Brief Encounters with Che Guevara: Stories

by Ben Fountain

The well-intentioned protagonists of Brief Encounters with Che Guevara are caught -- to both disastrous and hilarious effect -- in the maelstrom of political and social upheaval surrounding them. In "Near-Extinct Birds of the Central Cordillera," an ornithologist being held hostage in the Colombian rain forest finds that he respects his captors for their commitment to a cause, until he realizes that the Revolution looks a lot like big business. In "The Good Ones Are Already Taken," the wife of a Special Forces officer battles a Haitian voodoo goddess with whom her husband is carrying on a not-entirely-spiritual relationship. And in "The Lion's Mouth," a disillusioned aid worker makes a Faustian bargain to become a diamond smuggler for the greater good. With masterful pacing and a robust sense of the absurd, each story in Brief Encounters with Che Guevara is a self-contained adventure, steeped in the heady mix of tragedy and danger, excitement and hope, that characterizes countries in transition.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literature, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Contemporary, Politics

229 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2006

About the author

Ben Fountain's fiction has appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, and Zoetrope: All Story, and he has been awarded an O. Henry Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, and the PEN/Hemingway Award. He lives with his wife and their two children in Dallas, Texas.

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brief Encounters with Che Guevara is a 2006 collection of eight brilliant short stories by Ben Fountain, author of the wonderful novel, Billy Lynn's Long Half-Time Walk. Brief Encounters established Fountain’s reputation as a writer to watch, earning him a PEN Award, a Whiting Writers Award, an O Henry, and a Barnes and Noble Discover Award. Must be good, right? Indeed it is.

Half the stories are set in Haiti. Others are in Sierra Leone, Colombia, Myanmar and there is even one in Europe. They tell of people trying to do the right thing in an amoral universe. The complexity of the world is a central focus in most of these stories, where it is often not so easy to figure out what the right thing to do actually is, let alone doing it. A grad-student ornithologist is taken captive by a revolutionary group in Colombia. An American NGO worker is persuaded to help fund a revolution in Haiti. A soldier returns from an extended tour in Haiti with some very unusual baggage. A pro golfer of questionable morality is recruited by the generals in Myanmar to promote golf in their corrupt and isolated nation. A Haitian fisherman finds that it is not so easy to foil the efforts of drug smugglers. An aid worker in Sierra Leone becomes involved with a blood diamond smuggler, while attempting to support a co-op that provides work for maimed locals. Sundry people relate their intersections with Che in the title piece. And in the final selection, a prodigy pianist with an unusual gift must cope with her notoriety while attempting a supremely challenging piece.


Photo by Larry D. Moore via Wikipedia

There is considerable moral ambiguity in these pieces, a feast of Faustian bargains to be considered, and even mention of God and the Devil wagering over people’s souls.

Fountain was not always a writer. He was born in North Carolina and got his law degree from Duke, then worked in real estate law in Dallas for five years before pleading nolo contendere and turning over a new leaf.

It was a lot of things coming together at once: having a kid; my wife, Sharie, making partner at her firm; me having practiced for five years and just absolutely having had enough; me turning thirty and thinking that if I was going to make a run at trying to be a writer I needed to get going. There was a sense of urgency, of time passing. (from Ecotone)

Beginning his new career in 1988, he had stories accepted here and there but it took a long time for him to hone his craft and produce top quality work. One of the stories in this collection was first published in 2000. He had his share of frustration during this time, with a couple of novels taking up space in a drawer to prove it. But he stuck with it, treating writing as a job, whether or not he was published, five days a week writing every day, every day, every day.

As for why Haiti figures so large as a subject

On a rational basis, I saw Haiti as a paradigm for a lot of things I was interested in relating to power, politics, race, and history. I went there a couple of times and at that point I probably had what I needed to get. It was some comfort to me to know, flying out of there the second or third time, that I didn’t really have to go back—and yet I did go back, many times. Once I was there I felt pretty comfortable. And the more time I spent there, the more there was that I felt I needed to understand. But I still can’t give a satisfactory explanation for how it happened.

He would visit Haiti over 30 times. The notion of going to Colombia or Sierra Leone was raised, but funds and time are not limitless and his wife was aghast at the notion.

Fountain is very interested in the impact of the large forces in society on individuals.

I practiced law for five years and that gives you insight into a certain mind-set that maybe a lot of writers haven’t had firsthand access to. There’s an almost casual cruelty, a very low level of overall awareness, but sometimes there’s also knowledge that real damage is being done—this attitude of “Oh, what the hell,” this kind of moral cognitive dissonance. These are people who have never missed a meal. It’s an unknowingness, an unawareness, that Reagan personified. Reagan was so sure of everything and yet his experience of the world was so narrow. How could he be sure of anything? I saw that over and over again in the wealthier people I worked with or had contact with while practicing law. Many people were operating from a very narrow range of experience, and yet they had complete faith in it. Their way was the correct way, the only way. They had virtually no awareness of any other way of life except in terms of demonizing things like communism, socialism, or Islam. It’s an extremely blindered experience of the world.

By Claudio Reyes Ule via Wikimedia

The stories turn a widened eye on this sort of myopia, but Fountain does not spare the revolutionary sorts either, who have issues of their own. I found the stories very engaging, enlightening and moving. It is definitely worth your while to encounter Ben Fountain in this volume. You may find that the time spent in his company is too brief.

=============================THE STORIES

Near-Extinct Birds of the Central Cordillera
John Blair is a grad-student ornithologist who ignored the risks and is doing research in Colombia when he is kidnapped by members of MURC (a FARC stand-in), a revolutionary group, and is held for ransom. He winds up spending a long time with the group and establishing relationships with some members and the leader. It is a tale heavy with political irony and a very O Henry-ish ending.

Reve Haitien
Mason is an OAS observer in Haiti. He throws chess games with the young local players, as a way of boosting their self-esteem. He encounters a player better than himself, Amulatto, and is drawn in his world.

Life here had the cracked logic of a dream, its own internal rules. You looked at a picture and it wasn’t like looking at a picture of a dream, it was a passage into the current of the dream. And for him the dream had its own peculiar twist, the dream of doing something real, something worthy. A blan’s dream, perhaps all the more fragile for that.

