Scott Semegran
Travels with Charley is enjoyable, although definitely not as satisfying as his novels. His narrative voice is amiable and humorous. The book comes alive when he chats with the people he encounters, but his commentary about the US is lackluster. Charley the poodle dog is an excellent sidekick!
Five O'clock News for 18th Century News Junkies
A fun, satirical comedy in 18th-century London where protagonist Leeds Merriweather invents “live at 5” style newscasting for news-starved Brits. A chance meeting with American luminary Benjamin Franklin prods Merriweather to evolve his simple news pattering to an elaborate news performance every night to paying customers at his favorite pub. Brill tells his tale with comedic skill, tossing in modern-day pop culture references from classic TV shows like Gilligan's Island to classic rock songs. “A three-hour tour?” a woman asked, wide-eyed. Indeed. “A three-hour tour.” Highly recommended!
Good Times at Mt. Hamilton High
This novel is a fun mix of comedy and romance but from a decidedly male perspective, a middle-aged lonely-heart using whatever bits of wisdom he's gained in hopes of rekindling his youthful romance. It's a perspective that is refreshingly comedic and this exceptionally crafted literary novel turns the romance genre on its head.
The protagonist—Nate Evans—is a screenwriter with a lackluster career. The novel opens just after his home is destroyed by an accidental bomb from an Air Force plane. Sifting through the rubble, Nate ruminates on his lowly existence. If his life could have a mulligan—a golfing term for a do-over—and relive his romance with his high school sweetheart, then he would do it in a heartbeat. With his home destroyed, he moves back in with his parents and gets a job at his old high school to put him in close proximity to Jules—his old flame.
There's a breezy quality to Brill's prose that is reminiscent of a finely tuned screenplay, a snappiness that initially gives the narrative a similar pace to rom-com movies. But in between comedic high jinx and situational comedy is deep reflection from both Nate and the grown woman his high school crush has become, Jules. Their ruminations about life and love bring a weightiness to the novel from a decidedly more mature place in their lives, a perspective that is sorely needed in our youth-obsessed culture.
Highly recommended!
Very insightful book on love, how we interpret it from our partner / spouse, and how we give it. I recommend this book to anyone looking to strengthen their relationship.
Edgar is 18 and loves surfing, drugs, and girls with equal measure. He also works in a nursing home with mostly forgotten residents. On the surface, the title seems to refer to the sad demise of the nursing home residents, left alone to die grueling deaths from a variety of unsympathetic diseases. Edgar seems more interested in the sexual exploits with his female coworkers than caring for the patients. He has sexual relationships with two nurses, one married and the other a single, teenage mother. He dreams of surfing in Australia, not a career in elder care.
On deeper reflection after finishing the novel, if humans are made in God's image, then Edgar's lack of wisdom, selfish sexual gratification, and carelessness in giving LSD to an elderly coworker clobbers his friendships and relationships, a reflection of his youthful ignorance to the consequences of his actions. His reckless abandon with the people around him, though not malicious, is devastating nonetheless.
Ballantine's prose is exquisite and poetic at times. My only gripe is that it is WAY too sophisticated and complex coming from an 18-year old, as the narrative is told in first person, present tense. If it was told in first person, past tense, as an older Edgar reflecting on this youthful passage with the wisdom that comes with age, then I would have enjoyed it more. This narrative strategy was very distracting to me. I kept thinking that no matter how intelligent this 18-year old could have been, he never, ever would have spoken like this: “... the illusion of ease and the impenetrability of his feable idealism up in that eagle's nest bedroom...”
Even with this slight misstep, I loved this novel very much. Ballantine is a master wordsmith. I look forward to reading more of his work in addition to what I've read in The Sun.
