Troglodyte

In her latest collection, DeBrincat (Hollywood Buckaroo) uses cartoonishly pert prose to describe the bleak, lower-middle-class existence of her characters. For example, a little girl dying of influenza, who comes to view the world through television, narrates a curiously heartening story called “Glossolalia.” In “Badass,” a lovesick grade-schooler pursues a young, thuggish classmate whose threats are enticements, his abusive home life an exotic domain. And in the title story, a trailer park is a paradisiacal refuge for a group of blissed-out outcasts living in their landscape of black light posters, parking lots, and Top 40 radio. DeBrincat’s world is one in which her young protagonists imperfectly grasp the extent to which their desires are dictated by class or the influence of pop culture, allowing the author to fully occupy the mindset in which first love is the only love and death is a fantasy. Interestingly, the collection switches from desperate youngsters to dead-end adults in its second half, without significantly changing its pitch. Perhaps the similarity in tone is due to the fact that characters, like the obsessed protagonist of “Help Me Find My Killer,” are still living with the consequences of high school friendships, while in “Call It a Hat,” explicit Polaroids pass for romance. DeBrincat’s realism reminds us that reality is subjective, revealing the author’s unquestionable skill. (Feb.)