Short Stories Books

Jennifer Burke is an amazing woman. Her novel is a wonderful book that takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride of a relationship. Though many relationships may feel like a carnival ride, the hills and valleys protrayed in this story are amplified by the narrator's fight with the debilitating disease, Lupis. Tale is related in a first person narrative taking an inspired form of letters filled with those thoughts left unsaid.

I recently read "A life Less Convenient - Letters To My Ex" by Jennifer Clare Burke.

This interesting, entertaining and captivating book chronicles the effects of long term debilitating disease on a young woman's relationships and her body. The story is unfolded via a collection of letters to ex-partners along with splendid photo-art. Through these letters and art one gets a sense of the challenges laid at her feet and the feet of her past loves as her body suffers the effects of medication side effects and illness.

As a health care provider, I am no stranger to observing the impact of various chronic diseases on the human body. However, observing a patient in the office paints just a small part of the picture of their situation. Being aware of the far-reaching impact of serious illness is something to always keep in our sight and consciousness. This literary work provides a window into the life of a woman living with chronic illness. It does so in a manner that is often humorous, often touching, and with an easy to read writing style that makes it difficult to put the book aside.

The story is inspirational as it shows us the heroine's tenacity while living life in the face of debilitating disease as well as the compassion and concern exhibited by her past partners. One of the greatest dangers for any sufferer of chronic disease is isolation. What we have here is a story of a young woman who chooses to avoid that isolation as she faces the challenge of becoming well. She chooses life and is a fine example for all of us to emulate. Moreover, for health care providers, her story serves as a reminder that what stands before us are not simply bodies suffering from disease. What stands before us are human lives that we dare not lose sight of as we wage our war on their diseases.

Anyone who knows a person living with chronic disease would do well to read this book.

"A life less convenient" offers an honest portrait of a side of Love that is not often seen on Literature: disease, pain, fatigue, medication... from a patient's point of view. "A life less convenient" made me push deeper and challenge my own thought patterns. Jen Burke's will continue to be an inspiration for years to come as a writer and as a person who prevails despite the turmoil.

From what can only be described as an intellectually and emotionally astute perspective, this story hits the soul hard and fast leaving only what the author deemed truly necessary to the imagination.

Author Burke will certainly have you smiling and on occasion very excitedly. Often, though, I was left wistful, my heart moved and solemnly empathetic to the plights stalwartly endured by the author. I found myself needing to pause at several instances throughout the novel to tend to misty veils in which I would lose and then find myself utterly floored and unable to continue for an awed moment or three.

It was an honour experiencing Ms. Burke's visceral and no-holds-barred literary style as seen throughout her Letters; each one peeling back yet another delicate layer of intricately brilliant Grace throughout the story's storm of wayward or waning moments of Love, Health and Life.

While A Life Less Convenient may not be for the most timorous of hearts, Ms. Burke's hauntingly unique and compelling voice will surely serve to elegantly educate and engage to the point of forgetting oneself and leave you wanting for much, much more.

"You keep thinking that you get to keep your body. That your body stays with you just because you're stuck inside it," I said. "You don't get to keep anything, not really. Nothing's a given."

So says the narrator to her lover in Jennifer Burke's A Life Less Convenient. A novel of short stories that function rather like mediations, I was drawn in by the dispassionate voice of the narrator as she navigates through the cumulative effects of both an auto-immune disorder and love on her body.

Writes Burke in her Afterwards:

"I suspect that relationship demons constitute another type of chronic illness that is managed day to day with varying levels of commitment and different definitions of "problem," "success," and "cure.""

Indeed, what becomes "normal" in these stories is the every changing body of the narrator, and the choices she must make in order to care for herself: the train she misses because she will not run over the parking lot for fear of falling and inflicting more pain on her body; the hair that she gives as a gift to her lover; the food she refuses to eat in order to stall severe stomach pains.

Love is often calculated in terms of the cost of the psyche. Rarely I have read the costs it can exact on flesh and bones.

This book caused me to rethink how I move through the world. How I eat. What it means to run. Burke's haunting writing made me examine so many unacknowledged assessments I have made about myself in this world, my world of love and shrimp and hair.

If you have but little time - or a lot - read this book. It might just change your life.

My daughter loves this book. We read to her from it all the time. She has learned the stories over the past few months and will ask for specific stories. She is 21 months now but we bought this book 4 or 5 months ago. She has other Little Golden books and loves all of them too.

