Moving Parts

• All this may be a bit too weird for some readers, but I found the best stories in the collection to be delightfully playful and funny, stacked with puns and wordplay, often ending in disarmingly silly punchlines, and rich in odd little moments that you’ll want to stop and read aloud to your other half or cat or whoever else is in the vicinity.

• Anthologies aren’t really my thing, but this book is hands down my favorite collection of short stories. I’m so glad I picked it up when I was in Thailand last week, looking for a Thai-authored book to read.

• Through the use of body parts as symbolisms, Prabda Yoon exemplified his trademark satirical and dark humor writing style in exploring the postmodern city life of Bangkok, this time with notions of surrealism, absurdism, and a little on the experimental end. Like his previous collection (The Sad Part Was), Prabda maintained his playfulness and wittiness throughout the stories, and perhaps in a "louder" manner.

• Inventive, surreal, very quirky and sometimes downright bizarre stories about bodies, life, and awkward social interactions. Prabda Yoon seems to have taken certain phrases -- give me your hand, mocktails -- very literally and run with them, often turning things upside down. I think my favorite was Mock Tail because it cleverly highlights how absurd and cruel our fixation on human differences is.

• The stories do evoke thought about how people really are treated based on looks, how we communicate with others, and how we view ourselves. While the short stories have the ability to offer a bit of relief in an otherwise heavy world, it also draws to the surface a few questions and answers about the way in which societies function.

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