Title: Merciless Gods (Goodreads)
Author: Christos Tsiolkas
Published: Allen & Unwin, 2014
Pages: 304
Genres: Short Stories
My Copy: Paperback
Buy: Book Depository (or visit your local Indie bookstore)
As most people know, I am a big fan of transgressive fiction and in Australia there is one author that doesn’t shy away from a touch or taboo subject. This author is Christos Tsiolkas and he is best known for his two recent novels The Slap and Barracuda. Merciless Gods is his first collection of short stories and deals mainly with sexuality, family and identity.
Author of six novels, Christos Tsiolkas was born in 1965 to Greek immigrant parents. Reading through his novels you quickly get the sense of what it must have been like growing up in suburbia as a Greek immigrant and a homosexual. He likes to explore these themes constantly and you get an idea of just how backwards people’s thinking can be. Then with his breakout novel The Slap, he challenged everyone’s thoughts, tapping into the universal dilemma around discipline and child-rearing.
Merciless Gods seems to be more of a “return to his roots” collection of short stories, which shares similarities with first novel Loaded at any of his other. There is this whole theme about social and personal struggle that play out within these stories. I am impressed with the way Tsiolkas challenges people’s views; particularly when it comes to sexuality and immigrants. There was a particular story that he wrote in Greek and then translated into English that was very powerful.
Christos Tsiolkas has officially become an ‘auto-buy’ author for me now and I will have to read the rest of his backlist sometime soon. Merciless Gods is hard-hitting and not for the faint of heart, he is pushing the boundaries but he does this really well. I am not sure when these stories were originally written, I think that will be interesting to know. However if you have never read this great Australian author, this is probably not the best place to start. Maybe begin with The Slap or Barracuda before working your way up to Loaded and Merciless Gods.
How grim is it? I like the idea of Tsiolkas but I find some of his stuff too violent for my delicate sensibilities. Heh. The Jesus Man kind of put me right off him, although I watched The Slap and quite liked it. I haven’t got around to reading the book, though.
I think he may have pushed those boundaries a little too much for your liking.
I thought that may be the case. I might just peek at a library copy of the book and see what I think. I loved Loaded so much, but since then I’ve only been able to read his non fic. Bummer.
Library books are always good for those kind of things. I like his writing style but then again I do like darker stuff.
I’ve only read Barracuda, but I know that i want to read more by him. I saw him at the Ed Book Fest and he was brilliant.
You’ll have to read The Slap next
As you know I really didn’t enjoy Merciless Gods. I’m not easily shocked so it wasn’t the subject matter, for me the stories all felt a bit pointless. It was almost as if he didn’t have anything to say so just tried to be controversial. I didn’t ‘love’ The Slap but enjoyed it far more than this, which was a DNF for me. 🙁
I think he has plenty to say about sexuality, immigration and so on. Have you tried Barracuda? It might work for you