I Could Be Your Neighbor, Isn't That Horrifying?

by Cavin Bryce Gonzalez

These are the confessions of a stagnant college graduate seeking solace from his invasive thoughts and the Floridian-Hellscape written in the form of short stories, poems, and everything in-between. Take a tour around a neighborhood plagued by the presence of a young hermit struggling with a gas station hot dog diet, an evil twin, obnoxious neighbors, elves, and the ever present whispers from inside his noggin urging him toward self destruction.

Genres: Poetry, Fiction, Short Stories

94 pages, Paperback

Published January 17, 2020

About the author

Cavin Bryce Gonzalez is the former prose editor for Soft Cartel. He founded Back Patio Press because making books is fun.

Reviews

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Straight, no chaser. This is the real life in our heads. Funny, bold and heartbreaking. Get your copy before the elves eat them all up.

[August · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy f#%* <3

[Daniel Eastman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Something is wrong. You’ve stepped out onto your steps for a drink and a smoke. You’ve come for a few minutes alone in the almost-dusk but a young boy has approached. Maybe younger, still a child. He’s sweating, anxious on the verge of tears. Scraped knee maybe, you figure, but the kid doesn’t speak. He heaves. You’re beginning to worry but you can’t just go back inside. I mean, what kind of person are you? “What’s wrong?” you ask. Still the boy says nothing and instead produces the gun, cradling it forth in both hands.

Something is wrong in the pages of I Could Be Your Neighbor. Each of these tiny stories is an urgent expression pain or grief or longing that goes beyond mere adjectives. It roots itself in your and grows into a ramshackle hut of your own anxieties and loneliness and this is the only method of relating experience to others.

I had the book on my desk. Figured I’d kill time at work. A coworker opened it up to “Urinal Blues”: “when sad, I could turn an empty gas station bathroom into a harmonica by whistling my blues into all the urinals. It would be an honor to make enemies out of constipated townsfolk.”

“This is a strange book,” my coworker said, removing the personalized pre-order note I kept as a bookmark.
“Oh,” I said, “you don’t want to read that.”

Dear Dan Eastman,
I’d suck your fucking dick, dude.

My coworker placed the book down and walked away.

During lunch I got ranch dressing and BBQ sauce on one of the pages. Last night I spilled some Molson Canadian on one of the pages and let it dry. I feel like Cavin would appreciate facts like that, the knowledge that I’ve put this book through the filth while reading it. What is that if not a friendship? Friendships strengthen through tragedy, right? On the story called “A Note to the Diety in Charge,” beneath the lines “I will not go calmly into any other plan or kingdom,” I took a fine tipped pen and scribbled “SUCK IT, DYLAN THOMAS!”

I didn’t treat the book that way out of any disrespect. It’s a beautiful book. Hell, it fucking feels nice. It’s made from some nice paper. Cavin’s writing makes me feel young again. It makes me feel like a person who didn’t keep books and stories like treasures. It makes me feel like I still have a decent hairline. Like I still have energy to live after 5 o’clock.

Maybe I enjoyed “Keep a Biome in the Cabinet” best. “I really wish you could capture moments the way people believe you can with a photograph... I could take that jar out of the cabinet and take a big whiff of a better day. Maybe that would make getting out of bed easier.” That’s an emotionally identifiable feeling at this point in my life. What I wouldn’t give to hold onto those leisurely, mundane moments with close friends and a mug of coffee on a deck chair before we drift apart, maybe forever, under obligation of occupations and stressors and death. What I wouldn’t give to revisit last moments with them. Little moments of escape where it would seem nothing is wrong. “I really wish you could capture moments the way people believe you can with a photograph.” I read your book, Cavin. I think you did.

[b · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t love too many books, but I loved this book. Refreshingly honest, inventive language with a clear voice. Easily one of the best books I’ve read in the past few years. This book should be famous.

[Sheena Carroll · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about a man who loves his condom-eating dog and hates himself, who deals with intrusive thoughts and impulse control issues, and has many strained social interactions and honey chipotle chicken crispers.

While it can definitely be read in one sitting (it's short and has a nice logical-illogical flow), I read it over the course of a few days and a few beers and enjoyed the experience. The poetry/prose hybridity of this book really suited the protagonist/narrator's thought processes and emotions. I'm looking forward to reading more titles from Back Patio Press!

[Rick Claypool · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories are like what Daniil Kharms would write if he was alive and living in the US today. (I love Daniil Kharms and I love this book.)

[Sam Childs · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's like that quote about how you shouldn't stare into the abyss because the abyss is gonna stare back, except instead of just staring at you like a dick Cavin invites you onto the porch for a beer and you chat about how you're doing, banter about pissing off high places & the nutritional value of chicken tenders, you know, good neighbor talk.

