Four Stories About the Human Face by Ryan Napier
Bull City Press, 2015
What if you were captured, but you alone held the key to your escape? In the technologically advanced society, humans have gladly welcomed smartphones and social media into their lives. Over time, the device that was supposed to aid in daily life has morphed into their identity.
Ryan Napier combats this epidemic through his insightful chapbook, Four Stories About the Human Face. He geniusly gazes into the lives of modern people in not-so-ordinary circumstances to express the dangers of technology and its abusive hold over its users. He crafts his writing to bring awareness to how quickly something or someone can gain control of another person’s life due to the fear of missing out or falling behind.
Designed by Sofie DeWulf, the minimalist cover simplifies each story to a single image. Both the colors and the symbols work together to foreshadow what the reader’s experience will be. DeWulf masterfully reveals that the addiction may try to trick the brain into thinking that technology isn’t harmful, but Napier’s writing is focused only on unmasking the social and mental harms of it. While the stories are beautifully crafted, the humanity beneath them is as willful as the phone trying to overtake them.
The chapbook includes four separate stories. The first story, “Pink Dolphin,” is an example of how social media creates expectations of fulfillment that will never be reached. The character states, “I did not know what was in the depths. That was how I knew they were really deep.” Following that, “A Human Face” also shows how humanity’s attachment to social media is much deeper and stronger than any person could have guessed, to the point of rallying an entire country. Next, “The Tower” portrays the virtual enslavement people have to the internet. This story suggests the toxicity of social media and shows how phones sever the human connection to promote the perfect image of happiness even when the user is not happy. Napier’s final story, “The Holy Family,” wraps up the chapbook by offering insight into how people can understand their discomforts and unfortunate circumstances and find a way to accept and embrace them. The final feel-good story brings the chapbook to an optimistic end.
Napier’s writing uses suspenseful twists and unique stories to offer valuable life lessons about the epidemic of social media that has plagued the world. He turns the tables on society—where the user has become the used—to influence his audience to take back their identity and grow as independent, imperfect people.
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Sarah Anne Gabriel is an English major with an emphasis in creative writing at Lee University in Tennessee. She is an up-and-coming author with a bright future.