Books
June 19th 2009
Overqualified
Joey Comeau
Overqualified
- Ecw Press
- $14.95
Dear Mr. Comeau,
Thank you for sending me a copy of your book, Overqualified, for review. I am happy to send you this reply and say that it has found a permanent home in my collection of books that have changed the way I look at and think about the world around me. Not many books are in that collection, you know – like seven or eight – so you better cherish that.
The way you’ve written the book is what does it, I think. You’ve reinvented the classic epistolary form, writing your confessionals in the form of cover letters.
And somewhere along the way, you decide to subvert the conventional cover letter format. Instead of selling yourself with fake sincerity and overhyping your work ethic, you throw your personal life and schemes in the face of your recipients with bravery and without fear of consequence.
If you actually sent these in, you most certainly would not have been hired. Indeed, you would have piqued the interest of a few cogs of the corporate machine, simply because of the stories you tell. Still, most companies would think you were psychotic, under the severe influence of drugs, or just plain lonely and desperately in need of conversation. Many of these, I’m sure, would have gotten you arrested.
But between the lines lies a greater story. Your novel isn’t just a series of random letters to random companies. They are short snippets of some part of yourself – real or imagined – that are stitched together into a larger narrative about love, personal tragedy and sexual misadventures. The book is chaotic and contradictory; incomplete, yet full of life; full of charm and wit and character.
The tales you recount in your letters are sad. They’re melancholic. But at times they’re also hilarious.
I particularly liked your letter to Irving Oil and how you planned on taking them down from the inside. Purely diabolical. And the one you sent to a shopping mall, applying to become Santa Claus. Absolutely hilarious.
And the ones you sent to Absolut Vodka, HBO, and the New York Police Department, where you detail the antics of your dead brother when he was a kid – very heartbreaking and poignant.
Your letters are brilliant Mr. Comeau, absolutely brilliant.
The only problem with your book, is that I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel. You write in a way where so many different emotions are competing for my attention, and I can’t decide what’s the most important thing to take away from your book.
And that’s OK, I guess. In today’s postmodern world I can feel everything and anything I want! And I’ll never be wrong!
Sincerely,
Matt Preprost
This review appeared in Volume 64, Number J/J of The Uniter, published June 18th 2009.
