Funhouse

By Sergio Kokis

In the tradition of such great Latin American magic realists as Jorge Amada, Sergio Kokis recreates the magic world of a child in Brazil.

The novel is told from the point of view of a Brazilian painter in exile somewhere in the northern climes - man who longs for the warmth and vibrancy of his childhood.

But his childhood and adolescence were not easy. Torn between a deeply religious (and superstitious) mother and his father, a man of science and reason, the young man survives his home life, life at boarding school, and life abroad to become an artist and a person in his own right.

Funhouse (Le pavillon des miroirs in French) has won four major literary awards in Quebec: Grand Prix du livre de Montrl, Prix de L’Acadie des lettres du Quec, Prix Quec-Paris, and Prix Desjardins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dundurn
• Release date: Apr 1, 1999
• ISBN: 9781554885381

Sergio Kokis

Segio Kokis is a bestselling author in Quebec. He has published five novels in French. Funhouse (Le pavillon des miroirs) was his first novel, published to critical acclaim. Born in Brazil, educated in Germany and France, Kokis is fluent in Portugese, German, French, and English.

Book preview

Bandeira

1

I’M STILL A LITTLE KID. Lili likes to rub against me when we take our afternoon nap. She pulls down her panties. They smell strong. It’s because the baby pissed on them, she says. It feels good and scratchy at the same time. I go along with it and say nothing. My aunt’s kind of cute, especially when she’s not angry, when she sighs and curls her damp legs around me. The room is warm and stuffy, and a strange feeling comes over me that makes me drowsy. The room smells of sleeping baby, sweat and Lili’s panties. When I wake up she’s gone, and I can’t remember a thing. Only the smells linger, mingled with the odour of mould that creeps across the walls. Slanting through the closed shutters, the sunlight carves bright columns of dust in the sultry half-darkness. I’ve got to piss, I can’t wait. Almost every day we play this game, then I get up, weary and lazy.

There’s nothing to do in the house, there are no toys. I crawl under the beds or look out the window, that’s about it. The baby is too young to play with and my older brother doesn’t like my games. It’s always been that way, we’re the kind of family where everyone goes his own way. Later on, the baby will be my friend, especially when my big brother picks on him. We all live crammed into this apartment, and we all sleep in the same room. Only Lili sleeps on the floor in the living room. Something is missing, something that would make us a family. Everyone seems to be busy with his own troubles.

Lili still lives with us, but at fifteen, she’s turning towards the street. As soon as she finishes helping my mother, she steps out for a breath of fresh air. Sometimes she goes out at night, too, when there are no cars on the avenue, but before the bars close. She lives in a state of constant irritation, something physical that drives her to anger the moment she puts the baby down. She’s the godmother. St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost causes, is the godfather, so that Lili will find herself a husband as quickly as possible. It’s strange how she can be so sweet when she’s not prey to temptation. But those occasions are rare. Since it’s better for her not to go out alone, and since the baby would get in the way, she takes me along when she goes out at night. I like that a lot, even if I have to be on my best behaviour and act like I’m not there. I do what I’m told because I know the cigarette-vendor will give me empty cigar boxes to play with behind the counter while he sits with Lili. Pretty, sweet-smelling boxes made of dark wood wrapped in colourful labels. I always bring home a few of them for me and my big brother. We turn them into ships, buses, houses or even monsters.

The shop reeks of tobacco and the sawdust that covers the floor, and the stale beer that drips from the stacked-up barrels. I’m not supposed to get dirty or talk too much. But the more they laugh and tickle each other, the faster they forget I’m there. The customers who are drinking make a lot of noise, and some of them even fight. Others know Lili and give her lemon soda. Meanwhile, I pick up beer-bottle caps for my collection, edging away without her noticing. I go and chat with the drunks at their tables, the ones who are nice and who know I’m with Lili. Once I’ve got my cigar boxes, filled my pockets with beer-bottle caps and drunk my pop, time seems to slow down. It moves so slowly that sometimes I fall asleep in a corner waiting for her to stop chattering. Poor Lili, these outings wear her out. We make our way back home through the empty streets, the two of us, walking fast because it’s late, because I’m sleepy and she’s nervous. But I’m bringing back my booty; it’s been a good night for me. All Lili gets are packs of cigarettes. They’re small and easy for the guys to stuff them into the pockets of her skirt, all the way down, tickling her as they go. Everybody has their own games.

