Good Stuff

Another collection of beautiful and funny short stories. Rahman is an astute observer of what lies behind the slick pre-packaged veneer of early 21st century America; he's not as out-there as George Saunders, but covers similar thematic territory.

So, what does lie behind that slick pre-packaged veneer? Nothing. I Dream of Microwaves is a Sutra of sorts, acknowledging and amplifying Buddha's Four Noble Truths with painful wit. If we cause most of our own personal suffering through ignorance and greed and desire, and if America's entire system is set up to intensify desire, perpetuate it, and create our identities solely through our possessions, then we inhabit the most fucked-up amoral society yet conceived, which is at once entirely true and completely ridiculous.

And yet Truth and Beauty still exist in the world, and here a Pakistani-American has proved it anew. Recommended.