Kingdom of Monkeys

Adam Lewis Schroeder tries to subvert the illusion of “the exotic” in Kingdom of Monkeys (Raincoast), a collection of stories set in exotic locations, and to some extent he succeeds, although the problem of the exotic will always remain a problem. There are some very good stories in this book, which contains some of the best writing I have seen in a long time, and the legitimate questions of a postmodernist are intelligently handled and are quite properly overshadowed by the excellence of the storytelling. This guy should drive into the interior of B.C., into southern Alberta and northern Saskatchewan and point east into the boondocks of Canada: there he will find a properly exotic subject for his properly de-exoticizing prose.