In Person

Matthew Sharpe
at Book People

Matthew Sharpe is one writer who hasn't turned his back on television. After landing his fiction in Zoetrope and Harper's, he has produced a crackling debut collection, Stories From the Tube. Each of the 10 tales borrows one slice-of-life snippet from an actual TV commercial, and then takes it from there.

Sharpe read and signed at Book People on November 12, before an audience of about 40. According to the author, it was his first promotional foray for the book outside his native New York. Wearing a black pullover and tan trousers, he introduced the collection and then played a reel of five TV spots, which share a certain inoffensive inanity -- in one promoting a toilet tissue, a woman on a plane is seated next to a "cloud"; in another spot for a deodorant, a handsome couple nervously prepares for a black-tie fundraiser; and in a perfume spot, a woman at a theatre morphs into Marilyn Monroe.

It's all serene and "normal" until Sharpe gets hold of the subject matter. His interpretation of the events that follow what we see in these advertisements is by turns comic and dark:

• A mother who -- by using a particular detergent -- cleans a nasty stain from her daughter's leotard doesn't exactly enjoy a traditional other-daughter relationship.
• *Two girlfriends who've been bridesmaids together in numerous weddings turn out not to be so friendly after all.
• From an ad for financial services: "A family is seated at the dinner table. The mother mentions that she's been thinking about having her mother move in with them:

Dad: We can't afford that right now. We've got the kids, the cars. ... We've got to look at our retirement.

Son: Dad? Grandma could have my room. Okay?"

Sharpe then stepped to the lectern to read "Rose in the House," the strange, highly imaginative tale of the cantankerous granny who moves in with her daughter's family. The story's theme -- guilt -- harbors itself insidiously within the otherwise stereotypical household. Arriving along with Grandma is a peculiar odor that the patriarch, Frank, notices immediately. Rose also happens to be a surreptitious pot-smoker who buys her dope from the Jamaicans in Washington Square Park and smokes it there, on a park bench.

It was clear from his reading that Sharpe envisions Rose as a sort of comic-relief, "Jewish mother" character. But the old woman also hides a tragic secret from everyone -- everyone, that is, except for her grandson, Ronny. Unsure at the outset (despite his offer to become her roommate), Ronny begins to accept her. The odd interaction Sharpe creates between the pair is touching; the story is bittersweet.

Sharpe's "opening act" at Book People was his sister's music group, the Susanna Sharpe Quartet, which entertained the appreciative crowd with Latin music. Appropriately enough, before introducing her brother, Susanna closed her set with the Brazilian song "Television." --Stuart Wade