I can’t figure out Lili. I don’t know how to stop her from getting mad. I don’t know what sets off her tantrums, so my best bet is to keep my distance. Then there are times, just as I’m expecting a smack in the face, when she’s as nice as can be. Take St. Anthony’s Day. We go every year. The place is scary. The convent of Largo da Carioca towers over the plaza on its rock spire. It’s a windowless fortress made of yellowish clay like a prison. On the feast day, early in the morning, crowds of moaning women fill the plaza. They come to pray and touch the hem of the saint’s cloak, and caress the statue’s plaster thighs. The monks pretend not to see, because they feel sorry for the desperate women, and also because the women stuff the collection plate with sweat-soaked, crumpled bills they pull out from deep in their undergarments. Everybody knows that when you need a man, you must pray to St. Anthony because he works wonders. Nobody venerates him quite like my mother’s sisters and their friends. He’s the baby’s godfather, after all. Maybe that’s why Lili won’t give him up. The sisters are a little embarrassed about attending this feast of spinsters, so they always find a pretext to drag me along. It’s a dangerous adventure with everyone pushing and shoving, a motley, high-strung female crowd baking in the sun. The women all wear brightly coloured dresses and veils, white for the virgins, black for the widows and married women, blue for the rest. Husbands get upset when their wives go to visit the saint, but the women can’t be stopped.

We have a long wait before we can get close to the convent stairs where a better organized line is beginning to form. Since I’m small, I end up crushed by huge buttocks and breasts that assault me from every direction. They trample me, squeeze me, wrap me in piercing odours as I grab on to my aunts’ skirts to keep from being carried away by the heaving surge of flesh. The heat only quickens the women’s impatience, the sun beats down and worst of all, there’s the disheartening spectacle of all the other pilgrims who got there before us, and who are now climbing the narrow staircase that leads within the walls. It’s a stampede, a mad rush. The crowd has become a mighty beast, jealous of the early arrivals, flailing about for fear that the saint will be swallowed whole before its turn comes. The women surge forward, wave after wave, like a flood tide. Soon I lose my way, I disappear and lag behind. They have to come back and get me, but I’m swept away again as my aunts try once more to pull me back. My limbs are nearly ripped off, I’m scratched and grabbed by the hair as I struggle not to lose my shoes. It’s one endless horror until we reach the narrow metal gangway. I always expect the worst, and usually it happens. People smack me in the head, their bony elbows jab my face, they pinch my arms and my back. Literally smothered by the compacted, greasy mass funneled into dresses and girdles, I feel like a stalk of sugar cane in the gears of the press.

But I survive. Though I’ve slowed them down, nobody thinks of punishing me. Strange. At home, I get a hiding without so much as a word of explanation. Matters of the heart soften women up, like my father says. Besides, the feast of St. Anthony is a holy day, which is the argument Mother always uses against the old man’s blasphemous grin. Maybe it’s a mixture of all those things. A greater sense of charity arises from the proximity of the plaster statue painted in shades of pink beneath its homespun cassock. If there were men in the crowd, blood would flow for sure. But among themselves, the women just push and shove, each one convinced she’s better than her neighbour.

Grim and unstoppable, the human wave surges forward like a whale stranded in a tidal pool. Women of all kinds, rich and poor, young and old. Only the poorest blacks are stuck at home, working.

Time drags on, my hair sticks to my sweaty forehead, and I let myself go, carried along by the crowd. Scuffling breaks out one last time as we reach the gangway and begin the long climb up the wall.

Already people have become more civilized, casting triumphant, disdainful glances at the crowd milling around in the square below. The women adjust their veils and mop their brows, their faces grow calmer, their hands join in prayer. They forget about me.

Suddenly total darkness replaces the blinding sunlight. The narrow, sinister corridor is as cool as a crypt. The press of bellies against the back of my head eases, and suddenly I’m cold. The chattering comes to a halt. Their faces serious now, the women start to pray, and dream. Lit by candles, the image of the venerated male gleams yellow at the far end of the long passage. We make our way slowly towards him, brushing the narrow walls. My head grows heavy: the odour of incense and candle smoke mingles with the sugary perfumes and the whiff of sweat, and other smells, too. My eyes smart as I wipe away my tears with my clammy hands; the smoke grows denser the closer we draw to the saint.

