Girl Factory review in the NYT

Girl Factory, by Jim Krusoe
9780979419829 | $16.50 pb | in stock
Tin House Books / Publishers Group Canada (Raincoast)

Girl Factory received a very positive review in the NYT Book Review, July 13th: “…it’s precisely the clash of the mundane with the horrific that makes the narrative so absorbing. … Krusoe’s darkly sardonic yet somehow earnest voice is reason alone to pick up this book”:

Test-Tube Babes

By JULIA SCHEERES

Published: July 13, 2008

Is there any food more repulsive than yogurt? Take away the sweeteners, the artificial flavors, the lithe spokesmodels and all you’ve got is a bowl of fermented milk whose viscosity calls to mind certain unmentionable bodily secretions.

In his delightful second novel, “Girl Factory,” Jim Krusoe manages to take lowly yogurt to new heights of repugnance. The narrator, a 30-ish slacker named Jonathan, works at a frozen-yogurt parlor in a strip mall. It’s a banal job, but hints of darkness come early. Soon after he’s hired, Jonathan notices a group of old men who arrive each Sunday afternoon, one by one, and silently let themselves into the locked basement. The proprietor, Spinner — who has forbidden Jonathan from entering the basement under any circumstances and refuses to give him the keys to the shop — tries to deflect his curiosity. The space, he explains, is merely being rented out for meetings.

Waylaid by a cold, Spinner is forced to give Jonathan the keys so he can keep the business running. And, of course, Jonathan’s curiosity overwhelms him. After the last customer has left, he unlocks the door to the basement and — cue Rod Serling — enters a murky dimension where fact, fantasy and political incorrectness swirl together.

Inside six human-size glass cylinders, suspended in a clear liquid, are six naked young women. The scene is eerily reminiscent of the fetus-in-formaldehyde jars once displayed at natural history museums — but the women are still alive. There’s a blonde, a Latina, an Asian, an African-American, an Eskimo and a woman who reminds Jonathan, alarmingly, of his first girlfriend. Each is a sample of nubile perfection, and their flavor-of-the-month variety is more than vaguely pornographic.

Before Spinner is inexplicably murdered, he tells Jonathan that acidophilus — the “friendly” bacteria that yogurt manufacturers claim encourages “regularity” — has in this case preserved the subjects’ youth and beauty. He insists the women volunteered for the experiment, but Jonathan has his doubts. His bumbling attempts at reverse engineering are both comedic and horrifying.

Several motifs from Krusoe’s earlier fiction return here, including a preoccupation with life extension and a subplot featuring animal geniuses. He never explains the creepy old men, who leave behind hundred-dollar bills as well as wrappers for breath mints, antacids and toothpicks. The women are also enigmas. Perhaps they symbolize the rampant exploitation of young women everywhere — by sexist filmmakers, predatory bosses, polygamist sect leaders, infertile couples and so on. Their silence makes their mysterious plight all the more unsettling. Are they victims or pioneers? Women who took an anti-aging obsession a step too far? Do they dream of future violence like the “pre-cogs” in the film “Minority Report”? And what moral obligation does Jonathan have to these inanimate beings — who, because we know so little about them, seem disturbingly more doll-like than human, and therefore less deserving of our pity.

As with the best kind of horror story, “Girl Factory” occurs in a seemingly ordinary setting, and it’s precisely the clash of the mundane with the horrific that makes the narrative so absorbing. Although the ending feels rushed and overly ambiguous, Krusoe’s darkly sardonic yet somehow earnest voice is reason alone to pick up this book.

Julia Scheeres, the author of a memoir, “Jesus Land,” is at work on a novel and a nonfiction book about the Jonestown mass murder-suicides.