As a writer, I specialize in very brief, surreal fictions.
For instance, I wrote a story (a personal favorite) in which I capture a
runaway vagina from up a tree.
Some years ago, my then-agent suggested that, being a
fabulist, I should write a children's book. The market was hot.
I had a brainstorm. An edgy one. Why not stories for kids
that mocked the uplifting vision of children's lit? Instead of everything
turning out for the best,
everything
would turn out for the worst. It would be my riff on the tradition of
cautionary tales such as
Struwwelpeter (Shockheaded
Peter) or the savagery in the pages of Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm.
It would be a provocative book—and funny. Nastybook. A kids' lit editor bought it
based on my sample pieces. I turned in the full manuscript. The editor informed
me the stories were much
nastier than
she expected. And she rejected
Nastybook.
That was the first warning.
Another editor, however—hipper I would call her—loved it. NASTYbook (as it was now styled) came
out.
As I say, I meant to be provocative and outrageous. To prey
on children's intimate fears and hopes—abandonment, ugliness, vulnerability,
physical terror, desire to be admired and have agency—but to use shared
laughter ("merry" laughter, in my promo-writing mind) to assure and empower the
young reader.
But I recall one marketing meeting where the topic of
bullying came up, and someone hesitantly murmured, so softly I think I was the
only one who heard, that in my book's world, bullies would win... I grinned
crookedly.
That was the radical angle I underestimated, the no-no line
I crossed. In my stories, by and large, kids were the losers. I made kids the
butt of the joke. Can you get away with that in kids' books, if you're winking
and funny?
I went on a tour. In Midwestern primary schools, I read aloud
my cautionary little monstrous fable, for instance, about nose-picking, that
left the teachers with straining smiles and 80 semi-hysterical grossed-out
kids to be calmed down after I departed.
In San Francisco, after an event at a bookstore, I was informed a local
school had decided to cancel me.
Understand, many youngsters liked, even loved, my
stories—particularly, I noticed, bright young girls who'd read all of Lemony
Snicket and were looking for something new. They sat in the front rows of
readings with their dads. They particularly enjoyed the more vicious pieces.
But at one brunch party in New York, where I live, an old pal
of mine cackled awkwardly and confessed his wife wouldn't allow
NASTYbook in the house.
The reviews were a mix of good and bad. The standout was in
a publication called the
Metapsychology
Online Review, by a philosophy professor specializing in psychiatry and
psychology:
What distinguishes Yourgrau's
little sketches is the complete lack of hope and justice, or even
humanity. These stories are, as advertised, exercises in nastiness, with
occasional flashes or wit or humor. Some young people may like this...
but if they do, they should be locked up.
They
should be locked up...
"No,"
declared my own shrink in her little windowless office, "these aren't stories
for kids."
"You
don't think the humor saves them?" I protested wanly, beating my old drum.
She
didn't.
Anyway,
my original idea had been to publish the book as both for kids and adults.
However such a cross-listing befuddles bookstores, apparently.
NASTYbook (and its blighted follow-ups, Another NASTYbook and Yet Another NASTYbook) went out of print, though there was TV interest for a while.
Here
then are two stories from NASTYbook. They're among my favorites. Appropriate for
kids? You decide for yourself. Or ask a young person.
You'll Find Out
A boy likes to pick his nose.
A
harmless habit, a rather human one, you'd think. But whenever his mother sees
him at it, she scolds him.
"One
day you'll dig out a very unwelcome surprise," she warns darkly.
"Like
what?" he says, finger
you-know-where.
"Stop!"
she demands. "You'll find out if you keep that up! And it's
disgusting!"
"Says
who?" says the boy. And he grins. "What's the big deal?"
Things
get to the point where his mother actually sends him to a doctor. The doctor
isn't that old, but he looks worn out and haggard, with dark circles under his
eyes and pasty anxious skin.
He
asks the boy details about his nose-picking habits. The boy answers the
questions with a sullen shrug. Then he notices the wads of tissue paper stuffed
into the doctor's nostrils.
He
grins to himself.
The
doctor stands over him, shaking his head. "Man to man," he says—"man to man,
your mother is right, you should listen to her. Awful things will come of this
awful habit!"
"That
so?" says the boy, boldly. "I'll bet you like to pick
your nose, doc—you just stuffed all that paper up your nose, so you
wouldn't be able to. But you'd like to!"
"No!"
cries the doctor. He turns red. "All right—yes!" he croaks. "But I've
stopped—but too late, too late for me!"
