Parts of "Corrections to My Memoirs" by Michael Kun are just so silly, I found myself snorting with laughter. But not all of these 21 gems are funny; some contain genuine drama, revealing real-life situations with details that hit all the right notes and are very touching. One has an ending worthy of the great O. Henry. Interspersed throughout is ongoing commentary in the hilarious "Publisher's Notes." Besides the stories, there are also product manufacturer instructions, a list of the 20 most useful things he's learned ("Eat some cake", "Stay out of jail"), and a list of expressions trademarked by a woman - now dead - that require a fee of 10 cents every time anyone uses them, including "What? Do I look like your maid?"
The title story is my favorite and the funniest. In a spoof of James Frey's book, "A Million Little Pieces" (of which the cover is a parody), the author composes a lengthy note to his publisher to explain changes in his unpublished memoir, titled "Victory: How I Won World War II and Super Bowl III." The first thing that needs to be changed, he says, is that he "did not formally serve in World War II," as he wasn't even born until 1962, but he's read about it. Most enjoyable.
The Record Courier - Feb. 9, 2007
Kun dedicates this collection of short stories to "all of my friends in Baltimore. And a few of my enemies." Baltimore has, indeed, been kind to Kun, who graduated from Hopkins before heading out to L.A. to practice law. City Paper serialized one of Kun's early novels in 1993, and The Urbanitefirst published this collection's title story. Like the other 21 selections, the title piece showcases Kun's wit, which is rooted in self-reflection, along with his ability to poke fun - sometimes gently, sometimes not - at himself and others. In this case, he sets his sights on memoirists with an elastic sense of the truth, by listing corrections to a fictional memoir. Using talking points that could have been written by James Frey's publicist - Corrections' cover is a sly allusion to Frey's bestseller - Kun's memoirist claims "poetic license" and condescendingly explains that it "applies to all writers, not just poets, as the name wrongly applies." His corrections include changing "Harvard" to "Hartford," "University" to "Technical School," and "medical" to "refrigeration." Among other things, he also 'fesses up to not starring in Woody Allen's 2004 film Melinda and Melinda - "Not that anyone would know," he adds - and not having a Golden Retriever named Pajamas who died in the middle of the night because of his parents' shameful neglect. He notes that Pajamas was actually a goldfish, "but everything else about him is entirely accurate except for the description of his burial, which I'm sure the reader will understand." Such writing should expand Kun's readership here, and everywhere else.
Baltimore Magazine - April, 2007
Novelist Michael Kun is an attorney by profession and a jokester by nature, so it was a safe bet that his first collection of short stories, "Corrections to My Memoirs," would find him in typically twisted form.
We are plunged into Kun's upside-down world from the start with the title story, which has a writer confessing, "upon much review and deep, deep contemplation," to inaccuracies in his memoir, "Victory: How I Won World War II and Super Bowl III."
In lawyerly numbered entries, we learn the writer never actually served in World War II and did not play in Super Bowl III; his parents were not named "Sonny" and "Cher"; his sisters "Sally" and "Coco" were not involved in drug-smuggling in Thailand, and they don't even exist; his father did not stab him with a knife ("But you could tell he was thinking about it. You could see it in his eyes."); and he was never married to actress Charlize Theron.
The whole story is an exercise in pushing a fired bullet back into a gun barrel, and it's great fun, especially given the real-life flap nvolving author James Frey.
In the heavily footnoted "You Have Made Quite A Purchase," the lawsuit-weary manufacturer of the Business Pro Whisper Shred 1600 tries to absolve itself of any further liability for improper use of its paper shredder: "Do not place orange rinds in the Whisper Shred 1600. And don't pretend they just fell into the machine, like Walter Archer of Oakland, California." In footnotes: "We hope you have not spent all of your settlement proceeds on pornography, Mr. Archer."
Reading Kun is like reading the minds of compulsive liars and deluded schlubs, who try by sheer force of will to alter reality to their liking, only to have their false worlds brought crashing down on them.
Kun himself is double agent in this foolishness, peppering the book with supposed "publisher's notes" that include absurdly laudatory remarks about him, such as the line claiming the title story was an "official Roma Linguistica Societale Selecione" or the one about Kun being paid a $500,000 advance for this slim collection. The growing ridiculousness of these plaudits forces the "publisher" to acknowledge needing to make some corrections of his own.
But Kun, the absurdist, needs very little tinkering.
