Stripmalling

Ronald Charles Epstein is a Toronto-based freelance writer and published poet.

Although this semi-autobiographical satire is part journal and part graphic novel, readers who want to know about its author should stick to the cover bio.

Relying on the story only creates confusion between Montreal author Jon Paul Fiorentino and his alter ego, Transcona, Manitoba, strip-mall employee Jonny.

The former teaches at Concordia University, edits MATRIX magazine, and has won both mainstream and alternative literary awards. The fictional character worked at the mall’s Shill gas station and the new Hypermart until he and his slim girlfriend, Dora, left to pursue their studies in Montreal. Fiorentino, in collaboration with Toronto graphic novelist Evan Munday, mixes genres in an ambitious attempt to create the alienated hip postmodernist’s downmarket suburbia. The humour can be goofy, even as it operates on a more serious level. “Jonny’s Mid-life Crisis Guide to St. Petersburg” states that the Russian city was “founded in 1941 by an ex-merchant marine named ‘Peter the Awesome.’” Unfortunately, this historical burlesque evokes the all-too-real ahistorical attitudes of many contemporary young people. The novelist also enjoys some old-fashioned sexual intrigue. After Jonny leaves wife Dora, he hooks up with a cocaine-using illustrator named Evan. He later spots his new lover with a thin woman in his apartment. Dora announces that her new man “has a drug problem,” but that she wants to place her “faith in Evan.” The comedy conceals an outraged social conscience. Jonny’s Hypermart was founded by “Slim Wilton,” a thinly disguised version of Wal-Mart’s Sam Walton. The protagonist accuses his employer of destroying North America’s small communities. He notes that “Satan himself presented Slim Wilton with a lifetime achievement award in the field of Douche Baggery.” Alone, or with help, Jon Paul Fiorentino uses prose and art to emerge as a voice of his generation.