I can hardly see. The saint’s face and the Christ child he holds in his arms have almost vanished among the searching hands that stroke his feet and reach frenetically under his homespun cloak. From my level, I can clearly make out the women’s hands sliding down the fronts of their skirts, squeezing their thighs and in between, trembling. Lili has to pee, and her legs press tightly together as she kisses the saint’s feet. Gazing down beatifically, the statue accepts the adoration of women whose faces are contorted into curious shapes, frantic, their mouths twisting into strange grimaces, their tongues hanging out and their eyes rolling. It’s a sacred moment. I can feel the tension in the air. Next to the statue, a monk stands impassively, holding out the collection plate and muttering in Latin lest he succumb to temptation.

Suddenly they pull me forward, breaking the spell of my first mystical experience. I feel uncomfortable and afraid, though I don’t know why. The crowd moves off from the saint and surges into the church to pray. The women leave me to my own devices. I wander through the flock looking at the statues, paintings and gilded ornaments of the baroque interior. In the dim light, candles glitter against the gold-studded firmament of the blue walls. I can breathe again. In the silence, the sound of the women murmuring their prayers is like ebbing rain. Now and again, a piping cry of contrition escapes one of the veiled heads, far away, followed by its soothing echo. The melancholy, pervasive desire for Prince Charming accompanies them on their pilgrimage. Curious, I explore the church, discovering the beauty of the place, touching the carved pews polished by countless generations of unappeased backsides. In their alcoves, the statues undulate in the chiaroscuro of flickering candles while incense dulls my weary eyelids. With heavy steps, we make our way out through the far door of the convent. My aunts didn’t notice I’d gone exploring. They’re being nice to me. They even buy me an ice cream cone that runs down my fingers, sticky in the heat of the sun.

2

THE MUGGY HEAT OF THOSE DAYS exists only in my memory. Here, flowers of frost coat the windows with a dense grey tracery that grows back as soon as it is scraped away. The intense cold of long Januarys. No snow. Streets of indeterminate colour, dirty-white ice patches, splotches of ochre rust and urine. Everything bears a patina of soot that smoothes over surfaces and dulls the edges of sidewalks. Long-fallen, leftover snow gleams dully, hardened, compacted, glossy. The light is deadened. Some of the thick slabs are deeply fissured, exposing their ferocious skeleton. The sky is the colour of primordial, oxidized lead, but nothing falls from it. The slanting sun that slices the world diagonally has made itself scarce this winter.

Seen from inside, everything looks frozen. But I know the wind is blowing. It is always blowing. Aside from the sporadic whisper of the radiators, the silence is complete.

So complete it takes on the form of a dull humming in my head. If I pay attention to it, the sound of tobacco burning in my cigarette crackles like a brush-fire. I am walled up in my basement apartment, protected by the foundations of the ice-encrusted house. It is as if the world no longer existed.

The mailman has come and gone. I saw him. Actually, I was waiting for him, waiting for him as always, just in case a letter arrived, so I won’t be startled. But he delivers nothing, nothing but bills and flyers. Still I wait, and I’m always disappointed. There is no one to write to me. The last letter from down there showed up fifteen years ago. I can order books by mail, but it’s not the same as a letter. I have no idea what kind of letter would satisfy me, what kind I could expect. Strange news, revelations, someone who remembers me, or maybe another invitation of the kind I refuse as a matter of habit. Anything, as long as it’s personal. But nothing comes. I watch for him, embarrassed to be waiting. Once he’s come and gone, I can return to my thoughts. As consolation, I warm up the coffee and light a cigarette.

And stare out the window. The blank grey world of winter is held fast, suspended in a cotton-wool mist. It reminds me of the handful of childhood snapshots I’ve saved; they, too, are frozen in time, their edges frayed. No matter how hard I stare at the faded sepia images, my past remains closed off. My attempts at bringing it back to life produce only a pale reflection. Even the photograph of who I was remains foreign and artificial. Slowly, I’ve developed a kind of tenderness towards this little boy, gained a bit of sympathy for him. But nothing more. The pictures are the only evidence that a childhood ever existed somewhere in time, far from the icy vision that reaches me through the frosted window.

