April 26–May 3, 2001

book quicks

Silent Extras

By Arnon Grunberg
Translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett
St. Martin’s Press, 320 p., $23.95

Silent Extras is one of the best short stories to come along in ages. Unfortunately, it’s spread out over the course of a fat, 320-page novel. Grunberg, a young Dutch expatriate living in New York, is a writer of considerable prowess and endless potential. Silent Extras only hints at things to come in what will hopefully be a long and fruitful career.

Set in the Netherlands, the story occupies itself with the cult of celebrity worship as told from an insider, or almost-insider, perspective. The three main characters set out to become famous by any means necessary.

The narrator, Ewald, becomes a bit player in a scheme to find wealth, happiness and — most of all — fame on the world stage. He’s a morose young man, prone to questioning everything he sees, except his own motivations. "I am the moneygrubber," he tells his audience at the onset. Anyone still paying attention at the end of the book might finally discover what he means.

Ewald’s path in life follows the footsteps of a local bon vivant named Broccoli, who burns through his parents’ money at a furious pace until they return briefly from their mysterious vacation in a distant land with the threat of prison hanging over their heads. When they are forced to clear out the house in which Broccoli lives, he is forced to fend for himself for the first time.

The most impressive episode in the book features Broccoli’s drunk, surly father dancing with an unseemly elderly woman, her skirt slipped up to her navel, in an otherwise abandoned restaurant. Extracted and left to their own devices, these pages would have made a brilliant work of short fiction. In the jumble of a long, rambling novel, they get a bit lost.

Elvira, the third major character, is the most loosely drawn and useless of the three. She exists to do little more than gently propel the action along. Both Ewald and Broccoli desire her, and not only because she’s the only one with real acting experience.

It’s safe to expect spectacular things from Grunwald, but not in Silent Extras. There simply isn’t enough plot to justify a book this long, but the promises made are ones he’s sure to keep.

—Andrew Ervin