The next ten issues of the Amazing Spider-Man in this hardcover collection (Amazing Spider-Man #11-19 & Annual #1) continue to explore the dilemmas that teenager Peter Parker face, particularly his lack of confidence even though he has superpowers. Issue #20 is especially noteworthy as J. Jonah Jameson, the Daily Bugle publisher and Spider-Man hater, finances the creation of the villain Scorpion in hopes that his creation will destroy Spider-Man. But when Scorpion rejects Jameson's demands and unleashes his evil on the city, Jameson wrestles with the guilt of what he wrought. A fun collection that shows Lee and Ditko's growing confidence in their creation: Spider-Man.
I read this novel in high school and later in college, as many kids did. It's considered a classic for good reason. It's a well-crafted allegory with beautifully descriptive passages. But would I get much out of rereading a novel for a third time as a well-read, literary-critical adult? It turns out, I did. For this review, I listened to the audiobook version as read by the author, William Golding, which I will discuss at the end of this review.
Before reading this novel again, I read The Coral Island, the novel William Golding claimed to write Lord of the Flies as a counterpoint to. Both books have the similarly named Jack, Ralph and Peterkin / Piggy main characters, but Lord of the Flies has additional cast members in Simon, Roger, and more. Both books, at their core, are about boys stranded on an island without adults around to take care of them.
The narrator of Lord of the Flies tells the lost boys' story vividly and, at times, poetically, yet keeps an emotional distance from the boys, never eliciting empathy or affection for them or their dilemma. Golding explains before starting his story that these boys represent scaled-down society and, if left to their own devices, would reduce their company to all-out anarchy. This is where Golding's genius lies: creating a premise to contemplate where evil instigates. Golding demonstrates that the disregard of rules and order is what nurtures evil, and it's hard not to disagree with Golding because of the way he structures his story with these three particular fetid protagonists.
Ralph is not an empathetic character, as demonstrated by his disregard of Piggy's feelings throughout the novel, only to have the tiniest bit of remorse for Piggy when it's too late. Jack's self-esteem is so low that he props up his toxic masculinity with bold promises of hunt kills and other threats of violence. Even Piggy's sniveling and hurt feelings are tossed to the side because of his brazen toadiness. It was plain to see from the start of the novel where it was going with these three malcontents leading the stranded children. There was no chance for a positive coexistence on the island without the moral compass of grownups or adults around to steer them right.
But unlike The Coral Island's slow first half of pastoral observations of the island (there were a couple of natural disasters those three boys easily overcame), Golding wasted no time after the first chapter wallowing in detailed observations of nature. He quickly jumped into the meat of his narrative, dissecting the boys interactions with his keen eye, their one-upmanship on full display, their decisions based on hurt feelings and wounded pride. The economy of Golding's storytelling was a marvel and his ability to create some truly beautiful sentences was astounding. By the time the story abruptly stopped, my mind was racing with the possibility of redemption for these terrible boys, these little lords of corruption.
Finally, the narrator for this book–the author himself, William Golding–was excellent. In fact, his narration was one of my favorite parts. He made practically no effort to discern between the boys with character voices or tonal inflections. He read the story straight and let the writing stand for itself. His crotchety, British accent gave his reading a gravelly quality and I quite enjoyed his coarseness as well as his thoughts about the story at the beginning and end of the reading. Golding was a great choice for narrator for this great book.
Beautiful book with excellent reproductions of master cartoonist Will Eisner's The Spirit splash pages as well as pages from his graphic novels. Retelling of his place in comic strip history is thorough as well as critical of some of his artistic choices. An excellent read that is beautifully bound. Highly recommended.
An Unforgettable, Thought-provoking Adventure
Written in a style ala Raymond Chandler or Jim Thompson foretelling a dystopian future, Ron Seybold's Viral Times is a sci-fi tale about the first biological virus to attack over a computer network. This bleak world eschews intimacy in fear of a mutated version of AIDS called Ultra, replacing their carnal desire with virtual sex through internet-connected suits. But a Nobel geneticist, albeit a religious zealot, engineers a virus with the tongue-in-cheek name Mighty Hand to infect the unwitting lovers through their sinful garments. It's a grand vision told with brawny verve and journalistic intrigue. Once the various narrative threads fall in place, they reveal a story you won't soon forget: a singular and uncompromising future fantasy. As the current state of humanity and technology careens toward singularity, it isn't far-fetched to ponder the idea of technology invading our carnal desires, both biologically and psychologically. Viral Times is an unforgettable, edge-of-your-seat, thought-provoking adventure. Highly recommended!
