The Garbage Times/White Ibis: Two Novellas

by Sam Pink

“I love the pulse of Sam Pink’s sentences, the way they can hold the gorgeous and the grisly and the hilarious all at the same time. The Garbage Times/White Ibis thrilled me and messed me up, left me feeling a little dazed and a lot changed.” —Laura van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel and Find MeFrom the freezing alleys of Chicago to the dew-blanketed bayou of Florida. From bouncing drunks and cleaning up puke to biking through the swamp laughing at peacocks. Freeze to thaw. Filth and broken glass and black water backed up in showers; lizards and Girl Scouts and themed birthday parties. A baby rat freed from the bottom of a dumpster becomes a white ibis wandering the wet driveway after a storm. Goodbye, hello, goodbye. It was the garbage times; it was time for something else. A tale of two tales, connected by a mysterious sunlit portal.The edition is designed with tête-bêche binding as a single volume.

Genres: Fiction, The United States Of America, Bizarro Fiction, Novels, Literature

267 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 1, 2018

About the author

Sam Pink is the author of The No Hellos Diet, Hurt Others, I Am Going to Clone Myself Then Kill the Clone and Eat It, Frowns Need Friends Too, and the cult hit Person. His writing has been published widely in print and on the internet, and also in other languages. He lives in Chicago, where he plays in the band Depressed Woman.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is one of those fun flippy books where you read about half of it and then THE WORDS START GOING UPSIDE-DOWN so you flip it over and start from the back-end page one like it’s a whole ‘nother book.

and it more or less is. the stories are connected without being continuous, and although they share a POV narrator (and a cat), the style and tone of the two are significantly different.

i’ve only read two of sam pink’s books: I am Going to Clone Myself Then Kill the Clone and Eat It and No One Can Do Anything Worse to You Than You Can, but i thought i knew enough to know what to expect when you’re expecting sam pink, and when soft skull offered me this book, i was looking forward to revisiting his brand of choppy, fragmented, poetic sentences, imagery as unexpected as it is apt, and abrupt drastic moodshifts from “laughing so hard i’m crying” to “crying so hard i’m laughing.”

here is my confession - i was not crazy about The Garbage Times. it was very samey - lots of cleaning up of puke and shit, lots of garbage water and rats and flies and pigeons and strange encounters with strange people. it was surreal and nerve-jangly and an incredibly fast read, sure, but i didn’t love reading it; it was too repetitive and i felt trapped. which is, i suppose, the point.

Back at my place, I sat on the floor.

I looked around my shitty apartment and all of the shit all over and thought about how shitty it all was.

What is this shit?

Whose shit is this?

So much fucking shit.

i started to have more fun reading it once i began picturing that dude from High Maintenance in the role of the narrator because he’s just so nice and adaptable, absorbing uncomfortable situations by being super chill and just taking what comes, even the garbage times and the garbage people.



and although this book had some of those angry/violent/deeply sad moments i was expecting from his other stuff, on the whole it was almost…cheerful. or at least willfully, teeth-grittedly cheerful - there was a teflon-defiance to his confrontations with the garbage - pleasantly greeting the (literal) shit and puke, conquering it with a plunger, turning it into a game he can almost win.

he’s an observer delighted by unexpected encounters with unusual people



silently cheering on his next-apartment neighbor as he listens to him go through his hours-long throat-clearing routine, smoking pot with a raggedy-clawed drunk, defusing the aggression of drunk bros at the bar where he works, watching pigeons fight over french fries, joyfully bonding with a gentleman over hand dryers:

The guy put his hands under the hand dryer.

When it activated, he pulled his hands back, surprised by the force.

He looked at me.

I nodded towards the brand name on the front of the hand dryer.

He looked.

I read it to him in a firm voice. ‘eXtremeAir, motherfucker!’

He nodded and said ‘eXtremeAir!’ and put his hands back underneath.

‘eXtremeAir!’ I yelled over the noise.

‘eXtremeAir!’he yelled.

We yelled it a few more times.

And it made everything so much better, even shit that hadn’t happened.

i would enjoy the hell out of those episodes, as much as i enjoy the fine line between sarcastic and guileless that he manages to convey, which in anyone else, would read 100% sarcastic.

When I finally got up, I crossed the street behind traffic stopped at a light.

An approaching car waved me to cross between it and the car ahead of it.

I raised my hand.

Thanks.