The Good Ones are Already Taken
Melissa is a very sexual person and it is a big sacrifice for her to do without while her serviceman husband is away. But when Dirk returns from an extended tour in Haiti, he has changed, gone voodoo, religious, which has implications for their sex life. Can Melissa adapt to the new man who came home? And what’s up with all that weirdness he is into anyway?

Asian Tiger
Sonny Grous, 23, is a pro golfer, built like a bouncer and not all that successful. In Rangoon for a tournament he has the game of his life and is recruited by the generals to be the ambassador of golf for Burma, which is seeking to attract foreigners with great courses. The money is pretty good, but there is the dodgy element of working for people who are truly reprehensible.

Bouki and the Cocaine
Concerned about the massive drug-running, Syto, a small-town Haitian fisherman, and his brother decide to grab the bales that are left by the runners on the beach and bring them to the police, accepting on face value the frequent public announcements decrying the drug trade. Things do not work out as the brothers expect. There are real questions raise here about where honor lies, and how one’s interpretation of that informs behavior. There tale is exceptionally clever and will make you smile, while also getting the moral dilemma involved.

The Lion’s Mouth
Jill runs a co-op that provides employment for many local women in Sierra Leone but funds are cut off. She turns to her unlikely bf, Starkey, a dealer in blood diamonds, for help in finding the needed funds. More moral ambiguity here, and an image of a troubled place.

Brief Encounters with Che Guevara
Che is a touchstone here, not an actual character, for the most part. Several, very diverse, people tell of their encounters with Che. Among them is Laurent, a Haitian who knew Guevara. Laurent was my favorite character in this entire collection. It is worth reading the entire book just to get to meet him.

Fantasy for Eleven fingers
Anna Juhl is a young piano prodigy, gifted in a manner identical to Anton Visser, a luminous player of the early 19th century, and composer of a particularly wonderful and difficult piece called Fantaisie pour onze Doigts. She takes on the challenge. This piece seemed a bit out of place in the collection, geographically anyway.

=============================EXTRA STUFF

A great interview in Ecotone Journal – by Ben George – must read stuff if you find Fountain interesting, and you should, a lot on writing and Fountain’s writing history.

An interview in the on-line magazine, The Millions by Edan Lepucki. It is mostly on Billy Lynn, but there is plenty here about how Fountain thinks and writes. Definitely worthwhile.

There is a lovely bit in the Barnes and Noble writer details page on Fountain’s favorite books

The on-line edition of the magazine Rain Taxi also has a lovely interview with the author. He talks about his relationship with Haiti. There is a lot of detailed discussion of the stories.

There is a piece by Malcolm Gladwell in New Yorker that looks at Fountain as an example of a late-bloomer.

My review of Fountain's outstanding novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

[J.L. Sutton · Rating 4 out of 5]

“She couldn't save them, she couldn't save anyone but herself, which made her presence here the worst sort of self-indulgence, her mission a long-running fantasy.”



The characters in Ben Fountain’s Brief Encounters with Che Guevara find themselves in places of social upheaval, places where they are caught between forces they don’t fully understand. Coming to some greater understanding of the situation sometimes puts them in even greater danger. That’s really what allowed me to empathize with several of the characters and made their stories so thought provoking. The eight stories in this short story collection are set in places like Haiti, Sierra Leonne and Colombia (places well off the tourist track). My favorite is the opening story: “Near-Extinct Birds in the Central Cordillera” in which a budding ornithologist is held hostage by revolutionaries in the jungle. Despite that, the ornithologist pursues his passion by continuing to study the rare birds in this remote and dangerous corner of the world. “Asian Tiger” and “Bouki and the Cocaine” are excellent. This is a fantastic and well balanced collection! 4.5 stars.

[Always Pouting · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually don't enjoy short story collections because a lot of them aren't very good but this one was so well written, I really enjoyed it. There were only two I didn't like very much, the third and the last one, but even then the writing was very good, it just came down to personal preferences. All of the short stories talk about some aspect of countries with political upheaval, especially developing countries or those that were part of the communist struggle. The situations are often difficult ones with no clear solutions and the way Fountain writes really conveys this feeling of struggling to make sense of issues and ethics when in a position where there aren't many choices.

[H (trying to keep up with GR friends) Balikov · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would have preferred the title: Most Everything You Care to Know about People You’ve Rarely Thought About but were Afraid to Ask……then again, it’s probably obvious why I don’t write titles for a living.

Mastering the short story is a talent few writers excel at. Ben Fountain is one of them.

Brief Encounters with Che Guevera is the title of one of the short stories in this book, but there is something about Guevera that applies in each case. Fountain writes with economy and precision. He writes with compassion. And, he tells his stories with a deft humor that reminds the reader of our humanity while not beating a drum to make his points.

The subject matter is all about the developed world’s encounters with the developing world….no, that’s too slick. It’s about HOW those who have and those who have not think about the same things in quite different ways. Fountain leads us through this theme in Africa, South America, Europe, the Caribbean Islands, and particularly Haiti.

His descriptions are both attention grabbing and though provoking. Two examples:

“Dunes of garbage filled out the open spaces, eruptions so rich in colorful filth that they achieved a kind of abstraction.”

“They were all lawyers, all schooled in the authority of words, though as their words turned to dust a pall of impotence and futility settle over the mission.”

Imaginative, exquisitely detailed with a big helping of black humor and irony, you will not be able to read these stories, individually or collectively, without finding some changes in what you think of the daily stream of world news. Warning: You might not be the same person after finishing it.

PS: Thanks to Trish and Will for alerting me to this gem.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I extended the opportunity to the comandante the opportunity to walk the floor of the [stock] exchange with me and he was reasonably intrigued--Richard Grasso, Chairman, New York Stock Exchange, while in Bogota, Columbia, meeting with FARC rebels, June 26, 1999

It took a little while (as it usually does) for me to appreciate the tone and political complexity of Ben Fountain’s much-celebrated first short story collection, Brief Encounters with Che Guevera, but I ultimately came to love them. In the darkly satirical opening story, “Near-Extinct Birds of the Central Cordillera,” a graduate student named John Blair is kidnapped by Colombian rebels while observing parrots in the wild.