This is a great compilation of many Golden Book favorites. All of the stories are whimsical and gentle - without being too terribly old-fashioned. A few of the stories are quite similar to one another, but it's still a treat (and a bargain!) for those youngsters that love farms and farm animals.

My 22 month old LOVES this book! Some might consider these tales old fashioned, but in this case, that's a good thing. These are stories that teach, inspire, and make children laugh. You really can't go wrong with this collection.

You grew up on the Little Golden Books; now you can pass those stories along to your children with this great series. Printed on high-quality paper with gilt edges in a hardbound edition that's sure to last for ages, its surprising how affordable the books in the Little Golden Book Treasury series are. Each has more than 300 pages, and contains numerous stories such as Scuffy the Tugboat, The Poky Little Puppy, Tawny Scrawny Lion, The Saggy Baggy Elephant. Pages are larger and more colorful than the original Little Golden Books. My kids love them!

I read many of the Little Golden books as a child, and was thrilled to see them put into collections. I have bought 3 of them and my son loves it when I read them to him. I would highly recommend this book and all the Little Golden books to anyone with a child in their life.

Short story collections are famous for having a few dogs, but every single one in this collection proves wickedly wise, funny and FABULOUS. This is one of those bedside table books you'll keep handy just so you can re-read your favorites. And don't be surprised if you feel compelled to call your girlfriends at odd hours of the night to quote the clever Ms. O'connell. Fans of Lorrie Moore will love Living with Saints.

What a fine collection of stories, strung on an idea but brilliantly distinguished from each other. O'Connell has a great ear -- perfect pitch. I haven't seen a false note there. I hope we'll see more of her stories, soon.

The best debute I've ever read from a new writer. The stories are not only original, but moving, funny entertaining, etc..

If you love a good read of short stories, then this is a must for you.

I was initially ...[pulled] in by the fabulous cover (the Australian hardcover edition) and was even more impressed by these immensely satisfying stories. I was moved to laugh, cry, be surprised, but stilled by the gentleness of the stories. I suppose being raised as a Catholic, and having left that doctrine, has put me in a good position to enjoy the stories. Whilst some may feel shocked by the treatment of the saints I felt that I got to glimpse the humans behind the myths. I was also pleased by the variety of female characters that the author created. They all felt genuine.

If you're looking for intelligent, well-crafted short stories that sparkle with wit then look no further.

This is an inspired work, with a singular voice--O'Connell brings so much heart, poetry, grittiness and spirituality to her characters. There's a nearly supernatural energy in her prose, blessing every detail of the every day world with fresh perspective, whether she's describing a particular pain, a scent or the specific color of the shadows beneath the eyes of a neglectful mother. She has compassion for even her most hateful characters, making them that much more believable. This is more than a collection of stories--it's a transformative fable, telling tales of ultimate redemption with humanity and fine wit. Hope she gets the attention she deserves!

I truly loved reading this book. This isn't just a great book. It is a world, and a masterpiece. You are swept into an epic of gods, warriors and kings--mythical characters and stories come alive in magical detail, and the prose is just beautiful.

The chapters are more like an interwoven set of short stories. Each is beautiful on its own. And together they reveal a complex interwoven set of stories and myths. At the end you are left with the feeling that you have seen a glimpse into this mysterious world, but that many mysteries are still left hidden in more lost fragments yet to be found.

Reading it is an experience to be savored.

The Lost Books is a highly satisfying read. It consists of a compendium of short and shorter stories set in Greek mythology, in particular Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. While this might seem like an interesting exercise, the quality and creativity of the actual stories makes it much more than that. The stories are for the most part riveting and interesting. Many of them left me illuminated as if there was a message to be learned from Odysseus's travails, or at the very least brought a smile to my face. The writing is clean and precise but rich in the right locations. The attention to detail and accuracy with respect to the original works is meticulous and natural, leaving a book that literally feels as though Homer and his compatriots might have written it. In short, if you like Greek mythology and in particular the stories of Odysseus you will enjoy this book.

"The Lost Books" is a kaleidoscope of fragments from the Odysseyean mythos, recombined in ways that are at once perplexing and startlingly beautiful. Other reviewers have compared Mason's writing to that of Calvino and Borges; justified though these comparisons are, I think "The Lost Books" is most remarkable for its originality. I have never encountered anything like it before, and I highly recommend it to any curious, sharp-minded reader.

