A collection of very short stories by Australian author Brooks (Mary Lives—A Story of Anorexia Nervosa & Bipolar Disorder, 2014).
This assortment of 21 short stories—almost vignettes, ranging in length from two to five pages—covers a wide range of topics, but all share Australian settings. Many focus on characters on the brink of a change, such as marriage, death or some other life-altering transition. Although not all the stories have unhappy endings, most do; even the happier tales have a rather melancholy tone, and readers may be surprised when tragedy doesn’t befall a protagonist. In two stories, “Little Cottage in the Wood” and “Going Home,” Brooks creates such evocative, frightening settings, such as a protagonist’s ruined, ghostly hometown, that it seems she may have missed her true calling as a horror author; the former does have horrific elements, but the second story progresses harmlessly. The few romances, including “The Wedding” and “Homeward Bound,” seem too pat, almost trite, with no real conflict. In contrast, the aptly named “Malevolence,” effectively tells the story of a romance gone horribly wrong, and “Full” tells a story of a woman in her 60s who has struggled with bipolar disorder. Many stories, however, are marred by abrupt, unconvincing resolutions, and often include irrelevant details that seem like red herrings; readers may stash these facts away for future reference, only to discover their ultimate insignificance. In “Training Camp,” for example, when characters list their food insensitivities, readers will likely brace for a tragic mishap, but it never comes. On an individual basis, the stories lack profound significance, but taken as a whole, they acquire a haunting quality. Overall, they may inspire readers to evaluate the qualities of their own interpersonal relationships.
Unusual short stories, notable for their more disturbing aspects.
Pub Date: June 6, 2014
ISBN: 978-1499006735
Page Count: 70
Publisher: Xlibris
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
It's being called a novel, but it is more a hybrid: short-stories/essays/confessions about the Vietnam War—the subject that O'Brien reasonably comes back to with every book. Some of these stories/memoirs are very good in their starkness and factualness: the title piece, about what a foot soldier actually has on him (weights included) at any given time, lends a palpability that makes the emotional freight (fear, horror, guilt) correspond superbly. Maybe the most moving piece here is "On The Rainy River," about a draftee's ambivalence about going, and how he decided to go: "I would go to war—I would kill and maybe die—because I was embarrassed not to." But so much else is so structurally coy that real effects are muted and disadvantaged: O'Brien is writing a book more about earnestness than about war, and the peekaboos of this isn't really me but of course it truly is serve no true purpose. They make this an annoyingly arty book, hiding more than not behind Hemingwayesque time-signatures and puerile repetitions about war (and memory and everything else, for that matter) being hell and heaven both. A disappointment.
Pub Date: March 28, 1990
ISBN: 0618706410
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1990
SEEN & HEARD
IN THE NEWS
SEEN & HEARD
A newcomer to watch: fresh, funny, and tough.
Seven stories, including a couple of prizewinners, from an exuberantly talented young Thai-American writer.
In the poignant title story, a young man accompanies his mother to Kok Lukmak, the last in the chain of Andaman Islands—where the two can behave like “farangs,” or foreigners, for once. It’s his last summer before college, her last before losing her eyesight. As he adjusts to his unsentimental mother’s acceptance of her fate, they make tentative steps toward the future. “Farangs,” included in Best New American Voices 2005 (p. 711), is about a flirtation between a Thai teenager who keeps a pet pig named Clint Eastwood and an American girl who wanders around in a bikini. His mother, who runs a motel after having been deserted by the boy’s American father, warns him about “bonking” one of the guests. “Draft Day” concerns a relieved but guilty young man whose father has bribed him out of the draft, and in “Don’t Let Me Die in This Place,” a bitter grandfather has moved from the States to Bangkok to live with his son, his Thai daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren. The grandfather’s grudging adjustment to the move and to his loss of autonomy (from a stroke) is accelerated by a visit to a carnival, where he urges the whole family into a game of bumper cars. The longest story, “Cockfighter,” is an astonishing coming-of-ager about feisty Ladda, 15, who watches as her father, once the best cockfighter in town, loses his status, money, and dignity to Little Jui, 16, a meth addict whose father is the local crime boss. Even Ladda is in danger, as Little Jui’s bodyguards try to abduct her. Her mother tells Ladda a family secret about her father’s failure of courage in fighting Big Jui to save his own sister’s honor. By the time Little Jui has had her father beaten and his ear cut off, Ladda has begun to realize how she must fend for herself.
A newcomer to watch: fresh, funny, and tough.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-8021-1788-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2004
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