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He
Jon Konrath is back with He, a collection of 100 intertwined micro-fictions. The flash fragments of raw emotion each begin with the titular word "he," and descend in every possible direction, with great absurdity and hilarity.
In an apocalyptic world filled with sex, violence, the macabre, UFOs, Mariah Carey belly-button-fetish videos, NyQuil jello shots, and beer-battered, deep-fried Lunchables, Jon Konrath's fiction stands out for its complete lack of restraint, taste, and human decency. Drifting through a nonlinear journey of torment, confusion, and laugh-out-loud lunacy, each story's narrator presents a capsule of their deranged life, filled with darkness, humor, emotion, and pain.
He challenges our identity of who we are in the modern world of disillusionment, within a unique landscape escaping genre that can only be described as Konrathian. The extreme inappropriateness and humor provide a view of our emotions and ourselves. Both hilarious and dark, the experimental form of He is a bizarre mixture of insanity, emotion, and ridiculousness.
In an apocalyptic world filled with sex, violence, the macabre, UFOs, Mariah Carey belly-button-fetish videos, NyQuil jello shots, and beer-battered, deep-fried Lunchables, Jon Konrath's fiction stands out for its complete lack of restraint, taste, and human decency. Drifting through a nonlinear journey of torment, confusion, and laugh-out-loud lunacy, each story's narrator presents a capsule of their deranged life, filled with darkness, humor, emotion, and pain.
He challenges our identity of who we are in the modern world of disillusionment, within a unique landscape escaping genre that can only be described as Konrathian. The extreme inappropriateness and humor provide a view of our emotions and ourselves. Both hilarious and dark, the experimental form of He is a bizarre mixture of insanity, emotion, and ridiculousness.
180 pages, Paperback
First published August 10, 2015
1 person is currently reading
78 people want to read
About the author
Jon Konrath
37 books88 followersJon Konrath is an American author born in 1971. He grew up in Indiana and studied computer science and English at Indiana University. After college, he worked as a software developer and technical writer, but eventually turned his attention to writing fiction.
Konrath is the author of several books, including "Rumored to Exist," "Thunderbird," and "The Earworm Inception." His writing is known for its unique blend of humor, absurdism, and surrealism, often blurring the lines between reality and fantasy.
In addition to writing, Konrath is also an accomplished photographer. He currently resides in California.
Konrath is the author of several books, including "Rumored to Exist," "Thunderbird," and "The Earworm Inception." His writing is known for its unique blend of humor, absurdism, and surrealism, often blurring the lines between reality and fantasy.
In addition to writing, Konrath is also an accomplished photographer. He currently resides in California.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 31, 2020
So yesterday I was sitting in a coffee shop here in San Francisco waiting for a client to arrive for a meeting, cheek by jowl to a table of twenty somethings jabbering in their Norcal vocal lilt where every sentence ends in a question - I’m reading He by Konrath, loving his zany and hilarious mashed up musings on American culture’s death spiral and having a hard time concentrating because these two are talking THIS FUCKING LOUD about absolutely nothing – regurgitating HBO original series plots, favorite lines from current sitcoms, hashing through current events and not even really speaking to each other, they’re just loudspeakers of nadir talking at increasingly higher volume until they’ve run out of things to say, grab their respective phones, and swipe for more content to vomit. In the thirty second interlude before they started back up I was able to find Konrath’s thread again, and when they began their next round of banalities the sound was like the Greek chorus to everything Konrath.
September 10, 2015
He sits down to write this review, guts still churning from a long night of drinking, robotripping, and an ill-advised 3am whale-fucker sandwich from the 24/7 combination Long John Silver's/abortion clinic, the one out by the old airport.
He looks out the window, picks up a loaded magnum revolver, and resists the urge to cap one of the neighbor's loudly clucking chickens, exploding it into a fine red mist of organic, free-range feathers. It is now just past dawn.
He has difficulty focusing his thoughts, sipping his coffee and languidly rubbing his hemorrhoids with a mixture of powdered kale, hydrocortisone, and crushed-up Flintstone vitamins. He pours another slug or two of whiskey into his coffee cup, which is already more than half liquor, downing the entire thing in one heroic gulp.
Still the words won't come.
He gets up and heads off to the bathroom for an epic beer shit. When he returns to his desk, he sits back down again, contemplating the possibility of working on one of his own writing projects instead. Instead he jerks off to a video of Miley Cyrus and Paula Deen gang fucking a group of captured ISIS soldiers bound and gagged with American flags and Kim Kardashian's sweaty yoga pants, responds to a few emails, and pays some bills online.
He picks up his gun again, sticks the barrel in his mouth.
He wonders when (if ever) Konrath is finally gonna scrape bottom, mercifully exhausting this shit for good.
He won't.