“What if I did look like a spy?” demands the anguished ornithologist. The dispiriting answer: “Then I’d think you were a spy.” When the hostage makes the first of many fruitless appeals for release (“If I’m not back at Duke in two weeks, they’re going to give my teaching assistant slot to somebody else”) the comandante is unmoved. They demand a crazy ransom, and keep him for months. In that time the mostly wild boys learn to help him study the red-capped parrots called Felty’s Crimsons. At one point the revolutionaries are visited by the actual Chairman of the NY Stock Exchange, who wants to make a deal to help (make profits on) the Colombian rebels.

The tone is amusing, but it took me almost half of the reading of the eight stories to understand that Fountain is critical of Americans abroad--not Innocents Abroad, but stupid/greedy/political naive. Some of the stories are more lightly entertaining, but some are more brutally caustic, and not just about the Americans. I kept comparing the stories to the novels of Graham Greene, such as The Quiet Americans, which point fingers at ruthless American arrogance, colonialism, and ignorance but also recognize the limitations of the ruthless locals--leftist and rightist--arrogance, ignorance and so on.

Five of the stories focus on Haiti, where Fountain worked/visited for many years, where he could look at local corruption, despair, political chaos, economic collapse and so on, often exacerbated by Ugly Americans.

“Asian Tiger” is about a fading golfer who has his name used in a development scam, flying into a war zone ostensibly to comment on the development of a golf course as bombing ensues.

The title story is about a young man who has a crush on a woman who meets Guevara; this story, set in a genteel college town focuses in part on rich Southern men.

In “The Good Ones are Always Taken” Melissa’s husband, in Haiti for nine months, falls in love with and sort of “marries” Erzulie, the voodoo goddess of love and sexuality. She’s crazy for him, but confused about how jealous to get here. Most of the fools in these stories are men, but we like Melissa, who finally makes her own strong choices out of her own needs.

“Fantasy for Eleven Fingers” I initially didn’t like at all for its weird formal tone, set in the late nineteenth century, about a crazy composer with eleven fingers and a young woman during the growth of Nazism also with eleven fingers who comes to play the music. Ultimately the story turns from farce to focus on the fact that the girl is Jewish, the victim of disability discrimination and antisemitism.

I like all these stories for their dealing with political and cultural issues with dark humor, poking fun at patronizing idealists and the human comedy (and tragedy!). Maybe 4.5 overall, but this was much celebrated a decade ago.

[Andrew · Rating 1 out of 5]

Caveat: I didn't finish it, or even make it through the first story. Since I've lived in Colombia and my wife is from there, there's something deeply arrogant and even offensive to me about this guy attempting to discuss the FARC (oh excuse me -- MURC) situation from a privileged intellectual's perspective without ever having stepped foot in the country. I stopped reading when Fountain's young, white "enlightened" proxy began scolding the Marxists for mismanaging their revolution. I've spent almost three years in Colombia and would never presume to lecture anyone on the topic except with the most modest of disclaimers.

And on top of this presumption, the dialogue is laughably stilted. . . it reminds me of stuff I used to do at age 25, before I had even attempted to write seriously, where your characters converse in ways that no normal people speak, just so they can discuss Important Things. Talk about contrived.

This is what passes for award-winning, 4-star short stories these days? Well then, please excuse me while I find my way back to the classics section.

@pointblaek

[Andrew Breslin · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this was an entertaining and thought-provoking collection of stories, I've been scratching my head to try to figure out what in the name of holy hell the Boston Globe was thinking when it called it "downright funny" right there on the cover.

Fountain has done an impressive job of transporting us readers to various dark and ugly corners of the globe, usually in the context of war, genocide, greed, exploitation and textbook examples of man's inhumanity to man. And in spite of the claims made on the cover, this is not nearly as amusing as you might expect. The protagonists of these assorted stories of American expats in various incarnations of hell endure being kidnapped by Marxist rebels, or falling in with diamond smugglers and drug dealers amidst a backdrop of carnage evoked so vividly you can almost smell the rotting corpses. A woman must face losing her husband to the compelling influence of voodoo religion. A golf pro sells all his principles down the river, throwing games for corrupt ego-maniacal generals who are more concerned with making a birdie on hole # 3 than they are with the horrors of war they are foisting upon their people. A young pianist must contend with virulent anti-Semitism and public disgust over her physical aberrations, ending in a final psychological breakdown that is evoked so viscerally, I nearly puked. So really, a laugh riot.

I enjoyed this, but I didn't laugh, not even nervously. Genocide just isn't funny. War, revolution, injustice, people getting their limbs chopped off: not funny to me.

I guess I have no sense of humor.

But remind me to tell you the one about the young mother who has her infant torn from her arms and dashed to the ground in front of her before having her own arms cut off by right-wing paramilitary units. It's hilarious!

[TBV (on hiatus)]

Utopia becomes Dystopia; Hell turns into Paradise in this collection of short stories. In each story the protagonist's life or view of life is changed by an event or a series of events. There is cynicism, irony, pathos and humour in these acutely observed vignettes about greed, drugs, corruption, exploitation and other seamy aspects of human nature. Fortunately there is a glimmer of hope in these tales as there are also those who say no to these vices.

Near-Extinct Birds of the Central Cordillera
"...John Blair, graduate assistant slave and aspiring Ph.D., whose idea of big money was a twenty-dollar bill" goes to Colombia to "...study the effects of habitat fragmentation on rare local species of parrotlets". Alas, he is grabbed by members of MURC, the Movimiento Unido de Revolucionarios de Colombia. Unfortunately for him he doesn't look like a spy and is therefore deemed to be one. Will he ever be ransomed?

Rêve Haitien
Mason works as an observer in Haiti. In his spare time he plays chess with the locals, until one day he meets a nameless mulatto man...

The Good Ones Are Already Taken
Sexy Melissa anxiously awaits her husband Dirk's return from overseas service, only to be informed that he is unable to make love to her on a Saturday. What happened to him in Haiti? Why has he changed? How will she cope?

Asian Tiger
Big, affable Texan Sonny Grous ends up with a job as golf pro in Myanmar. There he learns how the game is really played...