Pictures of the Shark by Thomas H. McNeely is a book of literary short stories about familial strife in the life of young protagonist Buddy Turner. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “A sudden snowfall in Houston reveals family secrets. A trip to Universal Studios to snap a picture of the shark from Jaws becomes a battle of wills between father and son. A midnight séance and the ghost of Janis Joplin conjure the mysteries of sex. A young boy's pilgrimage to see Elvis Presley becomes a moment of transformation. A young woman discovers the responsibilities of talent and freedom. Pictures of the Shark, by award-winning Houston writer Thomas H. McNeely, moves from its protagonist Buddy Turner's surreal world of childhood into the wider arenas of sex, addiction, art, and ambition. Appearing in the country's finest literary journals, including Ploughshares, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Epoch, and Crazyhorse, shortlisted for the O. Henry Award, Best American Short Stories, and Pushcart Prize collections, the stories in Pictures of the Shark are gems that refract their characters' complex relationships.”
In Pictures of the Shark, readers experience vignettes from Buddy Turner's childhood in Texas, several from when he was a young boy spending time with his parents in Houston, and a few during his time in college in Austin. As a boy, you get the sense that Buddy is caught in the middle of his parents' dysfunctional relationship. His parents need and desire for each other ebbs and flows erratically, and sometimes it feels as if he is set adrift. It's hard not to feel Buddy's heartbrokenness, but he is also an astute observer and often says or does things with both parents that are solely for his advantage. As a college student, we see how that familial dysfunction manifests into Buddy's—now called Turner—alcoholism and abusive relationships. It's a very sad turn of events for our protagonist whose attempts to self-medicate has disastrous effects for his girlfriends.
The stories “Pictures of the Shark” and “King Elvis” are standouts in this already excellent collection. There is a common refrain when someone reviews a relatively unknown author that states “this author should be read more widely.” But in McNeely's case, this refrain is astute. McNeely is an astonishingly gifted writer.
I really enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it. I would give this book 6 stars if I could, but 5 stars will have to do in a five-star rating system.
Fortuna and the Scapegrace is the second book in Brian Kindall's The Epic of Didier Rain series, following the excellent Delivering Virtue. But unlike its literary predecessor which takes place in the Wild West of the 1850s, this adventure shoves out into the South Seas where Didier Rain takes on different personas in an effort to start a new life. It's an excellent adventure story with several plot twists that raise the stakes for our lucky protagonist as he wonders if his current course in life is a series of unfortunate coincidences, a sinister game played by unruly gods, or simply his destiny as foretold by a fortune teller.
Didier Rain wakes up dazed and confused on a clipper ship after being drugged by a sensual fortune teller, where he assumes the funny moniker of Hoper Newfangle. He befriends a young pastor named Adamiah Linklater who confesses to know nothing of the Bible. Newfangle becomes his tutor in all things biblical, all the while growing infatuated with the pastor's beautiful bride who is waiting for Linklater to land on a remote atoll so he can marry her, then lead their bizarre sect of Christian outliers. Newfangle (Didier Rain, of course, as his new persona) also assumes the role of protector of a gentle yet wily goat he lovingly names Angeline, a kind gesture that we readers surely assume will right the wrong of Didier not naming the amiable goat in the first book, Delivering Virtue. But after a night of overindulging raspberry cordial with Linklater while the ship tosses in the rough sea through a storm, Newfangle wakes up on the beach of the destined South Sea island, where the bride wrongly assumes Newfangle is actually Linklater, having not seen him in person since they were both children and also, he's wearing her childhood locket around his neck.
