Peter Cherches' Entertaining Autobiography Without Words, Metaphysical Sleight of Hand, Slapstick and Shtick

This “book will consist solely of blank pages in white and black and shades of gray…” begins an untitled page after the table of contents in Peter Cherches’ AUTOBIOGRAPHY WITHOUT WORDS. Conceptual put-on or truth about a life? That’s the knowing metaphysical sleight of hand of this book, along with slapstick and shtick. It is as though Borges worked with Monsieur Hulot, while smoking George Burns’ cigar.

Cherches, called by Publishers Weekly “one of the innovators of the short short story,” in just a few lines to a few pages entertains with stories from his life. Here are childhood perceptions, food and smells, as well as adult travels to India and Mars. In Cherches’ progressive life, the real and surreal meld together, in a consciousness that sees around corners. There’s a thin line between memoir and fiction and this book plays with it.

In Part I, Cherches, the adult, sees a group of kids, who look exactly like his childhood friends, talking of Sandy Koufax. One comes up and says he looks like their friend Peter, “If he was an old bald guy, that is.” In another story, Martin Scorsese is making a film about young Peter Cherches and Peter objects to the actor playing his earlier self.  Another story, through the eyes of a two year old self, explains how he knew his father died, when his apartment shrunk. 

Pelekinesis publishes this singular book in March. http://pelekinesis.com/catalog/peter_cherches-autobiography_without_words.html.

(Borges, Argentinian writer, poet, essayist, known for contributions to philosophy and fantasy. Monsieur Hugo, comedian Jacques Tati’s creation of an every man, whose adventures involved clashes w/technology and problems of living in an impersonal world. George Burns, comedian and vaudevillian.)