Boy With a Problem

by Chris Benjamin

Shortlisted for the prestigious Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction, the jury had this to say about Benjamin's collection: "In Boy With A Problem, Chris Benjamin parses some of the major political issues of our times through the flawed, driven, often lonely characters he inhabits. They discover that nothing is ever as ethically easy as it appears. In many of these dozen stories of messy morality and questionable action, characters unravel their own motivations, learn the impossibility of escaping the past and face the very human costs of justice. They become intimate with the light that death sheds on life in their efforts to live it at all, if not well."

In her review for The Fiddlehead, novelist Carol Bruneau adds: "[These] stories unpack the layers and consequences of traumas small and large that daily journalism can rarely touch."

These 13 short stories by award-winning author Chris Benjamin are about love, loss, failure and acceptance. As Jon Tattrie wrote of Benjamin in Atlantic Books Today magazine, he is a "…giant storytelling talent unleashed.”

In sharp, insightful prose, Boy With a Problem taps into the heart of our deeply human fear of failing to truly connect with others. The fissures that erupt between us, how quickly they widen from cracks to chasms—this is the thread running through these wise, raw, and tender stories:

The daughter of an alcoholic desperate to be loved.
A father reliving a failed dream though his teenaged son.
A struggling immigrant surprised to discover that money does not buy happiness.
A creative boy struggling to please his dead father.
An eco-warrior defying her entire town for what she believes is right.
A father unable to reconcile the assault of his daughter with the world he raised her to believe in.
A gay pastor in self-imposed exile from church and family.
A stranger in a Santa suit dispensing fatherly advice.
A granddaughter who must end the life of the woman who raised her.
A survivor of a small-town drug addict determined to save her cousin from terrifying dreams.
An anxiety sufferer who finds refuge in sadomasochism.
A university student looking for love in all the wrong animal liberation schemes.

Genres: Short Stories

153 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2020

About the author

Chris Benjamin is a fiction and features writer.

His latest book is The Art of Forgiveness, from Galleon Books, a collection of linked short stories about three boys growing up (rough) in the suburbs. His previous, nonfiction, books include Chasing Paradise and Indian School Road: Legacies of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, which won the Dave Greber Social Justice Book Award. His short story collection, Boy With A Problem, was a finalist for the Alistair MacLeod Prize for Short Fiction.

He is also the author of Eco-Innovators: Sustainability in Atlantic Canada (winner of the 2012 APMA Best Atlantic-Published Book Award & finalist for the 2012 Evelyn Richardson nonfiction prize) and the critically-acclaimed novel, Drive-by Saviours (longlisted for 2011 ReLit Award & Canada Reads 2011; winner of the Percy Prize).

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

"...powerful in its depiction of pain and tender in its exploration of struggle. From kinks to drinks, from loss to love, from abuse to addiction, Boy With a Problem uncovers it all in gritty but beautiful detail.” --Gemma Marr, The Miramichi Reader https://miramichireader.ca/2020/11/bo...

"Chris Benjamin’s Boy With a Problem is a collection of short stories that stays with you long after reading. The stories are wise and written with compassion, featuring people who are often poor, often deal with mental health issues or loneliness, and live in a world that doesn’t care a whole lot one way or another." --Robert Devet, The Nova Scotia Advocate https://nsadvocate.org/2020/11/15/chr...

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories in Boy with a Problem address the tricky issue of human connection: the links binding us together, the forces that conspire to keep us apart. Much of the drama in these tautly written examples of gritty realism is generated by characters who care for and need one another, but for whatever reason are unable to express that need and only clash and cause each other heartache. In Chris Benjamin’s fictional landscape, the search for common ground is never easy; no one is living a simple life. In the title story, young Dan has lost his parents, with whom he was often in conflict, to a car accident. But he is slowly coming around to the idea that the values they pressed upon him and that he resisted are meaningful and worth cherishing. In “Mulch Glue,” idealistic, precocious Bree, inspired by a school assignment, indignant that nobody she knows seems to care about threats to the environment, embarks on an imprudent but, as it turns out, effective one-person crusade against the local mill that’s polluting the Cove but which represents the only source of income for most people in town. In “Inevitable,” socially inept Wanda indulges her sado-masochistic sexual fantasies with a guy she meets at the grocery store, even though she remains suspicious of his motivation for wanting to be with her. And in “How Far Beyond Me She has Gone,” a father’s guilt and confusion—the fact that he feels “powerless to undo what had inflicted her”—drive him to extremes after his rebellious teenage daughter is sexually assaulted. Chris Benjamin writes tough. There is a refreshing and challenging directness to his prose, as if he’s laying it all on the line and refusing to cushion the blow with florid descriptions and layers of metaphor. The stories draw us into a place of raw emotion where there is no miraculous cure around the corner, no protector waiting to save the day. In Boy with a Problem there are more than enough problems to go around; everyone bears an affliction or carries a burden. Chris Benjamin’s characters inhabit a world that is treacherous, unforgiving and sometimes just plain mean, but their stories are all the more powerful for acknowledging that in real life there are no easy answers.

