Chemistry and Other Stories

  ‘'Some things are better left unsaid.''
A collection of short stories that easily falls into the genre of Literary Fiction, dealing with themes that vary from the ‘writer's soul' to the bond between family which can be so strong and yet, so fragile. A volume that kept me hooked - with the exception of a couple of rather mediocre moments - and will definitely appeal to the seasoned lovers of the Short Story genre.
How to Tell a Short Story: A couple tries to compose a short story and succeeds in using very cliche imaginable.
‘'He knew he'd died at three o'clock in the afternoon of Wednesday, July the 29th, 1988, the moment he woke up in the room that he'd come to hate.''
Blue: A heartfelt, moving account of death and the sweetness of a world seen with unusual clarity. A truly bittersweet story.
Harvest: A woman tries to cope with her husband's death by obsessively digging her garden.
Fidelity: A story about the process of becoming a short story writer in college. And infidelity...
Invisible Children: A festival of (bad) music, drugs and stoned lunatics provides the ground for repressed feelings to resurface. Do you tell the truth when you have the chance?
Chemistry: The longest story in the collection is a lifeless account of a good-for-nothing family who are the epitome of the atheistic parasites that live at our expense. A useless ‘mother', a hideous New-Age, stinking feminist of a ‘daughter' and a son who tries to find himself, surrounded by sex-obsessed maenads. A horrible piece of ‘writing'. 
Hunters in the Forest: From smelling feminists we move on to macho idiocy. Three friends believe that a hunting trip in the forest makes up for all the human decency they're obviously lacking. 
Brothers at the Beach: Two estranged and remarkably different brothers decide to spend their summer holidays together, with their families. Words of unspoken and unbearable tension are brewing like the indecisive days of late summer. Quietly haunting, this story makes use of themes we have encountered befire but anages to invoke strong emotions. 
Rapture: A father of two watches his daughter play in an indoor play arena. Having to care for his infant son while being vigilant and in conversation with the mother of a boy seem a bit too much for him. A story about fatherhood (a subject that our modern ‘values' have decided to overlook...) and the struggle of being the ‘'protector'' which culminates in a memorable (and semi-traumatic) end.
Generation to Generation: The colourful characters of a tower seen through the eyes of a very sympathetic man whose life won't be completed until he and his wife become parents. Or so she would like him to think...Many layers and many themes can be found in a story that perfectly captures the spirit of the modern family and the financial struggles of our age.
Blood Moon: An idyllic evening on a Greek island is viciously disturbed by a horrible act of violence. But the heroine of the story is not one to be intimidated. Although I think that trigger warnings are stupid (as stupid as the ones who ask for them...), I must say that one needs to be cautious with this story for it is rather disturbing. 
Cinema: This story was the most disturbing, in my opinion. A mother leaves her son in a cinema. One film ends, another begins, and the boy is there, unattended, waiting...
Through the Tunnel: A teenage girl has to face her mother's approaching end and the difficulties of changes, sexual awareness and insecurity.  A touching tale without being melodramatic.
Very interesting Author's Note.
P.S. We are tiiiiiiiiiired to read that ‘'short stories isn't your cup of tea.'' Nobody cares. Go away. Shut up. Read a ‘romance', instead. Idiots.
‘'We drank some more cool beer in the still autumn evening, and looked out over the lights and the traffic in the churning urban ocean below. There are so many of us, that's what's so hard to get your head around. A multitude of floundering creatures, plunging, lunging, towards our misbegotten destinies.''
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