Thanks for not pinning me against the other car and crushing my legs.

I appreciate it.

so, even with my media-tie-in game, i didn’t love it, but it had some excellent moments, most notably his pages-long read-and-response to a (sadly) apocryphal picture book called Fireman Dog which is essentially a book review and it is so adorable and vulgar and hi-larious with its occasional bursts into ALLCAPS INCREDULITY it makes me wish sam pink wrote book reviews on here. i would hit so many of his “like” buttons.

simultaneously cheerful and bleak = thumbs up
too repetitive = thumbs down

but then we FLIP and the second part - White Ibis, was all positive things. so, if you are reading this and you feel like bailing during The Garbage Times, know that one person who is in all likelihood a stranger to you liked the second part a lot better. it’s more structured than anything i’ve read of his - more (gasp!) narrative, and not so much an onslaught of unexpected imagery and nails-in-eyeballs emotion. it’s the narrator moving away from chicago and the garbage times to the sunshiney, animal-rich world of florida, with a girl and a cat where he has relatively healthy interactions with human beings that aren’t characterized by jangly energy and a whiff of hostility. also - animals!

I met many new kinds of animals in the bayou.

In Chicago there were two kinds of animals: squirrels and rocks.

But in Florida there were all kinds.

There were armadillos, which were basically like small armored pigs that wobbled around at night, into and out of sewers.

I badly wanted to pick one up and hold it like a baby or throw it like a football, but I found out they carried leprosy.

So, uh, no thanks!

Then there were possums, which were basically bigger/greasier rats.

Imagine a rat that broke a vial of some futuristic steroid over its head.

Every time I saw one, they paused and glared at me in the moonlight, like, 'Take a good look, yoomin.'

There were alligators.

Bobcats.

Snakes.

Lizards everywhere.

Millions of bugs, including one named after not being able to see it, which, for that very reason, was the worst.

Spiders and frogs and birds.

All kinds of birds.

Gawky-ass, ornate birds just walking around.

Like this one that basically lived at the end of the driveway.

Every time I went outside, it'd be shuffling around where the driveway met the street.

Not really doing anything or going anywhere, just kind of pacing.

With a long white neck and a really long orange beak, walking around like a dumb-ass on its stilt legs.

Like what the fuck is this thing?

It was out tonight when my girl and I got on our bikes to go to the gas station.

'Yo, what's up, pea-head?' I said, as we pedaled past.

The bird took a few steps in the other direction, head sideways, eyeing us.

My girl laughed.

'I love that thing,' I said.

'That's a white ibis,' she said. 'My grammy knows them all.'

White ibis.

Why, hello, white ibis.

I really wanted the white ibis to like me and to be my friend.

And to its credit, it -- seemingly -- did not.

in this section, the girl scout portraiture session is just perfection. this is the sweet flipside of socially awkward encounters and i so hope that it is based on a real-life experience.

laughter without unsettling undertone = thumbs up
goofy romance and screaming about beans = thumbs up

okay, i am going to type out two more favorite passages because with him, it’s easier to show than tell what reading him is like, even though this one (these ones?) were a bit different from the howling poetry/prose mishmash of yore.

from The Garbage Times

scenario: adopting a cat

There was an older, all-white cat lying on the top of a four-foot scratching post.

‘Well, say hi to Bruce!’ said the volunteer.

Bruce looked at me.

I started petting him.

He rubbed his head on me.

Oh, does Bruce like that?

He closed his eyes.

Bruce likes that shit, eh?

The volunteer told me Bruce didn’t get along with other cats.

Yo, me neither, Bruce.

Then Bruce swiped at me and hissed, glaring.

I laughed.

Fucking Bruce!

You would!

The volunteer said, ‘Oh. He’s just seen so many people today. He’s probably overwhelmed.’

I looked into Bruce’s eyes.

Yeah.

Wait, yeah…

It made sense.

It made sense in a way that made sense of everything else.

Everything made sense right then.

I got it.

Overwhelmed.

Too much.

Just, too much everything from everyone.

Yeah, Bruce.

Fuck.

God fucking damnit.

All these people.

Everyone all over.

Too much.

Overwhelmed.

Sometimes you have to swipe back.

You have to, Bruce.

But also, fuck you, you’re staying here.

and from White Ibis

scenario: looking for work

Come on, man.

Get it together.

Get a fucking job.

I searched local listings.

