Pool Party Trap Loop

by Ben Segal

If space determines the contours of possibility, Ben Segal’s domain delineates limitlessness. From an oceanic bedroom to a restaurant overrun by hedgehogs, a man who stumbles across strewn—about human—limbed planters to four people in an enclosed room where their every action is prescribed by cards drawn from a slot, Pool Party Trap Loop perambulates space and potential and in so doing plots a humanizing intersection. For the human condition—as revealed in these short yet shapely fictions—is dislocated, and dangerously so; repositioning requires the daring elasticity in language and form that pushes against the surreal sides of this boundless collection.

136 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2015

Reviews

[Curtis]

Hell yeah! That was a wild ride. These stories are short. Like, super short. Like, Matthew Bartlett's first collection level short. That's a good thing, it feels like a quick salvia trip every time. There's also something captivating about finding an amazing book that seems virtually unknown. It has been out a decade and according to GR, only five people have read it (I'm number six lol). It makes it feel like the book must have slipped free of an alternate timeline and I have one of the rare copies. And the dude in the author photo looks dead inside, I refuse to believe he exists in my universe.

I also like that the title is a palindrome. But tbh, they could have given it the even cooler title of Poop Party Trap Poop and still been a palindrome but whatever, I've accepted that other people are never as artsy as me.

[Craig]

How have I only heard of Ben Segal in the past few months?

These stories seem to come from a sidebar meeting of Ben Marcus and Gary Shipley at that not-famous hootenanny of precious postmodernists Bartheleme organized … or was late getting to because he was fixing a flat in Lubbock.

[n]

Been a while since I read something fucking weird. Reminds me of some of the segments of Naked Lunch but somehow both more surreal and less obtuse, in that they have structure and forward momentum and some of them even have fairly clear 'points'.

A few I just don't get, and I'm not sure whether that's my fault or the book's, but happily they're a minority and even the weaker pieces contain some stellar turns of phrase.

My favourite was probably 'EXERCISES', one of those irritating stories that reminds you of things you've tried to write in the past, but is infinitely better.

[Keith]

“The worst part of catastrophe is the normalcy that settles in after,” one narrator suggests toward the collection’s close. It’s the fear of complacency that fuels this little pink book’s fevered engines.

Reviewed for Electric Literature (by me).