LOST SOLES

An acclaimed author reflects on life, travel, language, and more in this eclectic nonfiction anthology.

Between 2012 and 2014, while living in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Connell wrote for “one of the local ‘gringo papers.’” While The Vallarta Tribune was mostly a vehicle for tourism advertisements and condo rentals, the author was given “free rein” regarding the topics he could write about in his column. The paper’s only requirement was that he was limited to 500 words. For a burgeoning writer, this “lesson about the economy of language” proved an invaluable experience. This book, compiled after the success of A Little Chatter (2019), his award-winning collection of short stories, resurrects those decade-old essays. Written from the perspective of “a middle-aged gay man” from Philadelphia living in a foreign country, the columns’ topics range from observations on life in a resort town (where he lived behind a butcher’s shop) to memoir-like vignettes about family and growing older. A skilled writer, Connell offers astute musings on human communication and language. One chapter focuses on the American overuse of the word “like,” a “verbal tic,” he laments, “used so frequently, so recklessly, so mindlessly—and no one protests.” Interspersed throughout the book’s 36 pieces are black-and-white photographs of shoes that reference the introductory essay, the titular “Lost Soles,” in which the author reflects on the lost and discarded shoes he has photographed on his many dog walks. “Some drag queen had a rough walk home,” he writes upon finding a black leather shoe with a six-inch spiked heel, describing the singular, out-of-place object as a “sad, fallen empress.” At just over 150 total pages, the book is a literary delight, regaling readers with a bevy of two-page page essays that strike an ideal balance between humor, poignancy, and dexterous observations. Citations of publication dates for each entry would arguably have been useful to contextualize individual pieces for readers, but ultimately this isn’t necessary, as the anthology is deliberately constructed in an eclectic manner to parallel the random ethos of its photographic shoe collection.

A well written and visually evocative essay collection.