A review by sego11ne
Bacacay by Bill Johnston, Witold Gombrowicz

5.0

When I was a kid I had a no-name book of short stories that had some ulterior motive, like SAT vocabulary or reasoning. Most of them are foggy, but one of them - a simple story about an old man thwarting his ungrateful family in death - was so tightly crafted and so perfect that now, nearly twenty years later, I still remember the whole thing nearly verbatim. This is how I see every one of the stories in this collection living on for me. This is the best thing I’ve ever read. Like Melville in its conceit and faintly fantastic ambiance, but cleaner and more concise. Like O’Connor for the cynicism and building sense of menace. Like Borges. Like nothing else at all.