In this exile’s existence that is mine, only a handful of compelling images have kept the colour and movement they had when they were engraved in my mind like wounds. No stories accompany them, the living past has faded, but strangely the images that obsess me have kept all their wild exuberance. These ghosts, this legion of characters pulsating with light, continue to pursue me, demanding reparation. Some of them shriek, their bodies contorted like paralytics, others squat motionless, clutching themselves in silent, pathetic suffering. Others are little more than faces, disguises. One day it may be Carnival, the next day Lent. Many are corpses: inert bodies, nameless dead in a colourless setting. Frigid, grey, brushed with hues of cobalt, or chrome-green edging toward violet. There are children with distended bellies and stick-like bodies. Children who laugh and run like real children, children covered with pustules, teeth rotting, globs of snot dripping from their noses. One is sucking a lump of brown sugar, another is reaching towards a little girl who feigns modesty despite the dress that rides up her thighs. Desiccated old women stink of tobacco, sweat and coffee. No sooner do I close my eyes than these, and thousands of other images, begin to whirl before me like tireless dancers in an infernal fandango. Strange how the surface of things can be so commonplace compared to what we see through closed eyes.

I lower the blinds to keep from being disturbed. Mine is clandestine work. Beneath the raw glare of the spotlights, I surrender to my secret vice. That’s how I’ve tamed the images that are so powerfully resistant to the artifices of reason: I paint them. I turn them into chimeras. The underlying rot loses some of its energy as it burns into pale light. Once these images held me captive; I was their creature. They would appear whenever they wanted to, without warning, and there was nothing I could do about it. The fine dust of time that obscures the details of memory wasn’t enough to relegate them to the past. That’s true no longer. As they turned into objects, my images grew disciplined. True, I’m still a little scattered. Behind the outward calm, my inner world is in constant movement. Possessed, for the images refuse to fall silent, they won’t slip behind me like a guilty conscience haunting the present, or a depression in reverse.

In my studio design, I sit in a dark corner at my table and receive the full reflection of my paintings. Everything is illuminated in my eyes. Cigarette smoke helps give contour to the frozen surfaces, the way heat rising from the earth seemed to moisten the shapes in the sunlight back home. The paintings leaning against the wall are like the masks I wear to capture fleeting visions that are revealed to me even as they vanish. Of course this light, an entirely reñected light, is not real life. It’s a kind of theatre, a pure abstraction. But the images of ghosts can step onto that stage, and cease to haunt me. I’ve found no other way.

Making peace with the blinding light that pursued me came at the expense of everything else. But the price wasn’t too high because, for as long as I can remember, I have been a man of memory. A prisoner of the cinemas of the imagination with no desire to escape. I carry the walls within me. Though I attend to the present, I always compare it with images of the past, to such a powerful degree that new things quickly lose their interest. Once I wanted to escape from solitude. Now I’m happy to go unnoticed, I turn down invitations, play the chameleon and take the intensity of my fellow beings with a grain of salt. Solitude behind a puppet’s congeniality is the only bearable position for someone like me. Meanwhile, the images I have put on the painted surface become less foreign to me, almost mine, ultimately benign, for I am serving them.

When I lower the shades of my studio, it’s like closing my eyes and slipping into a more brilliant reality. I disappear into a world where greyness has disappeared, where the colour of my canvases sharpens and warms the surroundings.

What stunning confusion surrounds me! Throngs of real images crowd around me everywhere like a giant carnival. Against the wall stacked atop one another, rolled or stretched, piled up, stored in boxes, filed in folders, drawn, engraved, painted, pencil-sketched, washed, dried or still gleaming with fresh oil, on panels of wood or zinc, on canvas or paper or huge sheets of particle board. I have moved from the confused scribbling of my childhood into this florid jungle inhabited by multitudes of human reflection. My basement has become a pyramid’s crypt, holding within it a funeral procession of images transformed into simple, harmless, colourful mummies.

As I create in solitude, other apparitions arise through mutual excitement. I have become a maker of images, and by channelling this flood of stagnant waters, I have transformed it into a virtual torrent. What does that matter, as long as I work, without thinking, my mind empty, letting one thing follow the other, automatically.

Sometimes I tap the brakes lightly to avoid losing control. Creation happens by itself. I surrender to the movement just as, long ago, I drifted downstream, lying on the bottom of a rowboat, touching the oars only to steer clear of the riverbank or the rocky shoals.

3

MY FATHER DOESN’T WANT TO KNOW about niggers and priests. That’s why I can’t talk to him. No one else wants to answer my questions either. I’m too little. If I keep talking about things like that, I’ll get the hiding I deserve. Brazen little brat!