He looks out the window, picks up a loaded magnum revolver, and resists the urge to cap one of the neighbor's loudly clucking chickens, exploding it into a fine red mist of organic, free-range feathers. It is now just past dawn.
He has difficulty focusing his thoughts, sipping his coffee and languidly rubbing his hemorrhoids with a mixture of powdered kale, hydrocortisone, and crushed-up Flintstone vitamins. He pours another slug or two of whiskey into his coffee cup, which is already more than half liquor, downing the entire thing in one heroic gulp.
Still the words won't come.
He gets up and heads off to the bathroom for an epic beer shit. When he returns to his desk, he sits back down again, contemplating the possibility of working on one of his own writing projects instead. Instead he jerks off to a video of Miley Cyrus and Paula Deen gang fucking a group of captured ISIS soldiers bound and gagged with American flags and Kim Kardashian's sweaty yoga pants, responds to a few emails, and pays some bills online.
He picks up his gun again, sticks the barrel in his mouth.
He wonders when (if ever) Konrath is finally gonna scrape bottom, mercifully exhausting this shit for good.
He won't.
January 5, 2016
PREPARE TO BE FUCKED BY THE LONG DICK OF THE LAW.
THIS, is HE:
THIS, is HE:
THIS, is HE:
Konrath is the Bret Easton Ellis of dirty Americana. What Ellis did to yuppies of the 80s, Konrath does to 21st century dirty Americana culture. He holds a magnifying glass up and focuses in until all the edges of life start to curl up and brown. The rancid smell of fry grease and desperation hit hard, and when it hits, sometimes it hits home. It's not pretty and it's not real, but it's stuff you know, and that's what makes it scary. HE might be someone you know. HE might be someone you see everyday. HE is just a guy with a dream, and he can't get to sleep long enough to grab it.
Konrath shines his light on the crude differences between 20th Century Nostalgic Americana, and 21st Century Nasty-Allergic Americana. That difference is raw and trashy and hilarious if you have the right stomach for it. There is no doubt we have gone from THIS:
to THIS:
in the past 50 years. The question is, how much farther can we sink?
Lunchables for breakfast?
Dorito Flavored M&Ms?
Fountain drink ink pens?
Cupping?
Leeches?
Anal Dialation?
Yogic flossing?
Placenta Gargling?
Urethral incense stick insertion therapy?
NyQuil Flavored bacon-wrapped cronuts?
Books called: I Was Slut Fucked In the Vampire Cunt By A Stochastic Actuarial Model?
Konrath is a master at what he does, and HE is a shining example of what he does best.
THIS, is HE:
THIS, is HE:
THIS, is HE:
Konrath is the Bret Easton Ellis of dirty Americana. What Ellis did to yuppies of the 80s, Konrath does to 21st century dirty Americana culture. He holds a magnifying glass up and focuses in until all the edges of life start to curl up and brown. The rancid smell of fry grease and desperation hit hard, and when it hits, sometimes it hits home. It's not pretty and it's not real, but it's stuff you know, and that's what makes it scary. HE might be someone you know. HE might be someone you see everyday. HE is just a guy with a dream, and he can't get to sleep long enough to grab it.
Konrath shines his light on the crude differences between 20th Century Nostalgic Americana, and 21st Century Nasty-Allergic Americana. That difference is raw and trashy and hilarious if you have the right stomach for it. There is no doubt we have gone from THIS:
to THIS:
in the past 50 years. The question is, how much farther can we sink?
Lunchables for breakfast?
Dorito Flavored M&Ms?
Fountain drink ink pens?
Cupping?
Leeches?
Anal Dialation?
Yogic flossing?
Placenta Gargling?
Urethral incense stick insertion therapy?
NyQuil Flavored bacon-wrapped cronuts?
Books called: I Was Slut Fucked In the Vampire Cunt By A Stochastic Actuarial Model?
Konrath is a master at what he does, and HE is a shining example of what he does best.
August 28, 2015
This book intriguingly brings a new structure to Konrath's wildness and leaps linking the fringes of American culture. It's definitely an experiment, but it really works. I think it could actually be more approachable for readers not quite ready for Konrath's more challenging work, at the same time that it's still riveting for those of us down for anything Konrath has dreamed up. It's as strange as anyone could possibly desire, but it encapsulates the essence of modern America beautifully. I know that doesn't make any sense, but it really does. If you took a core sample of the nightmarish soup that pop culture has congealed into in our collective unconscious, I bet it would look a lot like this. This book is definitely one not to miss.
September 11, 2015
This book (and its writer) reminded me of that scene in Charles Bukowski's "Ham on Rye," in which the protagonist Henry Chinaski defends his choice of James Thurber as his favorite writer with this simple, declarative statement: "He knows everybody is crazy."