The source of this volume (so the author would have us believe) was an ancient document written in a seemingly impenetrable code of improbably high information density. Patient cryptography at last unlocked the key to the code, revealing a tangle of chapters wrapped in upon themselves, with overlapping themes in various patterns. Doubles. Vengeance. Stories. Deception. Stasis. Desire. The Gods. Returns. These are some of the motifs that combine and recombine to form each brief story.

The stories proceed in a rough chronology; however, they form a mosaic rather than a narrative. Some chapters are distinctive slices of Homer's original storyline - for example, "Ocean's Disc," in a single crystalline paragraph, describes Odysseus' long imprisonment on Calypso's island, and "Sirens" is a riveting retelling of how Odysseus outwitted the temptresses of the sea. Other chapters Homer would never have recognized: a talking fox giving Odysseus advice? A detailed description of the history of chess and how it relates to the Trojan War? Eccentric though this sounds, the overall effect is both harmonious and captivating. You never know what to expect when turning the page.

Mason's prose, so precise as to be analytical, nevertheless invokes emotions ranging from basest revulsion to keenest empathy. In this passage, Polyphemus the Cyclops is attacked by Odysseus' men while asleep in his cave: "I woke to blood and agony and darkness... I felt vitreous humor trickling down my face and knew with nauseous certainty that I would never see again."

And here Odysseus returns to his house after twenty years only to find his wife Penelope aging and remarried: "Without the eyes of homecoming only an echo of her beauty remains... Willfully composed, Penelope puts her hand on his shoulder and says that he is most welcome in this hall. Then her face collapses into tears and she says she... had waited as long as she could, longer than anyone thought was right."

(No, that's not what happened in the original Odyssey - but one quickly learns to expect the unexpected.)

Each sentence in "The Lost Books" is carefully wrought. Sometimes the turns of phrase are unexpected, and yet on a second reading, their exquisite structure becomes clear. I recommend keeping a dictionary close at hand when you read: Mason's vocabulary is abundant to the point of overflow. (You may have heard of a hierophant or a revenant, perhaps even a termagant, but I bet you've never encountered a susurrus.)

"The Lost Books" is a vivid, beautiful, complicated work. I give it five of five stars for its category, and I confess that I have little concept of what that category might be. It's not a light read, nor is it cheering; it gave me strange dreams when I read it before bed. But I will return to it many more times, and sail with Odysseus through storms and past islands and home to Ithaka.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Note: As in my review of "Consider a Cylindrical Cow," I wish to disclose that I know the author personally - in this case, though, as a friend rather than as an academic advisor, so the success of my graduate career is not influenced by my comments here!

When the author gave his first reading of this book in New York he spoke about the book in clinical terms; its use of mathematical principles, the book as a study of recursion. But this book could not be less clinical. Though the tale is told in vignettes, each offers a different window into a sliver of the human condition with all its pain and drama and the emotions that motivate a human life.

A beautiful treatment not just of Odysseus, but also of Homer's other characters, the novel fleshes out these iconic figures so that they can be touched and tasted and felt.

In the Jewish tradition there is the idea of writing midrash -- stories that explain the tales from the bible by filling in the human connections between the lines. Mr. Mason has succeeded in writing very believable midrash on the Homeric epics which illuminate the text by giving us further angles by which to view.

For those of us who come to novels expecting something more than a novel, who want graceful prose and intellectual rigor, who want to come away feeling as though we've just dipped into a world that is new and yet reminds us of the fictional worlds we love best, for those of us who are nearly always disappointed, Zachary Mason's Lost Books is an exception.

His sentences are lithe and muscular, and his project is large -- he will make you return to the Odyssey to be sure you haven't remembered it incorrectly, and, perhaps most astonishingly, he will change the way you remember the Odyssey thereafter.

I have long believed that, in Eliot's words, "a new work of art ... is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it," but it's been a long time since a contemporary author did this for me. In addition to its austere, sometimes poetic beauty, in addition to the play with text and form and time, the play with authorship, Lost Books is that rare synthesis of big ideas and small, gorgeous moments.

Put Lost Books on the shelf beside Borges, Calvino and Homer. It merits rereading and rereading.

To start off with, Christine Townsend's books are fabulous. When I first read Passions Promise, I felt like part of the family. And when she came out with Love On Hold, I just fell in love with Cara and Jet all over again. I mean I loved these books so much that I re-read both of them and I don't usually
read books twice. I can't wait to read Plenty More Love.