This novel has several plot twists, almost too many to count, while the magical realism and pitch-perfect language of the period elevates this story above similar rote adventures from classic texts. I found myself laughing out loud to the predicaments Didier Rain found himself in—either as the bumbling persona of Hoper Newfangle or later as prophetic groom Adamiah Linklater—and his ruminations about how the course of his life unfolds adds a much-needed reprieve from some of the unsavory characters he encounters.
When comparing the two books in the series, which I'm sure most readers will do, I found myself slightly preferring the first book to the second, mostly because the absence of the innocent titular character Virtue and the amiable horses Puck and Brownie, along with the unnamed yet helpful goat that comprised Didier Rain's caravan, provided a much-needed ballast of joviality for Didier's proclivity for boorishness. Without this group of amusing and innocent characters to balance him and his penchant for bad decision-making, Didier is a little less likeable by himself during this adventure.
That being said, I still enjoyed this mind-bending, wayward adventure and marveled at the sheer talent that is Brian Kindall's wordsmithing. Highly recommended!
Excellent collection of stories
Narrated in a plainspoken style with realistic dialog from the Texas region, Archuleta has cherry-picked eight vignettes from the young life of a boy named Josh. In the first story, Josh's mother Belle quickly leaves her husband, Josh's kind step-dad Cecil, for the refuge of family members and hopes of a better life. In the second story, we find Josh has been abandoned by his “free spirit” mother. As the rest of the stories unfold, there is a melancholy fog that settles over the life that Josh has been presented with. But all the while, the young boy works hard to take care of himself, even helping his high school football team achieve greatness, despite the hardships life throws his way. There is an undercurrent of hopefulness throughout the book. And even when the military shuttles him away to Vietnam, he eventually finds his way back to the town that seems so bleak and unforgiving, yet it is the place he calls home. If I had one complaint, then it would be that the book could have been longer, leaving more room for the stories of the supporting cast to reveal themselves. Otherwise, an excellent collection of stories.
Randy Mayhill loves to sit on his front porch in only his boxer shorts and pistol holster, scheming how to catch feral hogs. He is “retired,” unceremoniously relieved of his duties as sheriff for protecting his felonious best friend, and Mayhill is fully committed to the hermit lifestyle. And for one year, that is all right with him, until a dead body appears draped over a fence he shares with his neighbors (Onie and Birdie, who happen to be his dead best friend's mother and daughter, two people that are more like family to him than mere neighbors). But before he can find out who the dead person is, the body disappears. Hence, the mystery begins.
Ain't Nobody Nobody is the debut novel of Heather Harper Ellett, a zany, witty, and heartfelt ode to rural Texas, where colloquialisms have a wisdom that is hard-earned, and the sleepy town has secrets that can be easily hidden in the wooded areas of private property. Harper Ellett has created a large cast of unique and eccentric characters that would easily fit somewhere between an Elmore Leonard novel and a Coen Brothers movie. The mystery of the dead man on the fence (who he is, how he got there) becomes entwined rather quickly in the history of Mayhill and his relationship with his best friend's family. Moral boundaries are blurred. Illegal activity abounds. It all makes for a riveting mystery wrapped up in literary ambition.
One thing of note: Harper Ellett devises an interesting and fun narrative strategy that straddles the line between third and second person. The narrator knows the cast intimately, although it's never revealed who the narrator is. But the narrator often interjects things about the characters or the citizens of the town that elicits a response from the reader, as if to say, “Don't YOU think so? Don't YOU think that's crazy?” I laughed out loud often to this commentary from the narrator, something akin to the gossipy tone of a group of folks commenting on the foibles of the people they know, then sitting back as if to say, “Those poor bastards.” Pretty funny stuff.
This is a fun read with literary flourishes that drives a murder mystery into a suspenseful, climactic showdown. My only quibble is I wanted more of the backstory and less of the mystery as the novel progressed. Maybe Harper Ellett has another novel in her—set a few years earlier—about Mayhill and Van and Onie and Birdie and Bradley. That would be amazing, don't you think?!