"What's
that mean?" grins the boy, and
defiantly he reaches up to pick away. Then he freezes.
The
doctor is staring at him very strangely.
A
violent shudder shakes the medical man. A wad of his nostril paper bursts out.
He gasps and shudders again, and a long very thin gray worm, like a strand of
overcooked spaghetti, waves out into the air from his nose.
The
boy tries to scream, but he's too paralyzed.
The
doctor grabs at the nasal intruder with frantic hands. But it's not that easy
to seize hold of. The more the doctor fumbles and flaps, the longer and longer
the worm grows, slithering from its nostril lair.
The
disgusting creature starts to wind around the doctor's head, like one of those
long telephone cords that can get you so entangled.
"Call
the nurse!" gasps the doctor, struggling as the worm winds tighter. "Hurry—" He
topples back over a chair and thrashes around hideously on the carpet.
"Hurry—!"
The
boy finally comes to life and runs shouting into the corridor. The nurses rush
in and manage to save the doctor. They even chuckle at the whole thing, in a
grim way, as they bundle the appalling worm into the medical trash.
"Now
don't let all this get to you," the head nurse comforts the traumatized boy,
with a smile. "It's a perfectly harmless little pleasure," she whispers,
tapping her nose and winking. Then she gives a twitch. She shudders.
Frantically her hands jerk up to cover her nostrils, but a little gray head
peeps out between her fingers. "It's nothing—ignore it!" sputters the nurse,
starting to writhe. "Just ignore it!"
From that day on, believe me, the
boy sticks his fingers elsewhere.
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Dark
A boy who's afraid of the dark—let's call him Maurice—goes
to stay with his uncle. His uncle lives alone deep in the woods in a dark, old,
gloomy house.
"So
I hear you're afraid of the dark!" the uncle says to Maurice with a snort at
their first dinner, which is by candlelight in the great, dark, drafty dining
hall.
"M-maybe
a little b-bit," Maurice answers, startled by his uncle's harsh tone. And his
peculiar pale appearance.
"Well,
we'll cure you of that pronto," his uncle informs him. "I've put you in the
bedroom that's haunted."
Maurice
turns pale as a ghost himself. "You h-have?" he says.
"Haunted
by a hideous, terrifying ghost, an insane murderer who ripped his victims'
hearts out and ate these as they screamed and bled! And was tortured to death
himself by the brutal posse who captured him. Torn into little pieces! So what
d'you think of
that?" booms the
uncle, his eyes narrowing into sinister slits.
"I—I—"
stammers Maurice, barely able to keep from fainting. His horrible uncle seems
to swim in the candlelight.
There's
a terrible pause. Then the uncle grins.
"Hey,
kiddo, just teasing," he says. And he laughs. He sits there laughing, laughing
and pointing at the boy. Maurice stares at him, stunned. Then slowly he laughs
too. Out of sheer relief, out of the whole crazy, scary scene. The dining room
table turns into an uproar of the two of them laughing. The uncle hoots and
hoots, he claps his forehead with his hand, in merriment, he throws back his
head to bellow with laughter—And his head topples off and bounces on the floor
and rolls away. Away into the shadows. And is silent.
Maurice's
scream strangles in his throat. "Unc—, unc—" he squawks, incoherently.
There's
a horrible, stricken silence. Then a strange voice speaks, from deep in the
shadows behind Maurice, so his skin turns to ice and his hair tingles.
"Whoops,"
says the voice. It chuckles quietly. "Oh well, for a dead person, he worked well
enough for a while." And it chuckles some more. Maurice hears a strange,
squealing moan, which he then realizes is coming from himself.
"Why
don't you get up and come back here, into the deep shadows?" says the voice.
"And bring your
heart with you."
"D-do
I have t-to?" whimpers Maurice, who's been taught to be unfailingly polite, always.
"Oh
yes," says the voice.
After
a pause, the terrified Maurice gets out of his chair and turns, and moaning, he
wobbles slowly into the dark shadows at the back of the great, gloomy, drafty
dining hall.
"Poor
kid, you're afraid of the dark already," says the voice, sounding very close.
"Well,
you're going to be afraid a lot worse, I can promise." And it chuckles.
And
that's how things work out sometimes, what can I tell you?
Barry Yourgrau's books include Mess, Wearing Dad's Head, and The Sadness of Sex, in whose film version he starred. He lives in New York and Istanbul. His website is barryyourgrau.com.
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All photos by the author
Marchers on the main Pride route pay tribute to the Orlando victims