The Seattle Times - Mar. 30, 2007
Most of the 22 stories found in Michael Kun's Corrections to My Memoirs explore the large divide between the reality of his characters' lives and the ways they wish things could be. In doing so, the author forces readers into the uncomfortable position of alternately laughing at the often-desperate people who populate his stories while uneasily and perhaps begrudgingly relating to them. With many references to disgraced writer James Frey (not the least of which is the book's cover, a blatant parody of Frey's trade paperback jacket depicting a candy-coated hand on a blue-green background), Kun's stories manage to be both amusing and depressing.
In "Touched, Very Touched", he explores the doldrums of office life and the absurdity of business communication with a narrator who spends the story giving gracious thanks for winning the "Best Interoffice Email (Nonviolent) (Nonsexual)" award. Anyone who's worked in a corporate environment will likely appreciate the spoof, though several other pieces included here are structurally more daring. "You Have Made Quite a Purchase" is a comical instruction manual for a piece of office equipment and "Fresh Fruit" presents a one-sided conversation between a motivational speaker and his audience. While often comical, several stories are startlingly dark. The party guests in "One Last Story About Girls and Chocolate" tear at each other with a level of verbal sophistication and subtlety that would make Ed Albee proud.
There are moments, however, when the author seems to be laughing a bit too hard at his own jokes. Two stories in the collection are told partially in footnotes. Funny the first time around, the format seems stale when it appears later in the book. Likewise, there are faux publisher's notes penned by the author that open each story; they start off as clever send-ups of the comments publisher's often include with galleys, but become more tedious than amusing as the book progresses. Still, if Kun's intent is to bring readers to the sad realization that they are as completely delusional as his characters, his goal is ultimately achieved.
The L Magazine - Feb., 2007
The bad news about Corrections to My Memoirs: Collected Stories, by Michael Kun (MacAdam/Cage, $22) is that it won't be officially published until Jan. 19.
The good news is that, if you hanker after comic riffs dusted with a soupcon of truth, Kun's book is well worth waiting for.
Read it after a meal: the laughs will help your digestion.
Capitalizing on James Frey's mishap, Kun investigates themes he's already explored in "You Poor Monster" and The Locklear Letters - why we lie.
But, then, you know why we lie: Because we're angry, because we desire, because we're hiding, because we're hedging our bets, because we think we're the cat's meow, etc.
Kun's collection ends with 10 separate publisher's notes, all trying, trying, trying and, ultimately, failing to tell the truth.
When Kun's not writing fiction, he's a trial lawyer in L.A.
How perfect is that?
Santa Cruz Sentinel - Dec. 31, 2006
In this collection, Kun (The Locklear Letters) once again explores the line between truth and fantasy with humor and creative composition. "Publisher's Notes," penned by the author, preface each of the 21 stories; we learn, for instance, that the memoirist of the title story is not who he says he is. In the strongest story, "The Last Chance Texaco," Earl reveals why he lives above the laundromat reading car manuals. In "My Wife and My Dead Wife," a man deals with both his first wife and his second wife having the same name, and "Steve Smith" explores the complications of having a common name. Many of the pieces are not traditional stories but mere jabs at things like corporate seminars ("Fresh Fruit"), advertising ("You Have Made Quite a Purchase"), and office politics ("Does Your Job Application Put Your Company at Risk?").
Library Journal
The cover's spoof of A Million Little Pieces sets the tone for this comic collection of writerly kvetching and obvious corporate parody. Kun (A Thousand Benjamins) is a trial lawyer in L.A.; many of the 22 rifflike pieces satirize forms of legal communication, including the companywide e-mail. There's a weirdly threatening notification of the death of one "Iris Magruder of Albany, New York" (whose "intellectual property" includes sayings like "maybe next time you'll like your mother more"); the lame corporate award: "When I was first informed that I'd been nominated in the category of Best Interoffice Email (Nonviolent) (Nonsexual), I was touched"; and an instruction manual for a paper shredder: "Remember, the Whisper Shred 1600 is not a toy, it just looks like one." Sandwiched between each of the pieces are "Publisher's Notes," the kind of encomium-like letters that sometimes are tacked to the front of galleys: "You can certainly understand why we'd pay $50,000 for that one. Or why the Bloobedy-Bloodbedy Society would award Michael the Blah-Blah-Blabbedy-Blah Prize for it." The Corrections this certainly isn't, and many pieces aren't really stories, either. But there are chuckles to be had as Kun hits huge targets with a birdshot-spraying air rifle.
Publisher's Weekly