The women don’t really care what I do. They yell at me half-heartedly, without real anger. They’re too happy to be visiting the monastery, sure that they’ll find a husband in the coming year. A real husband, a church wedding, something to last forever. With a white gown, a virginal wedding night and envy etched on the faces of the other women who will turn into old maids or worse. Yesterday, the toothless old black lady predicted that a man would come — so it has to be true. Mother plies her with questions, digging for details, burning to know whether the lover promised the day before is the same as the husband St. Anthony will surely send. She wants to know everything. Her friends chatter on endlessly about the tiniest details: the urge to pee, the way they felt when they touched the saint’s thighs, what they were thinking about during prayer service, the colour of the eyes of the monk who held the collection plate, was he good looking or not, hairy or not ... All this talk is shot through with nervous giggling and shrill cries, and interrupted by frequent trips to the toilet. Lili can’t stand it any more. She has to have a sip of sugar water. Her fatigue, the sharpness of her desire, those sudden impulses, are going to set her on fire.

Quick, the sugar water! Some herb tea! No, bring the ether. We’ve got to calm her down ... Quick! The poor kid, she’s dying. Ah, men, what a curse, what ingratitude ... Get out of here, you nosy little worm, what are you up to, spying on us all the time? Good for nothing! You’re always underfoot. Keep on sticking your nose into other people’s business and you’ll see what’ll happen to you ... Shifty little devil!

They box me on the ears, just a couple of smacks to move me out of the way. Nothing serious, really. They’re not upset with me; they’re afraid of being let down again, despite the new dreams that have sprung up after last night. The toothless black lady doesn’t mess around. With her it’s serious business, she’s on intimate terms with the macumba spirits, in direct contact with the earth. She can see the man of your dreams at the bottom of her glass. I saw it with my own eyes once when they got all worked up during one of their rituals. It was a little scary, but not as bad as the women outside the convent. Stranger though, like being scared of ghosts: suddenly the old woman’s eyes began to roll, she started speaking some bizarre language and her breasts came to life as she danced.

Starting with my mother, the women in my house believe in her more than in the monk. I don’t know why, but the visit to the convent frightened me more. The old woman makes me laugh. Yesterday, they spent the whole day waiting for her, cooking and keeping an eye on the clouds. The moon’s got to be out, that’s for sure. Rain will ruin everything, wetting and softening things up too soon. The old woman won’t be able to see. Or the man of their dreams won’t be able to pass through. I’m on my best behaviour so they’ll forget I’m there.

When the old woman arrives, that’s exactly what they do. She’s huge, black as a telephone with big eyes that bug out when she looks at me. Her eyes are red, almost brown, but she’s not mean, especially when she laughs and shows her rare, blue-blotched teeth. A big, resonant laugh that startles you and makes you jump. I look at her only from a distance. Her pink gums are enormous, too, standing out against her black skin like a rain-drenched flower. Everything else about her is white, the colour of the spirits: her dress, her shoes, her panties when she shakes her skirts to air herself out. Everything, even her tapioca bread. Funny-looking little loaves that the women heat up in the frying pan until they turn completely dry. They taste like the host, my mother says. White, too, are the sheets they lay on the floor to walk barefoot during the ritual.

The ceremony will be held on the rear balcony, where we hang out the laundry to dry, next to the ice-box and the little room where Maria the maid sleeps. Out of doors, so they can see the stars. Everybody is happy, it’s going to work for sure, like every year when it doesn’t rain. The black lady attracts other women to our house, most of them my mother’s friends and cooks from the neighbourhood. She’s a specialist in moon-water, an important event that takes place on the night before St. Anthony’s feast. In a basin of water lit by the moon, the black woman makes the face of the promised man appear, or names the one who is secretly in love. She might even be able to make men fall in love, I’m not too sure.

The women crowd around, it’s already late at night, the lights have all been switched off. First they light candles in every corner of the room. Their dim flickering glow throws moving shadows on the walls when the black lady gets up to dance. She moves around a large shallow basin that Maria uses to wash herself. But Maria isn’t in it, and the water in the basin is crystal clear, shimmering, yellowish in colour, then dark blue when the candles are blown out. In her raucous, moaning voice, the old lady captures the moon in the water, which then becomes just as holy as the water blessed by the parish priest. Only you can’t piss in holy water or rub it between your thighs; you just touch it to your face when you make the sign of the cross. Moon-water is stronger, like medicine from the pharmacy. You have to use it with care. The black lady says a few more prayers and pours egg white into the basin. The other women light candles, even more candles than before, to see better. Her mouth gleams red with incantations. Just then, one of the women squats down and pisses a few drops into the basin. She lifts up her skirt to keep from wetting herself, showing her buttocks and her thing full of shadows and reflections from the moon-water. When several woman are looking for a man, they pour water into other basins, into plates or glasses, so no one’s man gets mixed up with anyone else’s. Sometimes that makes for funny situations: the women get so excited that they trip over each other, spill the sacred water and piss on the floor.

