Frustration Before the Fall

There’s nothing redeeming about just being clever, so it’s great that Seth Fried is also smart-as-hell in his debut, The Great Frustration, a collection that is fantastically imagined, caustically realized, and genuinely touching. The 11 stories are written in such a sympathetic and talented voice as to make the material described somehow believable (at least enough to suspend overwhelming skepticism about such madcap situations). Some of the more fantastic stories include: scientists who experience a sexual revolution while examining a prehistoric corpse, an annual picnic that ends with random acts of violence, an imaginary world of fauna, and the failure of plaid-wearing lackeys to put a monkey inside of a rocket.