I can't believe she's serious about ending the series. Please tell me she's just messing with us. I don't know about everyone else, but for me personally, I don't want to see them leave. I mean Cara and Jet need to become parents (Hint).

Anyway, if you read these books you are in for a real reading experience. With Townsend's descriptions you feel like you're there.

Jazzie E

When I finished reading Love on Hold, my first thought was "THE GIRRRL CAN WRITE!!!" I was transported to another world. The storyline was excellent, very well written and complex. The conversations between the characters were so real I felt like I knew them--for real! Townsend's writing style just drew me in to experience the culture, the lifestyle, and feel the characters. . . Christine Townsend has something to say and she says it very well. I will search the bookstores for Christine Townsend books, as well as tell others what a great writer she is.

I read "Love on Hold" first and I am about to read Passion's Promise. I have never read a book that kept me on the edge of my seat like that. The character's are so believeable that I wanted to call Jet and Cara and tell them they have a beautiful marriage and to stop playing around.

You will not be disappointed if you buy this book. The love scenes were amazing.

I put "Sweet Desire" in the bathroom for my long visits and my other 3 room-mates have finished my book before me. (What the hell!)lol

I recently read "Love on Hold," featuring Jet and Cara Stevens. I loved it! I have read it 5 times and each time, I fall in love with it more and more. I especially loved
it because the characters seemed so real and I felt like I was actually there with them. The places and the people were very realistic.

I can't wait for the sequel to this one. The central
character will be Lisa, Jet's sister. I am really looking forward to reading it.

The writer has a great imagination for writing. If she keeps writing,I will keep reading her books. I am a true fan.

If you are married or in a committed relationship, can you imagine working with your mate? It's one thing to be together while you are at home, but to see each other each day in a working environment is something totally different. I know for me if my husband and I worked together, we would probably be divorced now. I would rather keep business separate from my personal life and vice versa. LOVE ON HOLD by Christine Townsend delves into the lives of a newlywed couple who also work together.

Jet and Cara Stevens are happily married and very much in love. They both feel as if nothing or no one can come between them. Both are very savvy business people who take their work very seriously. Jet is the owner of a major corporation, and after marrying Cara, she comes to work for him and heads a division of the company, which makes Jet her superior. There's trouble in paradise when they disagree on an issue that's very dear to Cara's heart. The two who were very much in love, become virtual strangers in their own home. The icing on the cake is when Jet takes sides with a beautiful new communications director over Cara regarding a controversial business deal. Cara is so upset she decides to take a job in another city. Jet feels as if Cara is walking away from their marriage, but Cara simply needs some time away. Will the time away from the marriage be beneficial or detrimental for Jet and Cara? Can a love that once was so strong weather the storm?

LOVE ON HOLD, the sequel to Passion's Promise, is an enlightening read that takes a look into mixing business with pleasure. What I enjoyed most about the book is that although it's a sequel, enough information was given and you could follow along without being lost if you, as in my case, hadn't read Passion's Promise. Also, Jet and Cara are very strong-willed and well-developed characters who you can visualize and connect with through the writing. After reading this book, it confirmed for me that I would never want to work with my husband. Mixing business with pleasure is still a no no in my book. If you are in the market for a good romance novel with just a touch of controversy, LOVE ON HOLD is definitely for you.

Reviewed by Eraina B. Tinnin
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers

Reading Malinche's Children was a very humbling experience for me; I grew up in one of the "jewels" next to Carmelas, and attended Ramona School through 8th grade. In fact, I think the home my dad bought in 1955 might have been the very home that served as the development office mentioned in one of the stories. I didn't live in Carmelas, but I played there with friends, visited some of their homes, attended their birthday parties, fell for their sisters, bought candy at the Mexican Store, and even pulled a little red wagon down those dusty streets selling newspapers on Sunday morning when I was five years old.

And still, I knew very little about their history, and their beliefs. Daniel Houston-Davila is a wonderful writer, and I thank him for each and every jewel he has written for this collection.

This is the sort of book whose characters you miss when you put it down. I found myself many months later thinking of people I'd met in this book and wondering about them. Houston-Davila has the gift of the well-turned phrase... the book doesn't feel so much "written" as it does "lived". The path of this book was obviously chosen by the characters themselves and not the author-- but it's the author makes them come alive on the page with such passion. An excellent read. I should be so lucky to find another book as engaging anytime soon.

