the right to put out a novel this anarchic and loose. A man writes letters to a man named Kevin that never reach Kevin while the man attempts to travel to Palo Alto to meet Kevin. Untethered absurdism abounds. Fun, brimming with wordplay, with accompanying doodles from the author.

[Camilo Morales · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dixon logró plasmar los sueños en papel.

[Maxim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Initially not very funny, then rapidly becomes tedious and pointless. Not everyone can do absurdism a la Kafka and get tone right.

[Nicolas Torasso · Rating 2 out of 5]

Inicialmente parece entretenido, pero se torna tedioso que sea todo permanentemente absurdo. Lo tuve que abandonar al la tercera parte. Está bueno para leer en público, o incluirlo en una práctica de teatro.

[Jere Gonzalez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gran libro. Disfrute mucho las locas aventuras de Rudy, los constantes cambios y la gran imaginación para que cada escenario sea aún más bizarro qué el anterior.
De los mejores libros leídos probablemente.

[alexggrandma · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this dearly

i feel such affection for this book

Hits my funnybone

Tickles me pink, some would say

[María Alejandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maravillosa la manera en la que Dixon nos atrapa en la cabeza de Rudy. Es imposible abandonar el ritmo y totalmente hermosas las ilustraciones.

[Fernando De · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un autor con una imaginación impresionante. Adaptada, podría ser una linda obra de teatro. No es mi estilo, pero le reconozco su inventiva