LaTanya McQueen's Reviews > Palo Alto

I have read James Franco’s visionary story collection Palo Alto. It has been blurbed by such literary wonders as Amy Hempel, Susan Minot, and Ben Marcus. Franco has also studied with such authors as Michael Cunningham, Jonathan Lethem, Mona Simpson, Tony Hoagland, and others. In the collection, there is a story where a bunch of teenagers gang-rape a girl and force her into prostitution. It’s okay though because she’s Asian. In another story, to impress a girl the narrator says the word “nigger” and racist epithets in class during a debate on slavery. That’s okay too though because later some black kids beat him up and the girl he liked ends up being a slut. Actually, most of the girls in this book are sluts and the boys all do things like shoot animals with BB guns and kill people while drunk-driving, then later going home to play Nintendo and drink or smoke pot. There is a lot of gay-bashing and race-bashing but it’s okay since it’s the characters who are saying these things and they are from Franco’s imagination, and we all know that he is a creative genius.
There are many luminous sentences in this collection like this one—“Howard was Jewish and I was Jewish because my mom was Jewish.” Or “Tom Prince had horrible face acne, which sprouted in small groupings, like piles of bat shit.” Or “I can feel their mind-killing slime thought rubbing on me and corroding me, and killing me.”
In the story “Jack-O” there are many wonderful similes. So many. So that you could enjoy them I have copied some here:
“…his weight spreads from his belly across the seat, like it was a plastic sack full of liquid, rolling in layers upon itself.”
“…it’s like a boar’s grunt, a deep thing, from the thick part of his throat.”
“…like rust-flaked gears groaning in slow motion.”
“…like the point of a golf tee in his fat, clenched paw.”
“…like fog over a graveyard.”
“...like busted shingles, all climbing over each other.”
“…like a fat something-awful: hockey-player-pumpkin-cartoon-shithead”
“…like ketchup randomness”
“…like a tunnel into the night”
“…like life because I am racing.”
“…like standing on the cloudy threshold of heaven and seeing something so bright and tantalizing and warm-womby feeling.”
“…like a pile of trash against the base of the altar.”
“…like a sleeping mule’s.”
I think these similes are part of what Gary Shteyngart means when he says “Franco’s talent is unmistakable, his ambition profound.” Must be, since the story "Jack-O" was published in Esquire awhile back, previously called "Just Before the Black."
On the inside of my book jacket, the description says that Franco is a “powerful new literary voice.”
James Franco looks very literary in his author photo. He is wearing a black v-neck shirt. He has a very serious literary look on his face. He looks sad and concerned. Maybe it’s because he is worrying about the current state of the publishing industry. I know that I am.