cover image Strange Skies

Strange Skies

Matt Marinovich, . . Harper Perennial, $13.95 (226pp) ISBN 978-0-06-123391-3

In Marinovich’s artful debut, married, childless Paul Mauro, 38, checks in with his doctor after a lump of cancer is removed from his bicep. He gets a clean bill of health and immediately starts dreading his life to come, which includes impregnating his wife, Lee. On the way out of the doctor’s office he meets a beautiful woman, Alex, who has just been diagnosed with cancer. She assumes he’s in the same boat, and Paul decides to play along. Paul, who narrates with a gallows humor, lies to Lee, too, about his condition and propels himself into a parallel fake-cancer world where women suddenly find him irresistibly brave. Paul’s an unusally self-aware scoundrel, and his adventures, including his dread of fatherhood, are very funny in spots. The ending doesn’t quite work, but readerly goodwill built up in the defter sequences compensates. (Sept.)