Bouki and the Cocaine
A poor, honest fisherman in Haiti takes the cocaine haul he finds to the authorities. What now?...

The Lion’s Mouth
"She’d signed on as country project director for World Aid Ministries, a Protestant umbrella group that specialized in long-term food relief; a religious vocation wasn’t necessary for the job, only a tolerance for what might be charitably called spartan living and a masochistic attitude toward work." So why has she hooked up with Starkey who is very involved in illegal diamond deals amongst other things? Where does this relationship take her?

Brief Encounters with Ché Guevara
A potpourri of very brief glimpses of Ché...

Fantasy for Eleven Fingers
The celebrated pianist Anton Visser caused mass hysteria (hilariously described) when he played the Fantasy for Eleven Fingers (yes, he had an extra finger). Now child prodigy Anna who also has an extra digit is being trained to play that legendary piece of music. However, anti-Semitism raises its ugly head...

[Aylin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book off a shelf at our local library because of the title- and am so glad I didn’t pass it up! I was getting ready to put it back on the shelf (since I am generally not a fan of short stories- with a few exceptions) but couldn’t stop browsing it. I brought it to a nearby chair, read the first 2 chapters and checked it out- giddy with joy.

An eclectic mix of quirky and creative slice-of-life short stories set in such diverse geographical settings as Haiti, Columbia, Myanmar, Burma, Sierra Leone...

The book is excellent. Most of the stories (last one doesn't fit) involve Americans who become entangled in situations of political/ cultural struggle in other countries. They end up seeing things differently than they originally anticipated and their character is tested.

The writing is rich in detail yet spare. Recommending it.

[Trish · Rating 5 out of 5]

”…I had no idea God and the Devil live so close together. They’re neighbors, in fact, their houses are right beside each other, and sometimes when they’re sitting around with nothing to do they play cards, just as a way to pass the time. But they never wager money—what good is money to them? No, it only souls they’re interested in…[Che Guevara]”

Che Guevara never actually makes an appearance in these stories—just sightings of him—but his philosophy gets a workout. Sometimes events just have a way of confounding even a well-thought-out life, where every step is taken with good intentions toward some worthy goal.

Moral dilemmas face us in each of the eight stories and Fountain does not make it easy for us. The characters may decide to do something morally questionable, but their conflict is not resolved sufficiently to finish the task without second-thinking and regret. There is always another, starker moral dilemma right around the corner as a result of their first choice.

This first collection of stories won Fountain a heap of attention in 2007 when it came out, as did his first published novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2012). His writing is clear and free of flourish, though his locations are richly imagined. In this collection he spans the globe, though he pays special attention to Haiti, a place that allowed him to explore in microcosm “power and money and history and race and the most brutal sort of blood-politics.”¹ The Haiti stories make me the most uncomfortable in this collection, yet it is the one place he’d visited and so arguably knows most about.

The stories highlight displaced persons confronting the world’s troubles: a woman is forced to share her soldier husband with his dreams; a captured American doctoral student in Colombia manages to continue his ground-breaking study of birds of the Central Cordillera; a peacekeeper in Haiti finds a way to save a piece of Haiti’s cultural heritage; an aid worker in Sierra Leone tries to finance her sideline sewing co-op.

A word might be said about the final story in the collection, which moves us back to the nineteenth-early twentieth centuries. The story is about a Jewish prodigy in Vienna facing racial taunts as she develops her extraordinary repertoire over a period of years. The tone of this story is so sharply different from the others in the collection that we must ask ourselves why it was included. The language is reminiscent of George DuMaurier’s story of Svengali and his creation, the beautiful songstress Trilby O’Ferall. This story would not have been out of place in a Maupassant collection. It may give us an insight into the author’s opinions on the dilemmas he poses in the previous stories. In all the interviews he’s given, I’ve not seen a question about the inclusion of that story addressed, though I might rest easier if I had.

It turns out that I discovered I have read this collection before, when it came out in 2007. At the time I was not recording or writing about my reading and so did not wrestle as thoroughly with the questions it poses. It stands up very well to a second reading (and more!) so I recommend the collection for packing the punch of a novel without all the words. Besides, this man’s moral compass spins in a world that challenges the best of our well-thought-out and perfectly inadequate solutions.

¹”A Conversation with Ben Fountain”, reprinted in the Ecco paperback edition of Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, P.S., p.3

[Vladimir · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, Ben Fountain can wright. It seems that every word is carefully chosen and the reading itself is like a smooth ride. Most of the stories take place in the parts of the world where democracy "flourish" such as Haiti, Myanmar or Sierra Leone. Fountain has obviously spent some time in those places (Haiti for sure) since he is familiar with local customs and religion practices. I believe that most of the characters are based on the real people he has met. I now consider reading his other stuff as well.

[Midu Hadi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Near-Extinct Birds of the Central Cordillera: ★★★
A budding Ornithologist tries to save a rare species of birds.
"the Revolution had reached that classic mature stage where it existed only for its own sake."

Reve Haitien: ★★
An American tries to help the revolutionaries in Haiti.

The Good Ones Are Already Taken: ★
A wife has to share her husband with another woman goddess!

Asian Tiger: ★★★
A golf pro from Texas tries to make a living in Burma.
"Burma, he'd whisper, trying to make it real, Burma, Burma, the word so loaded and fraught that it might have been a prayer."

Bouki and the Cocaine: ★★★★
A man & his wife with nothing to lose decide to stick it to "the man".

The Lion's Mouth: ★★★
Sierra Leone & its blood diamonds help Jill come to a decision.

Brief Encounters with Che Guevara: ★★★
"Don't ever laugh when a Haitian tells you he's going to be president, because it might happen. And if it does, ge won't forget that you laughed at him."

Fantasy for Eleven Fingers: ★★★
"Yes, because he's flaunting it. The thing that made him different. Which seems dangerous, in a way."

[Mark Wilkerson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part travelogue, part history textbook, Brief Encounters with Che Guevara is a nearly-flawless collection of historical-fiction short stories sharing a common subject; namely, the stories are centered around first-world expats and travelers (mostly Americans) experiencing life through the accounts of both the brazen and the broken citizens of the "third-world," chiefly Latin America, West Africa, and South Asia.