There was an ad for someone to dress up in a bagel suit and walk around outside.

Holy shit.

It was a job…I’d…had.

I’d dressed up in a bagel suit for a place I worked when I was sixteen.

I…had experience?

I turned my head sideways like a dog hearing a familiar but still distant sound.

I had experience.

Who else could say that about this job?

No matter what someone’s qualifications were, mine were better.

Shit, they could walk into my interview [me not even turning to address them but remaining seated with a smug look on my face, hands clasped over the knee of my folded legs] and be like, ’Stop, don’t hire him, I’m a fucking triple-quadruple PhD and I’m a cancer survivor and I’m Jesus.’

And I’d just say, ‘Yeah, well, have you ever actually done this, junior? Have you been deep in the shit like I have, just a slit to look out of, no peripheral vision, you’re sweating, each motherfucking cloth sesame seed weighing what seems like tons…goddamnit man, have you EVER DONE IT?’

still though…

Fuck that.

I closed the ad.

There was no way I’d do that shit in Florida.

That rig would kill ya in Florida.

Tell ya.

Felt like I was going to die just for wearing socks sometimes.

Shit.

No way.

Can’t/won’t die in a bagel suit.

Simply put: no, I would not die that way.

You have to make decisions and rules about your life and one of mine was: don’t die in a bagel suit.

i know i have more of his stuff around here. reading this makes me want to dig it up immediately.

come to my blog!

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sam Pink is a madman. Don’t mess with him. With his special forces background and martial arts training, he’ll kick your dick all the way up into your throat if you even make eye contact with him. He will beat your ass and then fuck your girlfriend better than she ever thought possible. And you’ll thank him afterward. Whether it’s the tales of his coke-fueled orgies, or blackout drunk drift racing on mountain roads, Sam’s books will blow your little mind. Maybe Sam is solving a grisly murder mystery. Maybe he’s pulling that last major heist with his quirky crew before he retires. Maybe he’s bare knuckle fighting a polar bear. It’s all there in this book. Explosions blow Sam hundreds of feet, but he just gets up, dusts himself off, mutters a pithy catchphrase, and shotguns a malt liquor before walking away, slowly and all cool and shit. Sam Pink is a madman and you won’t believe the crazy life he leads…
…Okay, not really. Sam’s books are about his life (I assume anyway), but his life is not 24/7 full-on madness. In Garbage Times, he works in a shitty bar and deals with drunks. He hangs out with homeless guys. He says “fuck you” to inanimate objects. In White Ibis, he writes about living in Florida and taking part in a neighborhood card tournament, children’s birthday party, and Girl Scout sleepover. As the Seinfeld Show was a show about nothing, I kind of think of Sam’s books the same way – books about nothing. They are books about his everyday life, which doesn’t sound exciting. But, it is his voice that makes his stories so great. It is Sam writing about his dog, the Chocolate Hawg, barking at a service man, and the dog’s asshole pulsating in time with his barks like a bass speaker. It’s Sam getting roped into drawing portraits of girl scouts and dreading it because he sucks at portraits and fears that he will permanently damage their self-esteem if they think they actually look like his drawings of them. It is Sam getting hooked up with a job by his homeless friend. It’s all Sam Pink, and it’s so much fun to read. Sam is one of my favorite small press writers and I welcomed the opportunity to read his book when Soft Skull Press offered me a review copy.
Go get this book. You will never enjoy reading about nothing more.

[Danger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This double-novella is overflowing with so much sad humor and grimy heart, finding and then trampling upon that fine line where you don’t know if what you’re reading is capturing something beautiful or something depressing. Written with a casual affectation and delivered in staccato sentences/paragraphs, the whole thing flows like an epic poem and takes the tiniest moments and makes them profound. I loved this.

[Tao · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Garbage Times/White Ibis is two novellas with seemingly the same narrator. In The Garbage Times, he works at a bar in Chicago and it seems hellish but was fun and stimulating to read. In White Ibis, he has a girlfriend and lives in Florida and makes money selling paintings. Animals are in both novellas. The Garbage Times has a cat named Rontel—for more on Rontel, see Sam's book Rontel (2013) which I reviewed—and descriptions of sparrows ("smallies") and pigeons eating things. White Ibis includes peacocks, "white ibbies," lizards, spiders, frogs, alligators.