[Adriaauld · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sharp, insightful--a great array of character inflections. They're all outside, looking in. A lot of us can related to that.

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3.5)

In a collection of 12 stories, Chris Benjamin takes on, at times with a certain earnestness, occasionally with a bit of humour, the troubles of young adulthood, mental challenges, drug addiction, self-loathing, abuse of power, sexual abuse, homosexual yearning, eco-activism, and much else. The strongest stories, for me, are "Mulch Glue," "Inevitable," "Realities," and "Stay Loose." Benjamin wastes little time getting to the nub of each story's subject. Most are first-person narratives and many are set in nova scotia, but the issues they speak to are worldwide in concern. Every character is on their own struggle bus, to use an expression, and it would be difficult for most readers to not identify and recognize some or all of them from their own life.

It's purely a matter of taste, but I think "Inevitable" would have worked well as the opening story, with its S&M content immediately setting this collection apart from the too familiar atlantic canadian drabness and Benjamin apart from some of his peers. Thankfully, there's not a lobster pot or fish net to be seen in this book. (At times a firmer editorial eye might have helped tighten some sentences and, where needed, let the stories loosen up a bit from their tight plotting, but that's a minor matter.) Benjamin keeps his eye on the social issues of the day in this collection and it's worth checking out for that reason alone.

[Debbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully diverse, insightful collection. The stories are beautifully told, characters skilfully developed and the language, always smooth and precise, is sometimes so beautifully surprising.

[Conor O · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like a good short story collection and Boy With A Problem is certainly one of those. It's well-observed, and very well-written. Benjamin uses simple, clear prose to tell his tales, and the stories are better for it. Each one focuses on someone who I'd argue is "lost" - in their relationships, in their own minds, in their lives - and watches as they move, sometimes incrementally, sometimes in large leaps, towards finding themselves.

If you like literary fiction that has no pretentions, Boy With A Problem should be on your list.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a superbly written collection of stories, but the tone throws me for a loop. One story in particular had me laughing and squirming in equal measure. If that is what the stories are ultimately aiming to achieve, then it succeeds in spades...but I have to admit I wasn't always comfortable with the lurches between emotional states. Reading this collection will definitely be affected by your particular mood at the time.

[Mercy Buckits · Rating 5 out of 5]

How very, very good this book is. The writing is tight and discinplined while very adept at capturing characters, nuances, and a deep mystery at the implausibility of existence. The imagery is often so quick-witted, the observations on point. It humbles me in its soaking in of the world.

[Digitally Lit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sterling's review:
In this collection of emotionally earnest and - as is only appropriate to call them - guttural short stories, Chris Benjamin explores in anthological format the deceptively simple guiding theme that this collection is named after: Boy With A Problem is about people with problems. This collection does not interest itself in demonstrating the characters finding solutions to these problems, nor does it always lend its efforts to granting the characters impetus or motivation in ways that a similar setup may have been forced to with a longer medium. Each of the twelve stories in this collection are designed to be raw slices of mind, a snowglobe of time in each viewpoint character's life, during which there is nothing to distract them from the problems that they have allowed to define them.

Benjamin's prose blurs the line between poetic observation and perceptional realism, displaying the world through his characters' eyes and experience in ways unique to them: each story can be heard in a distinctly different voice than all the others, despite sharing an author in reality. While this fanciful style of depiction may hinder a longer novel, for this short story collection format, I find it to be simply proper: the only honest way in which these characters could be allowed to speak, so as to be heard in the way that Benjamin wishes for the reader to hear them.

All told, a heady but fascinating read, one that I would recommend breaking up between several days, as Benjamin's unique way of seizing the reader's stomach in a frigid grip as his characters' souls trounce you in an acidic staring contest is, while entertaining, best taken in doses than meals. Importantly, several stories in Boy With A Problem contain sensitive and mature themes, such as sexual violence, internalized homophobia, and substance abuse, and as such is not necessarily suited to a younger audience.

I recommend this book.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not just the eponymous boy, but each of the protagonists of these stories has a problem. Some are the kinds of problems I've encountered among family or friends, some aren't, but each story placed me very vividly into someone's life and let me experience a situation from their very particular vantage point. The detail and close, honest observation of real life are what make these stories compelling and illuminating.

[Richard Levangie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Chris Benjamin’s writing. Spare, tight, but knowing. As an author myself, I have a bad habit of figuring out where an author is going with any story, but Chris invariably surprises me. His stories, like so much of life, are poignant and bittersweet.

[Mercy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining and engaging at once, an eclectic collection of stories. A great read about unusual characters who, I suspect, are not that unusual possibly...

[Marian Fulton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stories that made me laugh out loud, stories that made me cry.