Read as these Americans observe and participate in the outer edges of societies on the brink of revolution, war, and outright chaos. Though the protagonists of these stories are not particularly sympathetic (Fountain does not seem to be concerned with eliciting sympathy from readers), readers are afforded opportunities to understand the lives of common folks stuck in the middle of these revolutions, just trying to survive and, daresay, even thrive in the face of tyrannical rule in Haiti and Sri Lanka, or the roving armies of young and dangerous rebels in Sierra Leone.

The Americans in these stories are often granted reprieves and outs from the danger and choose to stay, learn, and grow somehow as a result of the building uncertainty. Certainly, I felt the same sense of growth in reading this collection. Not too often can writers blend urban renegade spirit with historical fiction, but Fountain succeeds. Standouts include "Asian Tiger," "The Lion's Mouth," and the Faulkner-esque "Fantasy for Eleven Fingers."

A must-read for contemporary short-story readers and writers alike.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good collection of stories with a very interesting theme. Most of these stories are fish out of water stories with protagonists (mostly American) making their way out of situation from anarchist or war torn third world countries (one fictional). Most of the characters are idealists who learn through their experiences that the world outside of their country operates quite differently. Many of these stories have corrupt, greedy leaders. The effect is that many of the characters grow up. The stories are somewhat cynical which is a characteristic of Fountain's writing but they are also very quirky and in a twisted way, idealistic with most of the characters attempting to do what is right at least by the end of the story. Fountain is a great storyteller and his worldbuilding is excellent. In my view there is not a bad story in the bunch.
SUMMARY

Near-Extinct Birds of the Central Cordillera - young, idealistic ornithologist is held hostage in the Colombian rain forest finds that he respects his captors for their commitment to a cause, until he realizes that the Revolution looks a lot like big business. Vintage Ben Fountain! It ended a little abruptly. 4+ Stars"

Reve Haiten - Fascinating story about funding a Haitian uprising through art. 4.5 Stars

The Good Ones Are Already Taken - A young wife deals with the consequences of her husbands deployment to Haiti. He has changed. But his change isn't related to trauma. A positive side to voodoo?!? Fascinating and well done 4.5 Stars"

Asian Tiger - a washed-up golf pro becomes instrumental to a corrupt system of military government in Myanmar. Fascinating story 4+ Stars"

Bouki and the Cocaine - a little different from the other stories in that this story was completely about Haitians and how they deal with cocaine drops and a corrupt gov't. No American characters here. 4 Stars"

The Lion's Mouth - This one was powerful. An aid worker has started to become numb to the suffering in Sierra Leone. She stumbles upon an opportunity to save the lives of a village. She takes advantage of the opportunity but fails to think ahead. 4.5 Stars"

Brief Encounters with Che Guevara - titular story. Not really a favorite of mine. Guevara was a background character. 3.5 Stars

Fantasy for Eleven Finger - didn't really follow the theme of the rest of the collection. Seemed out of place. Jewish piano player in Europe with 11 fingers. Endured bigotry. 4 Stars

Fountain is a compelling writer. I have enjoyed both his fiction and nonfiction immensely. He pushes the right buttons for me. This story collection was excellent! The reason for 4 stars instead of 5 was that the last two stories for me were not as strong as the rest. Also he seems a little too consumed with stories of Haiti. That preoccupation is a little unsettling for me. I don't believe it was his intent but the theme is poor countries with civil unrest with accidental mostly white mostly American saviors. It felt a little like stereotypes. All this corruption all over the world but Fountain can only envision stories of poor countries of people of color. It's as if Azerbaijan or Belarus or Croatia etc didn't exist. But most of the stories here were among the best/most interesting stories I've read in a long time. Honestly, I haven't hyped this as much as I should. 2025 is turning out to be a great year (so far) for me with story collections. My own creative juices (for review writing) are waning at the moment, but I was truly fascinated and moved by several of these stories.

4+ Stars

Read on kindle

[Lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories present some high quality storytelling, with a great sense of place and people, the author manages to get you in a place, amidst struggles and different lives. The writing flows well and there is possible strains of a Mark Twain like humour in the social, travel and moral writings here.
Excellent collection of short stories for reading, interesting encounters within the world that spins in and around Che Guevara and others.

Some of the eight stories briefly reviewed.

Near-Extinct Birds of the Central Cordillera
A hostage situation of a scholar a man with no money and no one to pay up for is in a dilemma of mistaken identity, they think he is a soy but his binoculars and map are for spying on nature in his love for birds. Nicely done short story, excellent story material used, the setting, dark humour, and great writing style makes this a great story to read occurring during a revolution in Colombia.

" "I'm not a spy," Blair answered in his wired, earnest way."I'm an ornithologist. I study birds."
"However," Alberto continued, "if they wanted to send a spy, they wouldn't send somebody who looked like a spy. So the fact that you don't look like a spy makes me think you're a spy."
Blair considered. "And what if I did look like a spy?"
"Then I'd think you were a spy."

"During the day Blair was free to wander around the compound; for all their talk of his being a spy, the rebels didn't seem to mind him watching their drills, though at night they put him in a storage hut and handcuffed him to a bare plank bed. His beard grew in a dull sienna color, and thanks to the high-starch, amoeba-enriched diet he began to drop weight from his already aerodynamic frame, a process helped along by the chronic giardia that felt like screws chewing through his gut. But these afflictions were mild compared to the awesome loneliness, and in the way of prisoners since the beginning of time he spent countless hours savoring the lost, now clarified sweetness of ordinary days. The people in his life seemed so precious to him— i love you all! he wanted to tell them, his parents and siblings, the biology department secretaries, his affable though self-absorbed and deeply flawed professors. He missed books, and long weekend runs with his buddies; he missed women so badly that he wanted to gnaw his arm. To keep his mind from rotting in this gulag-style sump he asked for one of his blank notebooks back.
Alberto agreed, more to see what the gringo would do than out of humane impulse; within days Blair had extensive notes on counter-singing among ,Scaled Fruiteaters and agnostic displays in Wood-Rails, along with a detailed gloss on Haffer's theory of speciation."