In honor of McMurtry's recent passing, I decided to read a novel of his I'd never read before. This picaresque novel follows the shenanigans of young novelist Danny Deck, who lives in Houston and has sold a novel as well as screenplay rights to it for a pile of cash, while weaseling his way into the hearts and pants of several women in his life. When he impetuously marries Sally, a woman he met while sleeping on the floor of a friend's house after a party, the couple escapes to San Francisco—where their marriage falls apart—and we readers follow Danny from one bad decision to the next, eventually leading him back to Houston.
McMurtry has a gift for turning a phrase, particularly when describing a place he loves. For example, he writes, “Houston was my companion on the walk. She had been my mistress, but after a thousand nights together, just the two of us, we were calling it off. It was a warm, moist, mushy, smelly night, the way her best nights were. The things most people hated about her were the things I loved: her heat, her dampness, her sumpy smells. She wasn't beautiful, but neither was I.” But this book also finds McMurtry laying down some lazy passages, too, with annoying alliteration like this. “Leon actually has to affect affectations” and “the puppet of remote but very powerful powers.” He does this often throughout the novel and it is very distracting.
Danny is not a likeable character either. He suffers from almost debilitating case of imposter syndrome, even though enormous financial success from his novel falls in his lap time and time again, as simple for him as plucking grapes from a fruit bowl. But once I gave up on the hope that I would eventually like Danny, the novel becomes much more enjoyable and entertaining. If taken as an opportunity to observe a buffoon fail at being a decent human being, then the tale becomes much more fascinating, and even enjoyable in a sadistic way. There were some very funny scenes and interactions between Danny and his neighbor in San Francisco, Wu, who has spent 19 years writing an unpublishable novel and accompanies Danny to Ping Pong tournaments. Turns out Danny's wife Sally is insufferable, but Danny is no saint. He passive-aggressively snakes his way into the hearts of Jill and friend Emma, getting into their pants and making quick carnage of their lives.
It's hard to say if the ending is satisfying or not, but either way, I did enjoy reading this humorous novel about this novelist / underdeveloped young man whose friends (mostly women) become strangers totally by his own selfish undoing.
Overall, I enjoyed this novel from 1972 and would give it 4 stars.
Fun collection, beautifully printed and bound. Some of the humor has not aged well as it's racist. There's a warning about this in the front matter, though. Otherwise, a fun collection of comics of old.
Great book of essays on the craft of writing fiction. The focus here is combining the plot-driven genre with the navel-gazing literary. That's my jam! Percy offers great advice and interesting bits to ruminate on. How do you make settings come alive? When is it best to whip things into action and when is it time to think about stuff? Percy's love of writing shines throughout this book. And he offers exceptional insight into the writer's life. “You won't be surprised to hear that whole forests have been pulped to print the rejection letters sent my way.”
Truth.
And the mantras.
“Tell a story; have some thoughts about it. Tell a story; have some thoughts about it.”
Read this book! Then get back to work.
The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li is a novel of literary fiction about two teenage girls from the post-World War II French countryside who write a book together, making one of them famous. The book description from the publisher describes it best: “A magnificent, beguiling tale winding from the postwar rural provinces to Paris, from an English boarding school to the quiet Pennsylvania home where a woman can live without her past, The Book of Goose is a story of disturbing intimacy and obsession, of exploitation and strength of will, by the celebrated author Yiyun Li. Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised–the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape ten years ago. Now Agnès is free to tell her story. As children in a war-ravaged backwater town, they'd built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves–until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune, and terrible loss.”
Agnès and Fabienne are young teens stuck in a rural French village post-WWII. Fabienne is rebellious and often cruel. Agnès is passive and malleable. They concoct a plan to write a book of gruesome stories about village life and enlist a widowed postal worker to unwittingly help them get it published. He succeeds in helping them meet with his colleagues in the publishing world in Paris. Agnès is convinced by Fabienne to be the sole “author” of their book which launches her into literary infamy. Later, Fabienne conjures a plan to ostracize the widower from the village by pretending to be sexually assaulted. An English private school headmistress then takes Agnès to England for an all-expenses paid year of finishing school, but the headmistress has her own selfish motives for helping her. All the while, Agnès just wishes to go back to the small village in France and be with her strange and unruly friend, wishing the two of them would move to Paris together and start their own life.