That’s when I’m most likely to be found out, because I can’t keep from laughing, and the blows can be something. They’ll kick me out, and my mother will whip me. You can’t make fun of sacred things.

Crux Credo, may this little monster end up in hell! Devil child! Hellion!

Sometimes it’s not even my fault. But my big brother can hide quicker, getting away like he’s innocent while I’m still trying to make out the details in the darkness. I forget the danger and get too close in order to look at the shapes the egg-white makes in the mixture of piss and water. If my brother starts laughing, I get trapped in the middle of that horde of jittery women, right in the path of their blows and their vengeful fingernails.

But if they don’t catch me at that crucial moment, then everything turns out fine. The women are so happy with the black lady’s visions in the moon-water pots that they don’t see anything else. In a deep voice, she describes the men in detail, talking with each woman and helping her find out who he might be, to remember his face and connect her description with a man in the neighbourhood. A clerk or a truck driver perhaps, a policeman or a fireman, even a bar owner. Tempers flare, and their voices are shrill. Sometimes the man in question is already married, and more services from the black lady will be needed to open the door. Secret things, things spoken in low voices, in which my mother has a certain influence, since she knows plenty of other black ladies. All the same, the atmosphere is light-hearted. The toothless black lady laughs, she knows how to talk and provide the intimate details. She vaunts the qualities of her imaginary man like a butcher selling a scrawny chicken. The complete opposite of the poor monk who stands there muttering in Latin, not even looking at the rear-ends and breasts rising and falling around him. The black woman rarely admits defeat, even when the moon-water turns opaque and milky, a bad omen. Her eyes see through everything. Even if she can’t provide all the details, a man is there, that much is clear. A man who reveals himself timidly, who wants his woman to be braver and show more of herself, everything will depend on her and her alone ... The other women console the poor creature, showering her with advice about how to display her best qualities, whispering to her that it’s probably this man or that one, how he loves her secretly, she’ll have to coax him out by moving her backside better, and letting him see her tongue when she smiles. The conversation catches fire, confidences fly thick and fast, broken by bursts of laughter. The more experienced women give the younger ones lessons in seduction, what to do with the part below the belt, how to lead while pretending to follow. Men like it that way ...

My father always says that women are stupid animals, and he won’t tolerate macumba in his house, he claims they’re all whores, starting with Lili. Her little routine must be getting on his nerves. All day long she’s flashing her panties, and she never closes the door to the toilet. Plus the house is always full of my mother’s friends, other aunts coming and going, older than Lili but younger than my mother. When they come to our house to visit, which can last for months, bras and panties are everywhere. Open dressing-gowns, thighs being shaved, breasts showing while they remove their hair, lineups at the shower door. There’s always something going on, women yelling, weeping or locking themselves in their rooms if my father says the wrong thing. Then he has to go in and console them, and beg their pardon. Sometimes he’s so successful that my mother starts shouting obscenities at her sisters, threatening to throw the lot of them out, calling them shameless bitches who’ll end

Reviews for Funhouse

[allison7sivak · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this just after finishing Angela's Ashes, which made for an interesting juxtaposition. Both focus on childhood and poverty, although McCourt tells his story (mostly) immersed in the child's perspective, and Kokis shifts back and forth from the present-day adult to the past-child. Kokis' book is also fiction, while McCourt's is memoir (which is always fictionalized to some extent).One very clear contrast between these two books was the very strong sense of landscape through narrative style. Kokis is dense, colourful, alternately exuberant and despairing; McCourt is pared down, sparse and resigned (although the narrator's Irish dialect adds texture to this voice). McCourt's book read more *greyly* than Kokis. I was less interested in the sections narrated by the adult character, which focused on his life and art. I dislike descriptions of "art" or the "artist's life" in fiction for the most part; they read very precious and almost rarefied to me, and I found this in Funhouse. But the child's story was layered and unpredictable -- and yet very plausible at the same time. When the child's mother turns the family apartment into a whorehouse, in no way did it seem as fantastic as it could have; instead, Kokis tells the story as I think a child might: strange things happen, but everything when you are a child is strange in the world of adults.