I read this book in one sitting (a rarity for me, even when it comes to shorter works), if only because each bit of epigrammatic prose was like a savory morsel of food. The chapters have the clarity of haiku (albeit disturbing haiku that addresses everything from satanic panic, Islamaphobia, to used sex toys).
The premise of the book is suicidally ballsy, too. In brief, each chapter begins with the word "He." After having to endure complaints from editors of my own writing, who criticized my simplistic, "Subject, verb, subject, verb," sentence constructs, it was refreshing to encounter a work in which the writer charged forward like a bull by starting every chapter with the same pronoun. Not even Hemingway thought of doing that.
I generally don't care for postmodernism, satire, or experimental writing, but Konrath's sense of humor and feel for the absurd wore down my resistance and made me forget my prejudices for as long as it took to read this book.
With his last novel, "The Memory Hunter," Konrath proved he was more than capable of "coloring within the lines" of conventional genre trappings (while adding his own unique, comic stamp on a well-worn formula). With "He," the author proves he hasn't lost his knack for absurdity, making use of endless pop cultural references without ever falling into the "novel-o-matic" trap of Brat Pack stylists like Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney, who were so cleverly satirized in an epic, late 80s takedown by "Spy Magazine."
Read "He," if only so that after reading it, you will realize you're not alone in your insanity. As disturbing as this book is, it's also somehow comforting to know that there is at least one person on Planet Earth who is crazier than me, and that man's name is Jon Konrath.
July 7, 2020
(5 Stars!)
Czechoslovakia had its Kafka; Stalinist Russia had its Kharms; and now, the contemporary U.S. has Jon Konrath: a neoabsurdist author whose vision of capitalistic excess finds a glaring reflection in the detritus of popular culture. Whether it's satanically-minded consumers of fast food, biologically- and psychologically-compromising fad diets, public exhibitions of sex-dolls with fudge-smeared orifices, deranged vestiges of patriotism, NyQuil overdoses, or--of course--UFO conspiracies, each brief character's monomania presents another deformed facet of the hideous and hilarious gestalt of perversity that is the collective American consumerist mind.
The tone is consistently and satirically deadpan--mocking yet not moralizing--though certain entries which viscerally reveal the ugly and insane side of nostalgia achieve a certain emotional intensity, arguably surpassing the merely smirking irony of the usual postmodernist attitude; I'm thinking especially of the entry that portrays a man's almost psychotically lucid reminiscence of his lost youth during a visit to a chain restaurant, as well as the entry that is about yet another anonymous male who develops facial-recognition software for the purpose of tracking down the girl who rejected him in high school.
In a book defined by cognitive dissonance, those moments when Konrath bares a bleeding heart behind all the satirically-lacerated flesh of his characters are probably the most strangely satisfying parts.
Czechoslovakia had its Kafka; Stalinist Russia had its Kharms; and now, the contemporary U.S. has Jon Konrath: a neoabsurdist author whose vision of capitalistic excess finds a glaring reflection in the detritus of popular culture. Whether it's satanically-minded consumers of fast food, biologically- and psychologically-compromising fad diets, public exhibitions of sex-dolls with fudge-smeared orifices, deranged vestiges of patriotism, NyQuil overdoses, or--of course--UFO conspiracies, each brief character's monomania presents another deformed facet of the hideous and hilarious gestalt of perversity that is the collective American consumerist mind.
The tone is consistently and satirically deadpan--mocking yet not moralizing--though certain entries which viscerally reveal the ugly and insane side of nostalgia achieve a certain emotional intensity, arguably surpassing the merely smirking irony of the usual postmodernist attitude; I'm thinking especially of the entry that portrays a man's almost psychotically lucid reminiscence of his lost youth during a visit to a chain restaurant, as well as the entry that is about yet another anonymous male who develops facial-recognition software for the purpose of tracking down the girl who rejected him in high school.
In a book defined by cognitive dissonance, those moments when Konrath bares a bleeding heart behind all the satirically-lacerated flesh of his characters are probably the most strangely satisfying parts.
July 9, 2018
This book was phenomenal. A collection of absurdist flash fiction, each starting with the word “He”, it ranges from funny to sad to gross to beautiful and back again, sometimes all in one paragraph. At first, the stories almost read like the author just copied from a Mad Lib generator. But the stories aren’t just random words put together. Each one is loosely connected, ranging from UFOs, Taco Bell, glory holes, Alexander Haig Trapper Keepers, and a lot more. I don’t think I’d ever want to hang out with any of the types of people Konrath writes about, but I’m glad he can give me a glimpse into their lives from a safe distance.
March 22, 2020
I'm sure there is a correct way to describe Konrath's writing, but I'm stumped. Bizarre might be an easy adjective and for some people, that's what it would be, but that's far too simplistic; reductive. Just read it in unsettling enjoyment (not the right word either).
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews