I dream of microwaves : stories /

When Rahman's readers first meet his endearingly hapless hero, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, a Pakistani American actor, Kareem is losing his gig as a crime reenactor for America's Most Wanted because the director feels that he isn't malevolent enough. Onward to Ohio, where he poses as an old girlfriend's Bosnian refugee husband in order to pry some money out of her philanthropic grandmother. Sharp satire abounds in Rahman's fresh, incisive, even devilish, debut, a suite of interconnected tales that succeeds in combining a Nathanael West-like understanding of the life-warping power of movies and fantasy with the philosophical absurdity of Woody Allen. As Kareem--his head buzzing with one-liners, his body stoked on booze and cigarettes, his soul starved for love--finds himself in one ridiculous role after another (a Zima Zorro working a sports bar, a player in a dinner-theater production of Apocalypse Now, a dog-walker in Manhattan, a member of a Shakespeare troupe marooned in Pakistan), Rahman brilliantly ponders the seduction of make-believe, the mutability of the self, our longing for recognition, and how very difficult it is to cut through each other's defenses and make meaningful contact. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2004 Booklist

Rahman's deadpan first collection of eight linked stories gets off to a promisingly weird start when Pakistani-American actor Kareem Abdul-Jabbar receives a letter and a one-way bus ticket from Eileen, an old girlfriend, who announces she's "through with big dicks and henceforth thinking constantly of you." It's a great opening scene, and a taste of what's to come. Kareem's career as a stand-in on television crime dramas like America's Most Wanted has ground to a halt, so joining Eileen in Ohio could be the fresh start he's been craving. Instead, Kareem winds up at the dinner table debating the plight of Bosnia with Eileen's sister Cecilia and her cannibal husband from the South Pacific, then gets a surprise marriage proposal from Eileen. The interrelated stories that follow jump somewhat awkwardly back and forth in time. After being abandoned by now ex-wife Eileen due to his excessive drinking, Kareem begins a miserable stint as a Zima spokesman. In later installments, he walks dogs for Manhattan's elite and works as a repo man recovering unreturned video tapes along with fellow actor Valentina, a woman whose speech consists only of movie dialogue. Meanwhile, he lands roles in a musical version of Apocalypse Now and a low-brow production of Hamlet. Rahman sometimes flirts too strenuously with surreality, but his comic precision restores balance. These stories are top-notch novelty acts, delightfully witty, quirky fun. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Hilarious debut collection of linked stories, in which a Pakistani-American actor heads for Ohio and enters an absurdist comedy like no other. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar specializes in bad guys on TV crime reenactments, though he's not getting a lot of work because he plays them too soulful. One day, "trying to get my mind off drinking by pouring hot coffee on my arm," he gets an envelope in the mail from ex-girlfriend Eileen containing what most men would consider a bad combination: a one-way bus ticket to visit her in Ohio and a letter saying, "Good news. I'm through with big dicks and henceforth thinking constantly of you." Within two pages, Kareem is out the door. Many authors would struggle fruitlessly to keep up with this opening scene, but neophyte Rahman seems to barely break a sweat as he keeps tossing one obscenely funny scenario after another at the reader. The stories drop down into Kareem's random, often-drunk life at odd intervals, spaced out like moments of clarity in a lost weekend. Two episodes after he arrives in Ohio and gets taken by Eileen to dinner with her sister and a cannibal, our hero is working as a repo man for a video store chain, hunting down an errant Forrest Gump tape with his partner Valentina, who speaks only in movie dialogue. Meanwhile, Rahman washes it all in contemporary trash culture, from the tabloid shows Kareem used to work on to the dinner-theater musical version of Apocalypse Now he later appears in. This pop sensibility keeps the book from drifting off into airy absurdity. The writing zips along, fueled by a doomed, what-the-hell humor and a sharp eye for stretching things just the smallest tick past reality. BlasÉ drifter, ne'er-do-well actor, and one-time Zima spokesman: Kareem is a Falstaff for strip-mall America. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.