Daniel Houston-Davila's "Malinche's Children" heralds the introduction of a wonderful new voice in Chicano literature. Spanning a hundred years of love, hate, work and struggle in the Southern Californa barrio of Carmelas, Houston-Davila paints in vivid colors the lives of people he certainly knows well. His language is muscular, poetic and vibrant. "Malinche's Children" marks the beginning of what I hope to be a long, productive writing life for Houston-Davila.

Yes, this book is a warmly written and detailed chronicle of Mexican Americans in southern California. But it is more: a richly imagined and compassionate exploration of human aspiration. Houston-Davila's characters want what all of us want: love, home, a sense of meaning. Seeking these things in a transplanted, impoverished environment, the odds would seem stacked against them.
But they succeed. Again and again, with humorous, bold and poignant leaps of faith. This book is a rare treat: enjoyable, yet good for you. It nourishes the soul, expands compassion and understanding of what it means to be human.
The author has a rare ability to paint characters who are in a profound sense innocent, yet never insipid. He helps us see, through them, what really matters.
While appreciating the author's unique insights into the culture and times of its characters, don't miss its deeper truths.
Expect a lot from this book. You won't be disappointed.

Yes, this book is a warmly written and detailed chronicle of Mexican Americans in southern California. But it is more: a richly imagined and compassionate exploration of human aspiration. Houston-Davila's characters want what all of us want: love, home, a sense of meaning. Seeking these things in a transplanted, impoverished environment, the odds would seem stacked against them.

But they succeed. Again and again, with humorous, bold and poignant leaps of faith. This book is a rare treat: enjoyable, yet good for you. It nourishes the soul, expands compassion and understanding of what it means to be human.

The author has a rare ability to paint characters who are in a profound sense innocent, yet never insipid. He helps us see, through them, what really matters.
While appreciating the author's unique insights into the culture and times of its characters, don't miss its deeper truths.

Expect a lot from this book. You won't be disappointed.

This novel is one of the best I have read. Alex Haley and Stevens express a kind of compassion from a grandmother/mother that no one could do better. It's a very emotional book, and touches everyone that has ever experienced a good book. Once you start it, you can't put it down!

This book made you feel apart of it. I loved it! I loved the history, the story, the emotions and how it wove a story of a loving family working their way through life. This is a must read.

Pretend that there is a really good review here. I loved reading this novel. It is one that is vary hard to put down because you can't help wondering what is going to happen next.

At the center of Mama Flora's Family is the indomitable spirit of Mama Flora, the matriarch of an extraordinary family of destitute Tennessee sharecroppers. The characters are so real and believable it made this reader feel that I was right there with them experiencing all their trials and tribulations, as well as the joys. This book is much more than a poignant, hard-to-put-down story of a Mama Flora and her descendants from 1920 to the late 1990s. It, for the most part, effectively weaves into the plot much of what has transpired in American/African-American history during this time period (e.g., life for African-Americans in the South, the rise of the Civil Rights movement, the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam, the Viet Nam war, political repression under Idi Amin, etc). Mama Flora's Family is a rich, resonant family novel that cuts across the barriers that divide us to touch the hearts of people of all races and backgrounds. I highly recommend this excellent, emotionally-packed posthumous novel written by David Stevens based on Alex Haley's notes and research.

Reading this book is like cozying up with a warm blanket. The authors provide so much detail that you feel like YOUR grandmother is sitting in front of you, recounting the tales. The book spans the decades, from the early 1900s to the late 1970s and throws in a bit of history/current events to place the family's hostory in context. Great book!

I don't know what else I can possibly say...Everyone else's reviews seem to nail it in the head. The thing I agree with most is how the characters in each story are so vivid - it really sucks you right into the book as if you were really there. I'm so glad these were short stories because I tend to have trouble putting down a really good book(as is the case here)...so I'd be up all night long trying to finish it!! These are just the right length to read a story a night (or if you're like me, several a night!!). I'm definitely looking forward to his next book!!

If you want a good read that will pull you into the story itself as if you were right there, than you have got to read Midnight Tableau. I have never been so into another book, especially to the point where I felt that I was right there, where I felt as though I was the character. It was very hard for me to put this book down because you wanted to know how the story ended or how, in some cases, didn't end, just left for suspense. It was awesome and I would definately reccommend it any one who loves to read and I have already.