Sam's writing seems succulent to me, in part due to his tenderness. In his novellas, sustained passages of new succulence sometimes became eerily succulent, which I enjoyed, like the scene with Crazy Keith, which made me laugh a lot each of the three times I read it. Sometimes I didn't fully feel the succulence until after I read the last line of a section and realized where Sam had decided to end a scene. Sam's decisions on exactly what to relate, line to line, section to section, provided an interactive succulence because there were satisfying, different-sized, arranged gaps between each line/section, and I felt like I was skillfully jumping from stone to stone in a natural environment.

Some noises I enjoyed:

-"EHHHHHHep." (Sound a baby makes while crawling aimlessly in White Ibis.)
-"Fiff." (Sound of dog poop launched from a deck via broom in Florida.)
-"frip." (Sound of plunger folding backwards.)
-"neernk...neernk." (Sound effects made by narrator in his head while watching birds nibble things.)
-"LAAAANG!" "NEWWWWLANG." "Nerb!" "Lang." (Seemingly meaningless words yelled non sequiturly by Crazy Keith.)

Some favorite lines:

-"The other was to drum with your teeth while making fists in your pockets and repeatedly yelling 'fuck you' in your head." (One of two ways the narrator shares on how to keep warm in Chicago.)
-"I only enjoyed getting out of, not into, things."

[Lori · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't met a Sam Pink book I didn't love.
Fuck yeah!

[Ryon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Almost every book I read that isn't written by Sam Pink, I read just trying to chase the feeling I get reading Sam Pink books.

(Also, I'm not a fan of superhero things, so I can never really understand the excitement of a Spider-Man popping up in an Ironman movie and the such, but when Rontel pops up I made the same squee noise I've heard in theaters watching Marvel movies.)

[Daniel Vlasaty · Rating 5 out of 5]

These two novellas are sad and funny and silly and emotional. There’s something very “real” about Sam Pink’s writing that I’ve just never found in the work of other writers. Example:

“Or maybe suck my dick you fucking sandwich you’re just a fucking sandwich!”

[Andy Hunter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it so much I decided to publish it!

[Ben Loory · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me laugh so hard I accidentally smacked my head into the wall and had to stop for a while

[Janelle Janson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you so much to Soft Skull Press for providing my free copy of THE GARBAGE TIMES & WHITE IBIS by Sam Pink - all opinions are my own.

This book is made up of two novellas and is a really quick read! My favorite aspect is the poetic, staccato writing style and the overall unique structure of the book. The novellas are opposite each other and share a common narrator. You read one side, then flip it over to read the other.

THE GARBAGE TIMES is set in Chicago with bleak weather, a dive bar, rats, and pigeons. It exposes the city’s dark underbelly with its drunks and drug addicts. I read this one first as I believe it’s meant to be. I had no idea what to expect because I’ve never read Pink’s work before, but I found myself breezing right through it. There is a lot of garbage, provocative and vulgar dialogue, so it most definitely lives up to the title. My only criticism is that it got a bit repetitive, but other than that I enjoyed it! Oh, and I love the cat!

Then I flipped over and read WHITE IBIS, which is my favorite of the two. Our narrator moves away from “garbage times” to Florida for better, easier times. There’s an artist, a girlfriend, a Girl Scout troop, armadillos, and other really cool animals! I loved this story so much! I’m blown away by Pink’s writing prowess and sharp, witty dialogue that forces you to see the world through new eyes. I love the contrast of the two novellas and how they tie-in together: one is dark and dismal while the other is light and sweet.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my reading experience! It’s like none other I’ve had before. I am anxious to read more of Pink’s work. Did I mention all the fantastic animals?!! The more I reflect on this book, the more I love it.

[Scott Mcclanahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This whole thing inspires me to write better. Effortless. This is a man. who. does. not. care.

[Seb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm so disappointed. I love Sam Pink's work. He's a terrific author and he can do great things with sticks and stones! But these two novellas weren't up to his standards. I had higher hopes and these novellas didn't live up to them...

[Nrf22 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Collectively, this work is about destroying yourself (Garbage Times) before rebuilding (White Ibis). Can be read as sort of a take on Dante’s Divine Comedy. Garbage Times is a manic descent into the bottommost pit of personal hell/an ascent into the euphoria of depression. It’s about making friends with what constrains you and finding the freedom in deep dissociation. The tone is not quite what I’d call “self-deprecating," but rather an authentic core of hope/a wish for self-acceptance wrapped in many layers of self-aware posturing/taking grandiose pride in self-disgust. There is always an underlying hope/sense of irony in the tone, which to me is the heart of his work. That heart is what elevates it from being merely entertaining (which wouldn’t be bad) to being entertainment that also teaches.