"Blair was twelve when it first happened, on a trip to the zoo—he came on the aviary 's teeming mosh pit of cockatoos and macaws and Purple-naped Lories, and it was as if an electric arc had shot through him. And he'd felt it every time since, this jolt, the precision stab in the heart whenever he saw psittacidae —he kept expecting it to stop but it never did, the impossibly vivid colors like some primal force that stoked the warm liquid center of his soul."

Reve Haitien
Days after Haitian coup a two chess players meet an deal is forged to use art in a bid to aid a revolution. Another great tale with a sense of place, people and grande struggles.

"He led Mason around the palace and into the hard neighbourhood known as Salomon, a dense, scumbled antheap of cinder block houses and packing-crate sheds, wobbly storefronts, markets, mewling beggars underfoot. Through the woodsmoke and dust and swirl of car exhaust the late sun took on an ocherous radiance, the red light washing over the grunged and pitted streets. Dunes of garbage filled out the open spaces, eruptions so rich in colourful filth that they achieved a kind of abstraction. With Mason half-trotting to keep up the mulatto cut along side streets and tight alleyways where Haitians tumbled at them from every side. A simmering roar came off the close packed houses, a vibration like a drumroll in his ears that blended with the slur of cars and bleating horns, the scraps of Latin music shredding the air. There was something powerful here, even exalted; Mason felt it whenever he was on the streets, a kind of spasm, a queasy, slightly strung-out thrill feeding off the sheer muscle of the place."

"On these nights the gunfire seemed diminished, a faint popping in their ears like a pressure change, though if the rounds were nearby the mulatto's eye would start twitching like a cornered mouse. He is a man, Mason thought, who's living on air and inspiration, holding himself together by the force of will. He was passionate about the art, equally passionate in his loathing for the people who'd ruined Haiti. You don't belong her, Mason wanted to tell him. You deserve a better place. But that was true of almost every Haitain he'd met."

The Good Ones Are Already Taken
This tale deals with a solider returning back home from a war in Haiti to his wife with a strange case of a voodoo marriage.

Asian tiger
A Texas man out in Burma working at a golf resort gets involved in high league dealer brokering while escorting and coaching his budding golfers of powerful positions in the world of business.

"Shwedagon: he'd never seen or even imagined anything like it, a sprawling, technicolor theme park of the soul, ten acres of temples and statues and gem-encrusted shrines surrounding the bell-shaped spire of the towering central zedL Sonny eyed the zedi's dazzling golden mass, its bowl base and tapering vertical flow, and after a while realized that he was looking at the world's largest, albeit upside-down, golf tee. An omen?Meanwhile his guide was intoning the Buddha's main tenets, telling Sonny that life is dukkha, all pain and illusion; that the cycle of thanthaya, death and rebirth, will continue as long as desire remains; and that through bhavana, meditation, one might achieve the proper karma for enlightenment and nirvana. Yes, Sonny thought, yes yes all true-he felt something swelling in him, a weepy and exhausted soulfulness, a surrender that felt like wisdoms first glimmerings, and coming down off the plinth he acknowledged the moment by passing money to every monk he saw."


"Oh. Oh" It wasn't so much a bribe as a, ah, gesture, a little goodwill grease for the wheels. It wasn't long before Sonny realized that a giant corporate ratfuck was happening out on the course. If you wanted to do business in Burma you had to cozy up to the generals, and the best place for that was the National's elegant links.
Which put Sonny in a classic trickle-down position: over the next few days he received a case of Bordeaux from Singaporean financiers a carved elephant from Thai teakwood barons, a kangaroo-skin golf bag from Malaysian gem traders.
' So popular," said Tommy Ng in a voice like dry ice. "Two weeks in Mvanmar and look at all the wonderful friends you have."
But Sonny was troubled —these people thought he could pimp for them? He was just the pro, a performing human whose job was to stun them with his mighty swing and tell colorful stories on the verandah after the round. They were all, generals included, relentless jock sniffers eager for inside information about their favourite pros. Did you ever play with Palmer? they'd ask him over drinks. Was Nicklaus really the best? Tell us about Tiger, is he as good as they say! If Sonny didn't have an actual personal anecdote he'd make one up, something dramatic or funny to make everybody feel good."

Brief Encounters with Che Guevara
Starts with a southern man has an attraction for a woman connected with thee Che, he later finds himself in Bolivia as a removal guy where he meets and has discussion with a man who says he was the killer of Che.
In his thirties he finds himself in Haiti and he's now married with children. And your taken in the narrative on to his forties when Fidel is in power and the grave of Che has been located.
Interesting encounters within the world that spins in and around Che.

"School tradition required my parents to host receptions for the faculty several times a year, and it was at these gatherings —peeking with my sisters from the top of the stairs at first, then later as a fringe participant, serving punch with the help in my coat and tie —that I became aware of my attraction to Mona Broun. Mrs. Broun was a faculty wife, a trim, petite woman in her early thirties whom I confused for a time with the actress Natalie Wood. She had the same wholesome looks as the famous movie star, the same well-scrubbed, faintly exotic sex appeal, along with fawn-colored hair worn loose and soft, this at a time- the mid-sixties—when the women's hairdos, in the South at least, resembled heavily shellacked constructions of meringue. But it was her eyes that got our attention from the top of the stairs,intense brown eyes with rich, lustrous tones like shots of bourbon or maple syrup, framed by sharp, exaggeratedly arched eyebrows like the spines of enraged or terrified cats."

[nkp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. Really beautifully written and about some very unique topics. The last story sucked. Everything else was great.

[David Abrams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soon after finishing Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, I turned to Ben Fountain's first book, the 2007 collection of short stories Brief Encounters with Che Guevara. I was not surprised to find the same kind of finely-honed language which Fountain uses to dazzling effect--especially in his evocative and detailed descriptions of characters and settings. The phrases seem to be tossed effortlessly onto the page, but they struck me as so beautiful that I whipped out my highlighter pen. That pen nearly ran out of ink before I finished the book. Here are just a few of my favorite passages, thrown at you out of context but I think they stand alone just fine as individual gems.

He talked in the slow, careful manner of a man chewing cactus.

Outside the birds began singing like hundreds of small bells, their notes scattered as indiscriminately as seed.

