Insomniac Press
review by Jackie Corley
Classifying at last there is nothing left to say is a difficult task at best. Good's collection of 'short stories' are a combination of fiction, satire, social commentary, and random side-bar factoids. The book itself is packaged in the guise of a coffee-table pic book. Though the only actual pictures in the book are those small photographs provided by fans, Matt Good's at last there is nothing left to say is undoubtedly a collection of verbal pictures caricaturing the absurdity of our society.
Good has an incredible imagination - though the stories can be convoluted enough to leave the reader in a daze, they are undeniably entertaining and delicately woven together. He still needs to work on the basics of crafting a story, without the knee-jerk hallucinogenic blossoms of a million tangles and colors crowding the basic plot structure.
But that's not to say Matt Good isn't a writer, even a good writer. His language can be lyrically beautiful, and his voice as narrator is ever-present - a quirky nerd who knows how to have a good time. Additionally, the subject matter Good chooses to take on combines a writer's instinctually intense observation and Good's own absurdist sense of humor. Aside from purely entertainment-value farcical insanity, he focuses on rather brutal situations. Interestingly enough, his delivery on these harsh situations comes without a violence of language - an effective tool in evoking an emotional response: the reader bears the brunt of these stories with a sense of perversion and nausea. The fact that Good can provoke such intense emotion about graphic situations without graphic language is a testament to his skill as a writer (or his politeness as a Canadian, take your pick).
When you're not scratching your head in confusion, at last there is nothing left to say becomes a great read.
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