White Ibis takes place after the storm in Garbage Times. It’s a purgatory/transitional period into a new phase of life in a sort of paradise/Tampa. This story finds our narrator facing new challenges unseen in previous works: social gatherings with his girlfriend’s family. He’s crawled out of the rabbit hole of self-isolation and is relearning how to interact with “regular” people. The narrator is more earnestly facing the feelings (i.e. shame) that he was denying in Garbage Times. This is the most “personal”/least vague voice of Pink’s work. Instead of “an everyman’s thoughts floating in a collective space,” here we have a character with some unique traits/a background story. Pink's prior work found the narrator mostly interacting with disconnected characters who allowed the narrator to hide within himself, whereas the characters in White Ibis demand the narrator to expose more of himself, and he is uncomfortable with this.

I always feel a sense of “closeness” with Sam Pink’s narrator(s) bc I’m “in his head,” but this “closeness” is not the same as “intimacy.” There’s also a palpable wall between reader and narrator bc he doesn’t include “intimate” details about himself that differentiate him from the reader/anyone else. The voice of Pink’s narrator is highly relatable bc I feel like I’m relating to myself (I believe this is Pink’s intention; in prior works he utilized a second person narrator to achieve such a feeling). His narrator is relatable even when I haven’t literally experienced what he’s talking about (i.e. I’ve never plunged a toilet full of someone else’s shit), but I can still relate on a metaphorical and symbolic level, because there’s a universality to the feelings he’s describing. Pink’s writing makes me feel connected to myself bc he puts words to feelings that I’ve had. It’s the equivalent of someone saying “I understand” without labeling it good or bad. Brilliance lies in his sense of ultimate objectivity.

Sam Pink makes me as excited about reading as I was when I first learned how. His use of language is truly innovative. His voice gets “stuck in my head” in the way that “classic” “game-changing” “canonized” writers do. Pink takes on universal themes: having the desire for connection (to yourself, to others) while actively avoiding it, wanting love and wanting to be happy but trying to act “cool” about wanting it (bc you’re afraid of not getting it!) and coping with shame, insecurity, fear of failure and abandonment. He doesn’t try too hard to be poetic while also communicating a profound message, he just is and he just does.

[Bob Comparda · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The white ibis stood in place for a second, eyeing me, then flew a little bit away—which is probably a good rule for how to behave around anyone.
It landed thirty feet away, then walked slowly in the middle of the street.
I watched it, knowing then that we were never meant to be friends.
We were too similar.
And yeah it sucked, but so it was."

"The Garbage Times" was good, but "White Ibis" was great. White Ibis in particular seemed to be the most "real" of Pink's novels that I have read. He talks about writing and making art and hanging with his girlfriend instead of his usual walking around Chicago talking to random people, which theres nothing wrong with at all, it was just refreshing. So many great sentences in here!

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I woke up naked with one boot on, bad bruises and cuts and dirt all over me.

When I checked my phone there was a text from my boss that read, 'You're fired.'

So after I got appropriately cleaned up and dressed, I went to adopt a kitten."

Sam Pink has the courage to look into the filthiest of ramekins, lie down on his bed and let a kitten drool on his face and chest while helping us laugh off our crumbling surroundings.

Sam Pink is a great man.

[Mike Kleine · Rating 5 out of 5]

HERE WE ARE NOW...

[PART 1]
[PART 2]

[Alex Ferland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sam Pink is the best author alive that has an almost poetic ability to "check on" a bar toilet overflowing with shit. Here, as he has done since the total game-changer that was "Person", he lays it all out on the page: the struggles, the self-deprecation, the hells of social interaction juxtaposed with moments of unforced and profound human poetry. There isn't a single author I could name that I relate to more, nor is there a single author that I feel I know this well simply from reading that author's writing.

