New Bizarro Author Series Review #6: The Egg Said Nothing by Caris O'Malley

Id Says:
I feel like I just spun around and fucked myself in the ass. I wonder if this is what passing an egg feels like? Manny could tell you. He's pretty sure the one he woke up to in bed, the one between his legs, came out of him. Most people would have themselves a fat fucking omelette and forget about it, but Manny, feeling a strange attachment to the shelled something, decides to care for his.

Manny isn't like most people. He's a paranoid reclusive hiding away in his shithole of an apartment, only leaving his abode to comb city fountains for coins to pay his monthly bills. Living this way, it's easy to see why the guy reacts so harshly to anonymous phone callers telling him to destroy his egg and would-be muggers wielding shovels outside his apartment door. He's not a crazy and violent psychopath, he's just socially awkward!

Manny's social awkwardness, meet change. Besides the newly acquired responsibility of taking care of the egg, he has just met Ashley, a waitress and the woman that could help him grow into a great human being. Hot damn!
As they embark on a relationship Manny never dreamt possible, he and Ashley will be forced to contend with their future when the egg cracks open. A future uncertain, a future only time will reveal.


Ego Says:
Manny. Yikes. Without giving too much away, I can tell you that this is one complex character. As the narrator, he'll gladly talk about the several locks attached to his door, but fuck you if you think he's going to reveal the location of the spare key.
Manny's self-imposed sequestration from society keeps him safe and secure, but it comes with a price: Loneliness. He spends entire nights in front of the television and ignores it, evidence of a man who wants a connection with the outside world even if it's from his much hated, light emitting box.

Manny's love interest, Ashley, struck me as your Girl Next Door type. Gorgeous, sweet and a little shy, no one would suspect she does not have a domineering, über jealous boyfriend. It is Manny's distracted communication, the way he averts having to talk to her, that initially attracts her to him.
Unfortunately for Manny, holding on to this relationship will be a strenuous task made difficult by no one other than himself. It is his own future that is voting against him in his quest for happiness.

The eponymous Egg of the story, as I suspected after reading the book's title, has no lines of dialogue.


Super-Ego Says:
Mr. O'Malley has captured the spirit of paranoia well in his voicing of Manny as the narrator. As he relates his story to the reader, his perceptions about himself and the world, Manny shows how his own acute self-awareness is crippling to his life. Unusual, however, is that he accepts his various predicaments fairly calmly, applying a simple type of logic to problems that seems to work for him.
An example would be the idea that he could lay an egg. As Manny sees it, the egg is in his bed and his pants are off, he is the only one in the apartment and nobody else could have gotten in. On top of all this, he feels something for this egg, something intrinsic, and concludes that it must be his and he must care for it like a parent. By keeping as many external influences out as possible, Manny must rationalize on his own something like an egg mysteriously appearing in his apartment.

Being the introvert Manny is, and also acting as the sole window into this book's world, I tried reading some sections from the altered viewpoint of everything in the story existing as an extension of the protagonist/narrator.
It made for some interesting revelations, such as in the character Madame Rain, a psychic that Manny calls for guidance and lottery numbers. Madame Rain cryptically clues in Manny to events that unfold later in the book, but after finishing the book and rereading these parts, I found that I could also interpret it as Manny revealing his future to himself.

Is our hapless recluse truly a self-fulfilling predestinarian? Is it him alone forcing these bouts of escalating trouble onto his self?
If so, Manny could be the greatest masochist the world has ever known.

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Check out this drumless mix of The Egg Said Nothing Song.

J. W. Wargo - The Egg Said Nothing Theme Song (Drums Said Nothing Mix)

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The Egg Said Nothing at Amazon.com

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