Zafra’s two new books

Legions of Jessica Zafra fans, rejoice! Great good news! She has just self-published two new books: The Stories So Far and Geeks Vs. Jocks.

Both were printed in Malaysia, where she says the process is cheap, and she had it done there because she wanted hardcover books.

“The hardcover makes them extra-useful as swatters, coasters, hammers, emergency racquets,” she quips, most characteristically.

These recent titles follow her bestselling Twisted series of compilations of her wildly popular columns, of which ten have been issued (there’s a Twisted 8 1/2, presumably in tribute to Fellini), plus Chicken Pox for the Soul, The 500 People You Meet in Hell, and The Flip Reader (also as editor).

As if we didn’t know already of one of our most famous humorists, a backgrounder provides the following info for the short story collection:

“Jessica Zafra has always wanted to write short stories. Her earliest attempts have been terminated with extreme prejudice, and this is a good thing. Jessica’s first book was a collection of stories, Manananggal Terrorizes Manila. After its publication she discovered that one can’t actually make a living by writing fiction, so she started writing a newspaper column (purportedly non-fiction) and that went fairly well. But she continued to write fiction, and The Stories So Far is her long-overdue follow-up to Manananggal.

“Jessica is the author of Geeks Vs. Jocks and the very popular Twisted series containing her essays on pop culture. Her writing has appeared in local newspapers, Newsweek International, and the New Yorker. She has hosted talk shows on radio and television, managed a band, and is a producer on the Lav Diaz film Norte, The End of History. Her column appears every week at InterAksyon.com. Jessica blogs daily at JessicaRulestheUniverse.com.”

That’s for the benefit of all those who have been living under a rock until the Pope visited over the weekend. 

Ten stories make up the new fiction collection. Of these, a backcover omnibus trailer provides the following teasers:

“In a coffee shop in Makati, three strangers cross paths on what may be the last day of the world.

“In an apartment in Paris, unfriendly dinner guests wait for a frozen leg of lamb to cook.

“Jude, allegedly the smartest kid in the room, discovers that a high IQ is no guarantee of survival.

“An actress with the face of an angel and the talent of a brown paper bag considers her rapidly dwindling options.

“Sociopaths, spies, aspiring golddiggers, heiresses on the run and advertising executives wrongly hunted for murder find themselves on the same train.

“The neighbors keep missing each other in an apartment building that messes with the space-time continuum.

“A porn star turned religious fundamentalist preaches on the bus while a tarot card reader battles possession by a demonic dwarf.

“These are some of the people who populate The Stories So Far, only the second collection of short stories by Jessica Zafra. You don’t have to let them in your house, but you can meet them right here.”

I’ve read four of these thus far. They’re quintessential Zafra the fictionist: breezy, witty, wizened in an increasingly dizzying urban fashion, rife with asides that don’t distract from the pell-mell narratives but rather gild the lilies of contemporary discourse. And of course they’re all inherently risible.

From the story titled “914, 915, 916” (units in an apartment building — “The Amarillo Arms was a sullen gray building squatting in the financial district like a concrete alien about to lay a turd.”), here’s an excerpt: 

“Caught in mid-scream, tonsils vibrating, the woman resembled one of the less attractive Picasso odalisques. When she shut her mouth she wasn’t bad-looking. Pedro, whose business required instant assessments of feminine attractiveness, decided that his visitor had been pretty once, but was worn out by the stress of assailing people’s doors at full volume. She was in her mid-forties, possibly younger, wearing a knockoff Versace and unfortunate white pumps. ‘Yes?’ he said sweetly, for Pedro was a kind soul who felt sympathy for downtrodden women everywhere, especially those with cute husbands.

“‘I’m… is this 914?’ she said, when her lungs had been refilled to enable speech.

“‘No, it’s 915!’ Pedro said, indicating the metal numbers on his door with the flourish of a TV game show hostess.

“‘Oh. Sorry!’ she added brightly, and squaring her shoulders, crossed the hallway to the correct door. The pounding recommenced with undiminished fervor. ‘Whore! Prostitute! Withered old crone! Open this door immediately!’

“Pedro watched this siege for a minute, wondering if his neighbor would admit to being at home. He noted that none of the other neighbors had looked out to find the source of the racket. Amazing. In the building he’d lived in before the slightest hint of anyone’s marital discord could make a crowd assemble in seconds. There was nothing like live soap opera. Maybe all his current neighbors were at the office. Or unconscious. Or bound and gagged. In any case it was nice to live in a discreet environment for a change.”

The rest of the story is a primal scream as related or attributable to strange science (which Jessica studied with primary flourish in an earlier incantation).

Of the second book, the backcover backgrounder reads (again, for the elementary lurkers drawn out by a Papal visit):

“Jessica Zafra has never played sports in her life. She should be barred from any playing field, for the safety of players and spectators, and especially her own. It is not that she hates sports, but she believes it should be left to those who are actually skilled at it. Of course she is painfully aware that sport is essential in Geek History, being a primary means by which we learn that what does not kill us makes us strong.

“However, Jessica has always enjoyed writing about sports — partly because we must know our enemy, and partly because it’s fun. Geeks Vs. Jocks is a collection of her writing on tennis, rugby union, football, boxing, and other games including politics and history. Among other issues she writes about Roger Federer as platonic ideal, the dread of watching the All Blacks almost lose the Rugby World Cup, what happens when you put rugby players in tiny underwear on giant billboards on the highway, and Game of Thrones as a playbook for Philippine politics.”

The book has three thematic sections: “Love Means Zero” on tennis; “Try Means Goal” on rugby; and “Race, Sex and Violence” on all other things besides (geek or non-geek), including history, politics, Amy Winehouse and Manny Pacquiao, the Azkals, and “Basic Etiquette for Expats, Tourists and Other Visitors To The Philippines, Including Extraterrestrials”

Here’s from an early take on Federer:

“Genius is not something you wield. It wields you, and when Federer is on, he is its whip. But even at his most dominant there is a fragility about the Federer game, the hint of a half-second here, a quarter-inch there, 0.5 of an angle off could disrupt the subtle balance. Any minute it could all fall apart. Such beauty cannot possibly last; the sublime is unrepeatable.

“Yet over and over for the past seven years Roger Federer has repeated the sublime. He has made the extraordinary seem ordinary.”

No doubt Jessica’s been in seventh heaven again of late, since the mantra “Roger” hasn’t been followed by an “and out” past his supposed peak, as the Nadalphiles had predicted, including this humble sports fan and reviewer. 

In fairness (as they say in some circles JZ — not the fellow to whom this book is dedicated — also deigns to rule occasionally), she also has a piece entited “The Imaginary Wedgies of Rafa Nadal.” From which, the following:

“Rafael Nadal is a telenovela. From the second he appears on court he radiates intensity — and all he’s doing is walking to his chair…”

Why, we can almost say the same of La Zafra, from the second any text of hers (including of the cellphone variety, snorting at Capri shorts…) fills any page or screen. Well, not actually intensity as we know it to be on surface, but a subtle subversion of that mythic element, couched in seemingly light banter as only homo ludens can apply. That’s JZ at play, in a geeky way.

Pssst. The Pope’s departing today. Until they run out, he books are available at library-of-babel.com.