....sex smelled a lot like tossed salad, one with radishes, fennel, and fresh grated carrot, and maybe a tablespoon of scallions thrown in.

A man of medium height, with brisk, officious eyes and the cinematic mustache he’d worn in the army, the pencil-thin wisp like an advertisement for how well the world should think of him.

....to the sort of serious, no-frills neighborhood bar where the walls sweat tears of nicotine and the waitresses have the grizzled look of ex–child brides.

And then these sentences from the collection's final story, "Fantasy for Eleven Fingers," which opens with a biography of Anton Visser, a fictional 19th-century composer who played the piano like a human thunderbolt, crisscrossing Europe with his demonic extra finger and leaving a trail of lavender gloves as souvenirs. Toward the end, when Visser-mania was at its height, the mere display of his naked right hand could rouse an audience to hysterics; his concerts degenerated into shrieking bacchanals, with women alternately fainting and rushing the stage, flinging flowers and jewels at the great man.

Visser composes the titular Fantasy, which is called “a most strange and affecting piece, with glints of dissonance issuing from the right hand like the whip of a lash, or very keen razor cuts.”

The story is perfect companion piece to Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk in the way it portrays the mass hysteria of a phenomenon (a child prodigy pianist, a war hero) which no one can understand. I believe Fountain truly cares about his objects of scorn--the lemmings of society who blindly follow a bullheaded president into a misguided war, for instance--and that he wants, more than anything, for his readers to wake up from their slumber of indifference. In both books, the bark of the whip leaves small, lasting razor cuts across our backs.

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ben Fountain writes of characters who are transformed by their strange love, wry melancholy, and remarkable passions, insights and self-deception. It is a pleasure to follow his characters as they escape, embrace and make sense of the worlds into which they have chosen to bravely and naively stumble. Fountain's protagonists face unfamiliar territories and transfigured loved ones. While their encounters are often difficult, dangerous, hellish, or unfathomable, who and what the protagonists encounter is just as full of depth, complexity, folly and wisdom as the protagonists are themselves. Transnational networks -- be they military, economic, historical, political, mythic, familial, ethnic, or religious-- are as much his characters' landscapes as are particular terrains, regions and countries. While attempting to make meaning of their own individual existences, Fountain's sincere protagonists struggle to take action for some greater good beyond themselves and beyond the national, racial, gender, and class privileges they have inherited at birth. At the same time, these men and women find themselves tempted, taunted, and tormented by threats of violence, promises of obscene wealth, and the comforts made available to them by their inherent positions of privilege. All the stories in the collection are politically engaged, an aesthetic choice I believe to be both courageous and rare in 21st Century American short fiction. Yet, Fountain's tone is never didactic, never strident: he gently teases out the paradoxes and limitations of attempting to live with one's eyes and hearts as open as possible in this "era of globalization." Each story is humane and humorous, casually-poetic and moving, full of well-rounded, sympathetic, and imperfect characters who idiosyncratically love other people, places and aspects of the troubled world. It is a gift to be able to accompany Fountain's characters as they flourish and founder in the twisting and turning, merging and diverging networks of powers in which they are enmeshed. I love this wonderful, cohesive collection of stories.

[melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book in a used bookstore. I like birds. I also like Che Guevara. I thought the book would be a great whim, however, I was really put-off by the rave reviews. I was surprised that no one had anything critical to say. I was also disappointed to find that this book was sold in UO. I tend to shy away from hipster reads.

Despite my initial qualms, this collection of short stories really made me think. It certainly worked the old English major muscle

There's no denying that Ben Fountain has talent. His ability to shape entire worlds within a limited page count is remarkable. Several reviewers felt the stories would better serve as foundations for actual novels. I like the brevity of each piece. It left much to the imagination, and Fountain provides just enough detail for readers to draw conclusions on their own. I'm always one to write my own story.

I'm still puzzling over the significance of the title. Some reviewers felt that the book has nothing to do with Che Guevara and the title simply refers to a short story within the collection. I highly doubt Fountain chose the title on a whim. I suppose there's an undercurrent of revolution throughout each story; an upturn of beliefs; a lone voice that cries out against a greater injustice. All are representations of a young, idealistic Che.

Other reviews mention that certain stories do not belong because they aren't based in a third world country or don't feature a spoiled American as the protagonist. These points are irrelevant. Each story presents an outsider that inevitably assimilates to a different world. This could be a victory or a defeat depending on the story. The fate of the Austrian piano player was certainly the latter, and I wonder why Fountain chose to end his collection on such a defeated note.

I wanted to hate this book, and I ended up obsessing over it. Favorite.

[Tex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of stories about various ways that we experience captivity. The settings are, for the most part, third world countries-- Colombia, Haiti, Sierra Leone, Cuba--and ending with the unexpected geography of Vienna. The emotions are sometimes excruciatingly brutal but sweet, frightening but eloquent, primarily hauntingly comforting (which was a great surprise as I discovered the theme). Though I rarely consider it, the cover is of interest as it depicts some fairly common birds which seem free and ordinary. Odd choice and I'd like to understand that bit more.
Author from Dallas, which intrigues me more.

[Ally Shand · Rating 5 out of 5]

I discovered this book in the same way that I have discovered most of the books that mean the most to me: browsing a second-hand bookshop in an unfamiliar place. In this case it was a charity bookshop in Covent Garden, London.

The stories are original and superbly written. They reveal different facets of the human condition against the volatile backdrop of revolution. From the diamond mines of Sierra Leone to the Bolivian jungle the chosen settings, like the stories themselves, are rich and evocative.

[Tim Weed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Staggerlingly good stories overall. Fountain is a skilled, patient, and deeply gifted fiction writer. This one is bound to take its place as one of my all all-time favorite short story collections. If I were to forced at gunpoint to declare the weak links, they would be the title story and the final story. And the title of the collection may be seen by some as deceptive, but then actually writing believable fiction about historical characters as vivid as Che Guevara may well be impossible. And who am I to say, when my own first collection, A Field Guide to Murder & Fly Fishing, has also been critiqued for a deceptive title? In the end, it seems especially noteworthy that there are so *few* weak links; as with any good fiction collections the sum is greater than the parts, but just about all these stories would be strong and affecting stand-alones too. Bravissimo!

