Reviewed by Marjolaine Hébert

It is free, requires no artificial devices, and has no physical side effects. It may, however, leave you feeling unsatisfied. Even so, reports state that most North-American women have had a partner use it. I'm talking about the withdrawal method, of course, though not necessarily Pasha Malla's first collection of short stories by the same name.

With a title as provocative as this one, I dare you not to open the book to page one. But readers beware- it only gets stranger from here. Below its title, the book's cover dons a technical looking picture of one male figure in a box. This much seems appropriate, since Pasha presents his characters from a definite male point of view. Reading his stories felt a bit like peeking into the author's psyche, his female characters sharing very similar connective tissue.

There are thirteen stories in this collection, most of them delving into the male-female relationship. Evocative, imaginative, and at times haunting, Pasha presents his readers with wonderfully wacky plot lines. And despite his primarily passive characters, the endings do surprise. With honest storylines and at times somewhat pragmatic situations, the author guides us one step beyond the expected into his world of suspended disbelief. I had to look over my shoulder and behind the words some thirteen times.

As a forty-something woman, it is clear to me that Pasha Malla is a young man writing for his peers. What maintains a timeless flavour, however, are his boy-meets-girl scenarios, which at any age, it would seem, remains a conundrum. As for The Methods of Withdrawal? They were less difficult to unravel.

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Reviewed by Ryan Harron

The Withdrawal Method is a collection of stories by Pasha Malla, and is something of a mixed bag. The stories featured in it range from the mundane to the fantastical, and from the morose to the joyful, making for an interesting read in general. The book's title is very apropos-many of the stories, such as "Dizzy When You Look Down In" and "Big City Girls," seem to end around two or three paragraphs before you would expect them to, in a sort of storius interruptus. At first this is kind of unsettling, and jolts you out of your experience of reading the book, but the more it happens, the more accustomed to it you become, which allows you to realize how effective of a storytelling device it is. Rather than jolt you out of the story, like you would assume a "withdrawal" ending would, Malla does it in a way that draws you further into the story, desperate to supply an ending of your own. It inspires, which is something that all good art should try to do.

I found Malla's writing to be at it's most effective when dealing with more fantastical elements, such as in the stories "Being Like Bulls" and "The Love Life of the Automaton Turk." The former, a tale of a dystopian future where climate change has changed Niagara Falls into a landfill, takes on one of those themes so central to classical Canadian literature, how our identity is shaped by our environment. It also rather cynically looks at how willing people are to profane and destroy the majesty around them, and then also destroy even our memories of what majesty is, so that we don't have to live with ourselves knowing what we've given up.

Overall, The Withdrawal Method is a tragically poignant collection of stories, and is a must-read for anyone interested in seeing where Canadian literature is heading in the 21st century.

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Reviewed by Matthew J. Trafford

The Withdrawal Method, the debut short fiction collection by maverick Pasha Malla, is a kaleidoscope of narrative voices spinning original and captivating tales. The stories share a confidence, an assured authority, such that the reader never fears a bum ending or sloppy metaphor waits behind an unturned page. But the individual voices themselves-from the endearing, obsessive compulsive nine-year old girl who narrates "Pushing Oceans In and Pulling Oceans Out," to the seemingly ageless, ethereal "we" of "The Film We Made About Dads"-these voices are varied and rich and nuanced, each perfectly matched to the story it tells. And these are compelling stories, none formulaic or run-of-the-mill. My favourite is "The Love-Life of the Automaton Turk," an ambitious narrative which spans centuries and geographies- from Vienna to Havana to Philadelphia-chronicling the destructive obsession inspired by a mysterious chess-playing machine. But choose any story from the book and you will find something worthy of your time: the inarticulate love of brothers in "Dizzy When You Look Down," the eerily dystopian Niagara Falls of "Being Like Bulls," the horny chimpanzee of "Pet Therapy," the gallant but ultimately doomed father of "Timber on the Wheel of Everyone," or the skin-prickling sadness of "The Slough." This isn't another one-note collection; it's a symphony, a panoply of instruments and unmistakably human voices, voices in anguish and awe and ecstasy, coming together to harmonize into a chord that will resonate through the heart and mind of whoever dares to hear it.

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