Off Ramp – Hank Steuver

$11.53 in paperback at Amazon.com

Buy it if: When it comes to non-fiction, you find perspective equally compelling as information…and your car’s CD holder could be a random sampling culled from the shelves of Amoeba Music.

Don’t buy it if: You don’t mix snark and sincere. If you expect a common tone when delving into a collection, you’re going to be disappointed half the time.

The essay collection it hardly a new medium. In fact, I’d be willing to lay a wager that the first bound pages were probably so devoted. (Well, maybe the very first were simply a means of determining how many ears of corn ancient Egyptian farmers owed their ancient Egyptian plumbers for coming out after nine on weekend. Literature almost always plays to second fiddle to economics…) The short form of an essay lends itself, pragmatically, to collection. After all, it’s tough to justify printing books with only 10 pages, and one episode of ‘Hoaders’ should be all it takes to convince you that the archiving of original periodical sources can easily spiral out of control. But a collection of essays held neatly together in book form can deliver a huge bang for your reading buck. Long enough to provide joy of equal amount to something long form, yet organized into discrete sections that can be experienced individually, often without succumbing to the tyranny of chronology.

Hank Steuver’s Off Ramp isn’t the most eclectic mix, but it’s up there. This shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows him as a regular in the Washington Post’s Style section, a grouping of newsprint that’s as diversified as the city it’s written to serve. But if you’re glancing through the book at your local shop (provided you still have one) and get a twinge of joy at the Star Wars piece, you might find yourself ho-humming during the Latino wedding saga that precedes it. If you’re moved by the familial sadness juxtaposed with the Oklahoma City bombing, it’s quite possible you’ll find the piece on ‘Adult Night’ at a mid-western roller rink a bit irreverent and out of place.

However, if at least three out of the four of the above stories made you stop and think Hmm, THAT one sounds kind of interesting… then it’s very likely you reside in Steuver’s prime intellectual real estate. (I’m just guessing, but you probably also like NPR and read the sports section last.) This collection is squarely aimed at the wandering mind with whimsical tendencies, the literary equivalent to Greenwich Village.

Fortunately, the price of inclusion in this journey is significantly lower than a trendy, downtown loft.

Surprisingly, each piece doesn’t force the reader into a large emotional commitment. Despite the sentiment-laden subject matter, the style is ever-so-slightly detached. It’s as if the words are constantly looking over their shoulder, cognizant of observation. You may find this ideal. If you think your own emotional baggage is more than adequate, it will be a relief that Steuver isn’t burdening you with any extra. But if you’re the type that wants to feel, that has a desire for empathy, some of the tragedy-tinged episodes will lack the resonance you seek. You’ll enjoy the quirky characters of Partyland, but wish you knew them better. You’ll picture the New Mexico wedding celebration, but not feel the internal confusion of a young and newly bonded couple. Off Ramp is truly observational, but I suspect that a lot of Steuver’s core demographic flock to collections like this for more than reportage. They’re coming to be involved.

At first glance, I assumed Off Ramp would make for great airplane reading. Lots of small, satisfying chunks of writing that can be consumed and satisfyingly digested on their own... My assumption was wrong. Steuver’s collection is more like an incredibly in-depth game of solo Scruples. The situations give enough context to beg questions of a reader’s own personality, but provide no real answers outside of a very specific situation. It's difficult to ignore enough of yourself in the reported characters and avoid the question What if… Light reading? Maybe not. But a uniquely disguised road towards introspection? Oddly, yes.