A Prize For Every Player by A.M. Homes, 2018
The magic trick:
Absurdist social satire
We’ve got a week of A.M. Homes stories.
That’s a good thing.
She’s weird in a weird way. George Saunders is an easy comp. But Saunders, in what I’d consider to be a wholly original way, takes normal and pushes it just far enough so that it becomes absurd. His characters’ earnestness and genuine desire to do right become so incongruous with the absurdist story-world that the whole thing becomes this strange combination of hilarious, sad, and sweet.
Homes, on the other hand, plays it more straight. She takes normal and reflects and comments on the normalcy before pushing her stories into the absurd. This is a more traditional method of satire than the Saunders brand. Hers is a satire that lays its anger bare. We aren’t empathizing with the stupidity of this world. We are standing to the side and criticizing it.
Which is great.
“A Prize For Every Player” follows this model, and it’s a very, very funny story. It’s angry-funny. But funny nonetheless.
And that’s quite a trick on Homes’s part.
The selection:
“Tom, I don’t mean to sound critical, but why do you always park way back here and then we have to walk through the parking lot with the children?”
“Jane, the car is the size of a boat, and I like to leave myself some breathing room.”
“Dad, why is this giant American flag up there? What does it mean when they fly the flag?
“That’s a good question,” Tom the Dad says as the doors of the extra large minivan slide open and they all hop out.
“I like to think it means they’re happy,” Jane the Mom, says.
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