Daniel Evan Weiss

Quanta importanza ha perdere un'amante? Al vertice del regno animale la risposta è semplice: assolutamente nessuna importanza. Il coito è un'esperienza magnifica, non inferiore ai piaceri dell'escrezione o della gola. Ma ogni cosa ha una fine, specialmente le cose buone, e l'amante scolore, diventa uguale a tutti gli altri.
Mai per troppo tempo. Giustamente gli umani si preoccupano di quando torneranno a mescolarsi: noi no. Quando i ferormoni sono tranquilli, noi siamo sessualmente indifferenti. Quando si scatenano, queste miracolose sostanze chimiche ci portano immancabilmente un amante ideale, sempre all'altezza del precedente. Al livello di pavimento, non esiste amore non corrisposto.… (mehr)

Whether the author's idea was to cram as many shocking and/or disgusting images into two hundred brief pages as possible, or something more high-minded (probably both), he made a decent job of it either way. Here, what we get is a cockroach's-eye-view of humanity, warts and all.
    Through the eyes of Numbers, just one member of a whole colony of Blattella germanica inhabiting a New York apartment, we see the grim aftermath of a disaster: one human has moved out and another moved in; the Gypsy, Ira's former girlfriend, was sloppy and tempestuous, spilling (occasionally throwing) food; Ruth, Ira's current girlfriend, is tidy and clean, particularly in the kitchen. Result: no more pools of soup or globs of goulash lying around—and for the roaches that means famine. The story follows Numbers as he schemes to save the colony by, somehow, getting rid of Ruth and manoeuvring the hapless Ira into the arms of a neighbour's wife. It's not an easy road, either for him or us, and readers likely to suffer an attack of the vapours or start fluttering their fans at any of the following, should think twice before tackling it: there's indiscriminate mass-slaughter, insecticide sprays, boric acid, cannibalism, lavatories (seen from inside the bowl), excrement itself, cockroaches and even (ugh!) humans.
    It's yukky, yes, funny and some of the writing brilliant. Recommended for: anyone who always suspected that our own species are no better (or worse) than cockroaches, but thought no one else had noticed.… (mehr)