[Nicky · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read some of these pages to my partner while on a walk (I decided I’m about average at reading while walking). I really enjoyed the first few that I chose and thought they were fascinating and hilarious. But my partner thought they were horrifying and sad. (I mentioned that it’s part of the title.) Nonetheless of my slight embarrassment to having such a polar opposite reaction, I enjoyed quite a few of these pieces.

My faves were:
* what a man
* Mythical creatures
* Wild animals
* Snacking
* The mistress
* Here’s a list of my organs
* Judo chops
* The long con

[Brent Woo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a while you read a collection that makes you angry. Angry that we waste so much time in school reading bad books. Angry that people aren’t encouraged and interested in writing and telling their stories. This book makes me this angry because it is so GOOD. We should be reading these kinds of stories, and sharing these everyday stories. We should feel free to talk about our frustrations and anxieties and daydreams of violence and our worries and hopes and dreams, like in this collection. Cavin has picked out little parts of lived experience that feel so ridiculously familiar, even though I haven’t been within 1000 miles of Florida. Have to say I haven’t yet peed along with a dog, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

Like, Margaret Atwood has never eaten a pizza roll in her life or ever been inside a Walmart. Jonathan Franzen doesn’t know how good a gas station hotdog and mountain dew taste after working cashier for 8 hours, or how good it feels when you see the good paper towels are on sale at Target. Michael Chabon on his best day could never come up with the phrase “lubed with margarine”. They write good stuff, but I don’t connect with them as a real person with feet on the ground, like I do here.

A really despicable mood I get from some authors is that “they just know how things are” and they want to tell you their truth. They understand the systems and have drawn brilliant connections and conclusions among the chaos. Cavin is honest about sometimes simply moving through the senseless world in utter confusion, and I think that’s the most honest position you can take.

[Jason Kane · Rating 5 out of 5]

The “neighbor” concept across these short tales and ruminations is what makes this one of the most harrowing things I’ve read. Maybe it wouldn’t have been the case were I younger. Maybe this would’ve felt like spinning a familiar record, living in an empty place I couldn’t afford to furnish with an appetite only for what brought me pain. “Neighbor” is a death-obsessed chuckle, a big-hearted vortex of hopelessness and yearning. The “neighbor” designation, of course, means this is someone else. Not you. Never you. There is the implication that simply living nearby someone in such an ongoing state of malfunction is bad enough. But the next-doorness is misinformation, a technique to try and sterilize the very wounds the narrator is simultaneously smearing shit into. Over the course of this journal of self-reproach we find ourselves much closer to the narrator than any neighbor ought to—in his house, in his bathtub, in his bed, in his mirror; we are living in his now—there may be no tomorrow. Isn’t that always the gamble? When you realize this, the horror is most at home. Heat up some pizza rolls, turn on some music, and get comfy. It’s either gonna be a long night, or a really short one.

[Tex Gresham · Rating 5 out of 5]

No, it's not horrifying. It's comforting to know that behind my wall there isn't a stranger with an ear to the wall to laugh at my miseries, but instead a person just like me who wakes up screaming or who won't judge a breakfast of booze and narcotic bondage. Because so much of this book feels not so much like the neighbor next door, but more like the neighbor upstairs, the one in the calcium prison of my head.

Walt Disney said "For every laugh, there should be a tear." And if Cavin were to rewrite this according to I Could Be Your Neighbor..., it would go something like: "For every wince at the funk underfoot, there's a stab at the raw heart meat." Because for every time I laughed or cringed, I also nodded my head in knowingness, in the shared pain of moments.

This is an awesome book, a flash read with words that slide across the mind butyraceously, slathering elemental pink flesh with an experience that's not horrifying, but very very human.

[Sean Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memoir? Autofiction? Flash? Novel? I don't know. I do know it's got a big fractured heart and it made me laugh and it also has a card sharp fox and a dog. I can think of no higher praise. Find out for yourself.

[Alan ten-Hoeve · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book so much I didn't want to finish it. Maybe that doesn't sound right. What I mean is, when I realized I was coming to the end, I started reading extra slow to drag it out as long as possible. Cavin is one of the best.

[Sally the Salamander · Rating 5 out of 5]

A mix of poetry and flash fiction, a glimpse into the mind of someone struggling with loneliness and existential crises and alcohol dependence before hitting middle age. The visage of many a "gifted child." Funny and sad and scary, a quick and delightful read.

[Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yea this rocks. Short and sweet, disgusting at times and beautiful at others. Wasn’t expecting a whole lot from this little pamphlet sized book, but some of these pieces feel huge. Will definitely be revisiting this.

[Cassie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing like a healthy dose of Cavin's poetry to finish off a shift at work. Thanks dude!

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my God.

[eli :) · Rating 3 out of 5]

love love loved keep a biome in the cabinet

[Hellec Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this extremely relatable and to be honest I'm really not sure how to feel about that.

[AutomaticSlim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really good parts here that scratched the right spots but didn't quite satisfy the itch. Feel like this is underrating it and might up this rating if the book gets stuck in my head

Round down 3