Li has uncanny insight into the lives of these girls, portraying them both as creative, vindictive, cunning, and imaginative. Fabienne is unrelentingly cruel to animals, first petting dogs in the village then kicking them just to see their surprise. But her gravity is too strong for Agnès to get away from; she's mesmerized by her rebellious friend. Agnès is quiet and meek to the point of being so mysterious that everyone puts their own motivations upon her. But even Agnès eventually shows her fangs, not only to headmistress Mrs. Townsend in England, but through her narration and insight looking back at her childhood. Ultimately, she gets the final word on this miniscule slice of history being that she's the narrator for The Book of Goose.
Li is a confident writer. Elegant philosophical musings flow beautifully from her prose. For example: “Sometimes you hear people say so-and-so has lived well, and so-and-so has had a dull life. They are missing a key point when they say that. Any experience is experience, any life a life. A day in a cloister can be as dramatic and fatal as a day on a battlefield.” So true.
I really enjoyed this novel and I highly recommend it. I would give this book 5 stars.
Jamie Wright heads back to the small town where she grew up—then later gladly escaped—to visit her dying father, Big Jim Wright. He is a looming presence in the town of Silver Falls; his fat wallet seemed to fund every town improvement as well as the life choices of everyone involved with Jamie. Once he dies, secrets aplenty are revealed, some amusingly revelatory and others earth-shattering. And Jamie's view of the town—and father—she used to despise, changes. It's like a tornado has ripped through her past into the present, both figuratively and later literally.
Brown puts on a master class of character development, introducing Jamie as an older woman with selfish desires to use the inheritance from her father's large estate for what she deems as much-needed plastic surgery. But there is much more to Jamie than that, as her character blooms with every revelation about her father and ex-husband, deep-rooted secrets that would make many weaker characters shrivel. Brown excels at offering clues, dropping them like enticing crumbs starting at Big Jim's somber viewing the night before his funeral, then unleashing them one after the other at the will reading and onward, a deluge of backstabbing, backroom dealings of the heart, and not-so-subtle life meddling. Jamie shows herself to be a strong and adept woman, much stronger than she gives herself credit for. And as such, she becomes much more than the reader initially anticipates: a harbinger of change for herself and the town of Silver Falls.
In addition to small town secrets being revealed, this novel reveals other more important secrets: that such a lively, humorous, and cathartic story can live within a book with such a staid and unassuming book cover. I didn't think initially that I would enjoy this novel as much as I did. Don't judge a book by its cover, they say. There's some truth to that here. The Illusion of Leaving is humorous, life-affirming, and a fantastic read for our times right now. This great novel deserves more coverage than it will get during this pandemic. Fans of literary fiction will discover a lot and should rejoice. Highly recommended! I give this novel 5 stars.
The Elmore Leonard comparisons are apt. This is a tautly written and humorously drawn crime thriller with well rounded characters. If you're looking for laughs and bloodshed in equal measure, then this noir crime novel is for you. Highly recommended!
A charming yet meditative story about loss and letting go. Sebastian lost his husband Frank in a freak accident, but Frank still has a hold on Sebastian's life. Sebastian feels Frank is still with him in some way—maybe from beyond the grave—and it affects Sebastian's feelings for potential new date, Reid. Sebastian's BFF Chloe is an especially funny addition to this entertaining and often ruminative novel. Recommended for those looking for a quirky romance, and an examination of loss and how we cope with it.
Curiously named Bartholomew John Beck was a bestselling writer who wrote about a real murder he witnessed, but finds himself working a blue-collar gig after his writing career flounders. He is quickly caught up in murderous déjà vu when he discovers a female coworker mysteriously dead on his construction work site, and all eyes are on him because of the ominous similarities to the murder in his bestselling book. Rick Treon's intricately plotted Let the Guilty Pay details the timelines of two murders and how they may relate to each other, all the while investigated by two (!!) writers, one of which is involved somehow.