Yet, this book feels even more personal than his previous works. Where his previous characters sort of floated on the periphery, hilariously avoiding any semblance of normalcy, White Ibis showcases a man in a stable relationship being forced to participate in all of the annoying minutiae of said relationship. Children's birthday parties are attended, relatives visit, and so on. But this is Sam Pink we're talking about, so these everyday occurences are treated with utmost hyperbole and intensity.
What this book is, at its core, is Pink saying "I understand" to every outsider, mentally ill, low-income, introverted, uncomfortable-in-their-skin person under the sun. It's an objective, fascinating depiction of the life of a person who's brain never stops going a million miles an hour no matter what the situation is. You can't fake that. This is raw writing. If you're anything like me, this book will help you get through some dark stuff. It will make you realise that you never have been, and never will be, alone in this.

These two novellas contain constant cathartic hilarity, repeated refrains that stay stuck in your head to the point that you start saying them (to the bemusement of friends and family), surreal imagery, and more empathy than you could ever imagine. Sam Pink has carved such a specific niche for himself, that he could conceivably write books forever. I hope he does.

[Zadignose]

The unique thing about Sam Pink’s books is that they are friends. If you read them, they are your friends. The Garbage Times and White Ibis are two good friends that go well together and serve well to introduce readers to Sam’s unique humor and outlook. In these writings, there is an awareness of much that is dreadful, and there is good natured ribbing between the protagonist and all elements of his environs, including humans, animal life, mold, and the inanimate. At times it seems to me that the voice of Sam’s books resembles the voice of a man sentenced to life in prison, knowing he will consequently die in prison, who is therefore determined to make the best of it. Thus, it’s all in good fun, and what is there to worry about, really?

[Troy · Rating 5 out of 5]

These books are amazing. GT is hilarious and disturbing and o so human. White Ibis is a bit more tender, a different style for Pink, definitely, but a really gorgeous read. I love Sam Pink and I wonder about him daily.

[Jeremy Maddux · Rating 3 out of 5]

Garbage Times, for me, was really mediocre. Easily Pink's worst, possibly his only worst. White Ibis is what earned the three stars. Had it been published on its own, this would easily be four stars.

[Marcel Tabuteau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sam pink 4 prez

[M. Sarki · Rating 1 out of 5]

https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/173825...

Over the last few years I have heard a bit about the writer Sam Pink. Though not familiar with his work, I imagined he was in the vein of other popular writers of that Tyrant ilk such as Scott McClanahan, however most likely more aggressive and blatant in his vulgarity. I did believe my perception of Pink was perhaps unfair and wanted to know firsthand what I really thought about this younger talent. So I got my hands on a review copy.

Either I am woefully out of touch with the violent in-your-face movement of this “new” literature, or maybe I have read too many “classic” or “great” works that have clouded my judgment and made me too highly critical of others coming on their heels. But I fail to see the point in slogging through sentences that neither move me, or as the great editor Gordon Lish says, knocks my socks off. The infantile expressions many of these “new” writers employ reminds me of a poet I once witnessed reading at Loyola University in New Orleans during a symposium I participated in on “experimental” writing. It was November 6, 1999 and Mr. Lish had sent me there to reject, repudiate and refuse the genre word “experimental". And I have continued to do so ever since. Bernadette Mayer was the headliner poet, and having no previous knowledge of her, or her poetry, I videotaped her reading. It was awful. I was embarrassed to have shared the same stage with her. She was fifty-four years old back in 1999, well-known and obviously respected, and I was shocked and dismayed at what an immature and mediocre poet she was.

In my daily reading I look for sentences that are not only well-constructed but also lyrically powerful. Words do matter. As do syllables. The meaning comes through in my feeling for them. And as I read through Pink’s first novella The Garbage Times, I could not help skipping over large numbers of pages, glancing periodically at a sentence or a word that might catch my attention. Never did I feel I was missing anything and never did I ultimately lose the thread of his story. It just did not matter to me. But I wanted it to matter, and I wanted to feel a part of what many of his followers claim to be great writing.

I recently read the memoir Spring by Karl Ove Knausgård. I wonder what Karl Ove would think about Sam Pink. Spring knocked my socks off. Knausgård can flat-out write. He makes sentences so beautiful and powerful that it matters little what they say. They are exquisite and a joy to read. And Karl Ove writes about the little stuff. The small details of everyday living. The changing of diapers, running out of gas. He does not need to bombard us with shocking details about his daily life. He does not go to great lengths to prove to us his own inadequacies and character flaws. He simply, and elegantly, shows us with his well-constructed sentences.

Pink, instead, writes, A confused straggler walked up to some flowers in a planter and said, ‘Ey, fuck you, stupid pussy willow,’ and tried to punch the flowers but missed.

