Realistic Fiction

DEBUT Solomonik (cohost of the World Transsexual Forum) offers a collection of satirical short stories that focus on a cast of characters struggling to conform to societal expectations in absurd ways. “How To Run for Local Office While Building a Community of Nothing” introduces Ashton, a vapid trans man who plans to sleep his way to being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Despite his ambitious goals, Ashton is simply following the scheme his friend Dan has planned for him—and yet, he still feels alone at the end of his latest hook-up. The story “Boron” follows Punk Skunk, a young man trying to embody masculinity by attempting to get a job at a boron mine, only to end up volunteering at the visitor’s center and rejecting the one person he begins to genuinely connect with. Solomonik’s narratives are tongue-in-cheek and sometimes uncanny, with protagonists who are simultaneously sincere and ironic, to the point that even other characters struggle to tell when they are being genuine. Despite (or maybe because of) this, each story lends insight into the alienation of being forced into socially acceptable roles: as men, as sons, as citizens.