| Homunculus by Jerry Stubblefield | ||
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When a man can't achieve intimacy with someone
else, such as a wife, he ends up achieving it with himself, which is no
good." Hector Owen is well aware of his problem. He's a washed-up
playwright whose imagination and creative impulse nevertheless have
failed to wane in spite of his efforts to deny them. With a lacklustre
career behind him and a failing, sexless marriage in the Appalachian
town to which he has retreated, Hec suddenly finds himself in the
company of his own creation, a nasty, yet frequently charming
homunculus calling himself Robin. And Robin, once freed from his
lifetime of confinement within Hec's over-stressed mind/body, has a
dangerous agenda that includes sex, love, and ridding Hec of his lovely
wife. Both literary and science fiction, "Homunculus" moves the
"Frankenstein" proposition into the realm of psychosis. Is Dr.
Frankenstein more culpable for the terrifying actions of his
electrically energized monster than Hector Owen is for those of the
glib, droll humunculus to whom he's given birth?
Jerry Stubblefield is a sixties survivor, experienced in hallucinations of various kinds and able to walk comfortably next to realities unshared with the neighbors. The playwright-turned-novelist graduated from the drama school at the University of Texas at Austin and is a recipient of the Samuel French Award. He is a member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre and studied under renowned playwrights Arthur Miller, David Henry Hwang, and Wendy Wasserstein. He currently teaches creative writing and playwrighting in Asheville, North Carolina, where he lives with his wife and daughter. His son is musician Nick Stubblefield. Reviews Rapid River, May 2009 Unemployed playwright Hector Owen’s
few theatrical successes
are long behind him. Languishing at home while his emotionally distant
wife
earns a paycheck, he still manages to keep his eccentric imagination
running at
fever pitch. One night, after enduring a protracted bellyache, he
watches as a
slimy little man, or homunculus, crawls out of his navel and burrows
under the
bed. Cleaned up and kept hidden from his wife and neighbors, the
homunculus,
who calls himself Robin, quickly becomes a much-needed friend and
sounding
board for Hector’s creative and sexual frustrations. But Robin has a
nasty side
that personifies Hector’s repressed urges, including one that may
involve
avenging an early marital wound and plotting to murder his wife.
Stubblefield
draws on his own playwriting experience to deliver crisp dialogue and
penetrating character studies. Despite its horror-genre motifs, Homunculus is a psychologically probing
tale of a dysfunctional marriage’s effect on literary ambitions, and
its
portrait of neurotic impulses made flesh is one readers won’t soon
forget.—Carl Hays “Homunculus” is about the little
manikin that is born—along with some graphically nasty goo—from Hector
Owen’s
navel. The little man’s name is Robin and I could almost hear a
diminutive Alan
Rickman delivering his sarky, funny lines. The publisher’s blurb
intimates that
this is science fiction or horror but the author disagrees somewhat and
I have
to side with him. It’s a psychological exploration of someone you can’t
like
very much, even if he is tormented by his little creation. The book
does have a
creeping-dread quality but never leaps over the fence into the horror
genre.
The slow build from the discovery of the hypodermic needle in the
still-packed
boxes to the murderous attentions of the little man towards Owen’s wife
is
eerie and very well done. But the larger story is about Hector and
Robin and
who they are to each other. |
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