Pink separates his chapters by months, as did Knausgård. But that is where any similarity departs from their texts. There are really no comparisons worth making.

Pink’s other novella in this collection is titled White Ibis. What strikes me immediately on these opening pages is the lack of any sophistication. And that, I am thinking, is what his readers must like about his work. It is possible that for them his fictions seems “real” in respect to their own lives. Or maybe not. As for me, it took about an hour of my time to sufficiently introduce myself to Sam Pink. I managed to flip through every page until my thumb said enough. And in that morning exercise discovered a decent sentence to pilfer for this review.

I felt a moment of heartache for this person, who will, to be sure, never, under any circumstances, even those chosen by she herself, truly—truly-really-ever—find the beans she wants.

[David Bridges · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pink's White Ibis/The Garbage Times is an overall skillful piece of art composed of simple and subtle prose. After reading Pink's eccentric novella Rontel, which I enjoyed, I felt like it was time to give Pink another go at it. White Ibis and The Garbage Times are a contrast to each other but are still tightly connected by Pink's anecdotal style. Pink seems to have a dedicated readership and I understand why.  As corny as this may sound, Pink's writing is very honest, you feel like you are there with him whether he is skulking around a kids birthday party in sunny Florida or he is smoking weed and drinking with a deranged alcoholic in a Chicago back alley. Sam Pink seems to share his stories like he is telling them to a friend or more so like he has opened his mind and you are sharing brain space with him. It is very casual but there is a sharpness to it that gives it legitimacy. Another smart thing about his books is the length of them, while enjoyable could run the risk of fatigue if drug out too long. Luckily this isn't the case. 

White Ibis is more light-hearted and humorous than The Garbage Times. The Garbage Times has some funny parts but you can tell it represents a darker period. I enjoyed The Garbage Times individually more but together they make a more complete composition. I definitely recommend this book to readers who appreciate subtle minimalist literature.  Fans of authors such as Brian Allen Carr, Scott McClanahan or Violet Levoit will appreciate WI/TGT. 

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely read these in the wrong order. I’m sure someone is going to be like, it’s art and you can read it however you want, but they’re lying and I read it wrong. Anyway it all worked out because then I read White Ibis twice. I loved this book(s). After I finished I walked around kind of narrating the world in my head one line at a time. Like:

Haha.

Ok.

Sam Pink is a great guide to the underworld.

[Ray Nessly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two novellas, 3 star overall. Garbage Times did little for me. A few chuckles here and there kept me going, plus all the great reviews here made me wonder what I was overlooking. A super quick read so not much to lose sticking with it to the end. I love black humor, but for me, this simply did not hit the mark. And it was plot-less. White Ibis on the other hand was quite funny and charming, quite a different experience. White Ibis left me wanting to read more by this author.

[Dana Jerman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I devoured this, and you will too. Start with Garbage Times. Sam is so relatable, and so American, and such grisly fun to read! Take a break from your life and enjoy the wildest parts of his.

[David Catney · Rating 5 out of 5]

hell fucking yeah.

just hell fucking yeah.

this shit right here.

hell fucking yeah.

[Stacie · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.75 stars? I think...?

I'm not entirely sure that I comprehended the majority of what went on in these two novellas. I got the gist, but I can tell that there's probably way deeper meaning to certain details that I'm just not in the head space to fully investigate. The Garbage Times focused on a intensely strange and difficult life in Chicago, graphically depicting scummier than scummy situations that the narrator involved himself with. White Ibis took place in Florida, with the feel of a slightly improved life-style situation, a reprieve from the hell-hole that was the narrator's life in the previous story.

These novellas were...different? The big thing that drew me in was the writing style. It's peculiar and doesn't follow a traditional format. If anything, it felt more like a stream of consciousness with the narrator's depressed and anxiety-ridden thoughts. I was on board for a decent chunk of the time, but the deeper I delved into this bind-up the more I realized that I had no real emotional reaction to this piece. I was reading just to finish it, not because I needed to know what happened in the story. It was amusing at first, because the writing is so bizarre, but somewhere along the way I felt like the structure of the story wasn't holding my attention. I'm glad I tried this, but it's definitely not my favorite Sam Pink.

[b · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was the garbage times.
Yes.
Yes, it was.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars because you referred to your girlfriend as ‘my girl’ and that really bothered me for some reason. Perfect otherwise and mostly hilarious