Treon displays his prowess as a storyteller by offering three types of narration: Beck's first-person account of the more recent timeline, a third-person account of the previous murder's timeline, and excerpts from Beck's bestselling book. It's an intricately plotted, fast-paced, yet suspenseful crime thriller. Treon skillfully alternates between the three narrators, offering a web of deceit that plays itself out over a couple of decades and which involves a cadre of characters willing to straddle the line between truth and what it takes to get things done to make a living. There's a genuinely thrilling plot twist about two-thirds of the way through the book that is fun and definitely unexpected.
But, even with this its finely tuned plot and multiple narrators, there are a couple of issues. First, the two main characters—Beck and Veronica—come across a little flat and their amorous entanglement is a cliché. Second, the setting of oil pipeline construction ultimately doesn't turn out to be all that interesting. There are strip club escapades by sexist welders and construction workers who make far more money than the two writers believe possible, but it doesn't lend itself as a unique or interesting setting. It could have easily been swapped out for the restaurant industry or the finance sector and still offer a murky workplace where women are sex objects and murder could easily happen. Fortunately, these are issues that can be worked out over the course of a series as opportunities present themselves for the reader to get to know Beck better, to possibly become more intrigued by him and, hopefully, cheer for his future adventures.
Overall, this was a good, fun read and I look forward to reading more from Treon. I'd give it 4 stars.
The World Is Yours: Microfictions is Ran Walker's twentieth book. A prolific, award-winning writer who champions this form of literature, micro fiction offers the reader an opportunity to envision a literary world steeped in economic word counts. Can a story be told in less than 500 words? How about less than 100 words? How about 50?! It's a challenge Walker tackles heartily and mostly succeeds in with this book. When Walker offers characters within an intriguing setup, his miniature stories shine and create a world with few but skilled brush strokes. Familial and romantic relationships are explored. The meanings in life's little moments for his characters are ruminated upon. When his stories fill most of their single page, they fly into the imagination and bloom; you can envision the full story and where it goes. Some highlights: Buckroe, The Other Side of the Bed, and Eclipse of the Heart.
But the offerings that are only a sentence or two feel more like musings than stories, teetering Walker's concept of “dope third-person omniscient,” an all-knowing narrator who speaks colloquially rather than formally. Without characters, they aren't as fulfilling and simply just observations. Thankfully, these musings are few, leaving room for his more verbose and intriguing stories. If I had one real quibble, it's that I wish the book were longer, giving the reader an opportunity to live in this world of micro stories for a much longer reading session. But if Walker's intent was to entice me to buy more of his books of micro fiction and ponder what exactly constitutes a story, then mission accomplished.
I highly recommend this book. I would give it 4.5 stars out of 5.
In 1978 when Billy was 14, he drowned in a pond, then fell into a coma. He awakens 39 days later, but as a different person. In 1994, Billy—now William—is turning 30. He suffers from a slew of maladies and disabilities, but he's still kicking and dreaming. His younger self is still around, narrating the more fun aspects of this unfortunate hero's circumstance. It's a fantastic tale of literary fiction ala Forrest Gump.
Manning does an excellent job of juggling multiple perspectives—Billy, Stephanie, Mom, Cecelia, and so many more—but doesn't let the many characters bog down her story. There are several personalities in William's orbit and they all have a piece of the story to tell. Manning has a gift for humor and sentimentality, both shining brightly in this entertaining story. There are elements of multiple genres here—mystery, magical realism, humor—that all blend into a unique story with an intense climactic point that the reader won't see coming. This is a story full of longing and the sting of betrayal. I look forward to reading more of Manning's books.
I enjoyed this novel and I would give it 4 and 1/2 stars.
A high octane thriller that dives deep into the ugly world of sex trafficking rings and the experts hell bent on breaking them up. A finely crafted story with horrowing passages that feel like a punch to the throat, Levin drives this story full-throttle to a very satisfying conclusion. Highly recommend!