[Tomasz · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is plenty of skill on show here, and anger, and local color to spare, and all the other qualities which later made Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk such a powerful novel. Fountain ranges into whimsy, too - the "Fantasia for Eleven Fingers" is a fine bit of alternate history, for one. So, yes, 5 stars without much of a stretch.

[Michael Lieberman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ben Fountain, a Dallas-based writer, has written a remarkable collection of stories. This is slightly old news—the book was published in 2007 (HarperCollins)—but the fiction is so compelling I thought I would give it a plug here. The stories with a significant exception find Americans abroad in murky circumstances that challenge their principles and force them to make uncomfortable choices: an ornithology graduate student is taken prisoner by guerillas in the mountains of Colombia; an aide worker in Haiti and another in Sierra Leone find their efforts to improve the lives of the poor frustrated by the complexity of life in third world countries; a golf pro in Myanmar becomes complicit in a complicated scam. The last story in the collection, "Fantasy for Eleven Fingers," is an amazing miniature piece of historical fiction, at once suspenseful and moving.

The writing is graceful and engaging, and—unlike many modern short stories—well plotted. In a word, things happen and these events drive the narrative. By pulling his characters out of their everyday context, Fountain deprives them of reasonable anticipation of the consequences of their actions. The tactic sharpens their dilemmas and raises the tension level. At times these stories feel like minithrillers. I found myself rooting for Fountain's characters, hoping they would not be sucked into an abyss. It was an amazing read for me.

All together the collection is remarkable and compelling and deserves an even wider readership.

[Gadi · Rating 5 out of 5]

These short stories follow people through situations where they find themselves out of their depths -- lost, afraid, the environment and the people around them strange, cynical, unforgiving in casual violence. And yet each and every one of the stories is a distinct gem. Rarely do I finish a book of short stories and can vividly remember the characters, plots and settings of each and every one.

If I were to name my favorite stories, it would be the majority of them: The first, of the kidnapped ornithologist; the woman whose soldier husband comes back with a voodoo wife; the golfer ensnared in Mynamar's dictatorial politics; the poor man caught in Haiti's cocaine ecosystem; and the aid worker forced to face the facts of war in Sierra Leone.

The breadth of settings is held together by the sense of cynical, even ironic morality that undergirds each of these characters. I left each story weirdly satisfied by the way Fountain confronts the world's inhumanity and caprice. And the best part is that he dishes up every word on a pinpoint, his sentences like flecks of paint congealing into a pointillist masterpiece. Every metaphor, simile, line of dialogue felt perfect, and they all amounted to fiction in its highest form.

[Cailin Deery · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first glance, I guessed this would either be similar to DFW’s Brief Interviews with Hideous Men or the Motorcycle Diaries. Although it does have a slightly unfortunate name, my doubts end there. Brief Encounters with Che Guevara is a set of eight rich stories – mostly featuring earnest American ‘protagonists’ in strange, abstractedly revolutionary circumstances. An ornithologist from Duke finds himself held captive in the jungles of Colombia; a Texan golfer scopes out new golf courses in the south of Myanmar and finds a gruesome scene awaiting him; an (American again) aid working bargains with a group of unstable, armed teenage rebels in the heart of Sierra Leone’s civil conflict; and many other stories tie back to Haiti (violence in Port au Prince; American occupation; voodoo; etc).

Brief Encounters with Che Guevara is written by Ben Fountain, who I haven’t heard much of before, but receives impressive acclaim from both Malcolm Gladwell and a favourite of mine: Geoff Dyer (author of But Beautiful).

[Kara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Malcolm Gladwell led me to Ben Fountain's stories through an article published in the New Yorker titled, "Late Bloomers: Why do we Equate Genius with Precocity?" Fountain's work stands on its own pillars in terms of storytelling and underlying complexities. With an internationalist perspective, this book of stories thwarts stereotypes by taking its readers on a journey from the jungles of Colombia's rebel held territory through the eyes of an ornithologist, through the slums of Haiti in search of the nation's great art, the golf courses of Myanmar (yes, golf courses!) and war torn Sierra Leone. They are tests and testaments of morality and ideology and the unpredictable reaction of what happens when these theories brush up against reality--like the dedicated aid worker who takes a diamond smuggler as her lover, the pro who wants to make money hitting little white balls with a club and ends up swinging in international corruption, to a meditation based on second-hand encounters with the guerrillero Che Guevara - a famous martyr possessed by all yet forever ephemeral. All that's left for me to say is, "Bravo, Ben Fountain! BRAVO!"

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book eagerly after Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, which is one of the best novels I've ever read. So, my expectations were high - maybe too high. This felt like a competent collection of short stories, a warm-up to the real thing, the novel. A few of the stories stood out - the last one, about a pianist with 11 fingers, and a few others. The majority were fine, but not captivating. Not one in the whole collection used language with anything like the mastery Fountain showed in Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. 3.5 stars - 3 for many of the stories, 4 for a few of the better ones. Just go read his novel... seriously.

(If you do pick this up, I recommend the stories towards the end... the earlier ones are weaker.)

[Roger DeBlanck · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is no hyperbole to declare each of the eight stories in Ben Fountain’s collection as extraordinary. Often examining how ruthless politics and unending civil violence in locales from Colombia to Haiti to Sierra Leone cause horrific injustice and suffering, Fountain has a knack for constructing narratives that deliver tremendous compassion surged throughout with tinges of dark humor. His stories can mesmerize with adventure and suspense, mystery and absurdity, often both heartfelt and heartbreaking. He crafts beautiful, propulsive prose, each sentence functioning with depth and insight like a poem. He captures landscapes and cityscapes with enthralling details, and he traps his characters in moral quandaries that keep your heart pounding. Brief Encounters with Che Guevara commands attention with its tenacity to dazzle the senses while also forcing you into necessary reflection about the the hardships faced by so many around the world.

[erl · Rating 2 out of 5]

While reading this book I kept thinking of something a friend said about another collection of short stories, by another author: "They were very well crafted, but I kept wondering why someone would go through the trouble of writing them." Some of the stories dragged a bit. Others zipped along at a brisk pace, only to run into a brick wall of an ending. Not one was satisfying. Ah well, on to the next book.