“Dirty Red Kiss” is a story about “dating, city life, and being in a band”.  The narrator is an average guy who talks about his day, his attempts to date this girl he met in a club, and how he forms a band.  We also get philosophical ramblings about life.

The author states in the introduction that the “narration is intentionally vague when it comes to describing specific locations; allowing the reader to feel that it could be taking place in any number of big cities.”  It’s an interesting idea but if there’s no context, there needs to be a strong plot or character to follow, and I’m afraid these are both missing here.

The narration is vague when describing the city, the people, the restaurants, and anything else in the story.  Even a song is referred to as being by the greatest rock band of all time.  There’s no context and the characters seem to exist in a vacuum.  We don’t know the name of the narrator, or the friend he went to the club with, or the name of the women he met there.  He starts dating a woman he refers to as “E”.  Everyone is described generically as a “yellow haired woman”, “the sleazy men”, or the “attractive brown woman”.  These descriptions are used repeatedly throughout the story to refer to the people.  It’s awkward to read, and it creates distance between the reader and the characters, because nothing feels real.  Ultimately, it calls attention to the writer instead of the character or the story.

Actually, after reading 33 pages, there’s not much of a story.  There is a thread rambling through about his attempts to get together with “E”, but really the narrator is talking about his daily life.  It’s like stream of consciousness writing, or a diary or blog.  A lot of the sentences start with “I”, as in “I arrived . . . ”,  “I played . . . ”, or “The singer said . . . ”  One page is spent describing the area where he lives, another is spent on an idea to gather homeless people to play soccer in a nearby park.  The story reads fairly quickly, with short sentences and simple sentence structure. The pages are short, usually a screenful or slightly more.

The narrator comes across as a regular joe.  We don’t know his name or what he does.  He’s come down in the world, in his opinion.  He used to be married and lived in a nice house.  Now he’s divorced and living in a run down area.  He’s got lots of ideas but doesn’t seem to do much, or stick to what he starts.  He notices things, and he thinks about things, but doesn’t act.  He likes to have fun, and has a goofy sense of humour, but sees himself as a bit of a rebel, or lone wolf.  He comes across as rather pathetic and probably quite lonely.

Navigation on the site is a little confusing.  At the bottom of the page are links for “Newer Post”, “Home” and “Older Post”.  The link for “Newer Post”, which is on the left, takes you to the previous page in the story.  The link for “Older Post” is on the right and it takes you to the next page in the story.  In other words, ignore the label on the link, and think Right is Next.

As a story, “Dirty Red Kiss” is missing an interesting plot and an interesting character.  As an experiment in non-contextual writing it may be of interest to readers who are looking for different forms of literature.  Otherwise, there really isn’t anything else here to hold the reader’s attention.

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Henkel’s nameless narrator resembles a host of similar narrators in quality, though not in plot. His musings reveal rhythms of life that we may often miss.

Henkel helps us appreciate the beauty of the ordinary. Our narrator can experience moments of awe with the ecstasy of a child within the daily routine of someone who is not quite lost—perpetually afraid that he is missing something important, and perpetually hopeful that he has found something unique.

He is normal, roughly average, and surrounded by friends and peers who are decidedly mainstream. Unlike his peers, he contains within him seeds of insight of creativity – seeds that we can only see because of our privileged position as readers.

Perhaps, then, we are too rash to assume that he is alone among his peers? As much as our narrator may appear to be the only character with the potential to grow, it is mainly by our illicit knowledge of his thoughts that we determine his potential.

It’s for this reason that Dirty Red Kiss is fundamentally hopeful. No matter how poorly our narrator stumbles along, his hidden seed of insight gives the reader hope that the most abject of us may yet go on to blossom.

If you like Salinger’s Holden Caulfield ("Catcher in the Rye"), M.T. Anderson’s Titus ("Feed"), or A. D. Nauman’s Arel Ashe ("Scorch"), you should read Dirty Red Kiss.

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