What a book! What writing style! No predictable endings and the stories are short enough to enjoy in one go! I predict that Michael McCrann will go a far way and can't wait for his first novel. Others who have read the book agree. Its different and refreshing. Carry on writing MC - you have a couple of new fans here in SA and we can't wait for the novel!

I LOVED IT! I would and have recommended this book to anyone and everyone that enjoy's reading. I found the stories scary and compelling at the same time. Begging me to turn the next page. I am going to read it again and again! I am even sending a copy of it to my brother who is in iraq serving our country. Its THAT GOOD!!! You gotta buy this!

This was an excellent book. The stories were fantastic. Mr. McCrann does a fine job of taking ordinary people and situations and turning them into something extraordinary. I look forward to reading him for years to come.

A Miracle of Catfish is an unabridged audiobook presentation of a countryside novel by Larry Brown, which he completed and sent to his editor shortly before his unfortunate death in 2004. Young Jimmy feels alienated from his cold and distant father, and tries to find a friend in next-door neighbor Cortez who has started to truck in catfish for his new pond. But Cortez is plagued with a tangled mess of difficulties: his contentious daughter has a son with Tourette's; his farm hand might be a murderer; and he keeps a terrible secret hidden away in the barn. Additional notes on the story's ending are included, in this modern-day classic that continues Brown's traditional themes of coping with isolation and loneliness, as narrated and performed by professional actor Tom Stechschulte. 15 CDs, 17 1/2 hours.

This book is THE book fans of Larry Brown had been waiting for. Brown's style is fully realized with this book (a book that unfortunately was never finished--Brown died suddenly before that could happen)and every one of his dented and warped characters step off the page and into the readers head fully formed--and then they don't want to leave. And while an ending would have been nice, this plump novel is worth reading (and rereading) and it proves not only Brown's vision and purpose but also that life is one unpredictable trip and that we'd best do what we need to/want to NOW. Thank God Larry Brown did!

Another reason to mourn Larry Brown's untimely death is the fact that we will never know just how the lives of the people he created in his final masterpiece would have turned out. Would Cortez have become the father little Bobby deserves, replacing the hapless and clueless daddy who can think of no one but himself? Would we ever know any more about the fish man? Perhaps we already know enough about all the living, breathing, all-too-real characters Larry imagined for us by the time we come to the page where we are left wanting to know more about them and about the others living in his imagination, waiting for future books that won't be written. It's a rare talent who can keep us interested in and even hopeful about the fates of some pretty unlikeable and apparently unredeemable people. Bobby, Bobby's daddy, and Cortez are among Larry Brown's finest creations.

I have the same feeling reading Larry Brown as I do reading Faulkner: He's writing about us! And this latest is the same as the others of his; he has the weather, the land, the people, the animals and all down pat. It's like it is down here. He's just chosen a few characters to show a representation but he uses them to give insight into the universal truths as Faulkner says. It's a shame he wasn't able to finish the book but it's wonderful that his wife and publisher went ahead with what's there. And most of it is there.
I was in the Oxford Hospital getting a stent put in and finally going home after a week of tests and procedures when I read that he'd died suddenly of a heart attack. I always wanted to meet him as I thought we had so much in common. A couple of years before I thought I saw him leaving Square Books as we were going in- my brother from North Carolina who always wants to got to Square Books and my wife and our daughter who lives in Oxford. He had on a gray raincoat or light overcoat and he smiled at us when he saw us getting out of the car and heading into the bookstore. What a loss.
Beverly Lowry of George Mason University has written a fine review in the April 27, 2007, New York Times Book Review and I'm sure there are others. Read this book and you'll want to go back and read his others too.
Dewitt Spencer

'A Miracle Of Catfish' was unfinished when author Larry Brown died unexpectedly. Because the book was almost finished, publication of Brown's last offering to his fans was possible. The book uses ellipsis to show where editing was done, and though unfinished, includes the notes that Brown left behind as to how he planned to wrap up the novel.

In Brown's languid southern prose, he explores the lives of several people living in the quiet, countrified outskirts of a small town. Cortez Sharp, a 72 year old man who's wife is disabled, decides to dig out a large pond on his property and stock it with catfish. He lives a solitary life, preferring to be left alone with his vegetable patches and herds of cows. His daughter Lucinda lives in Atlanta with her boyfriend Albert, who suffers from Tourettes Syndrome. Cortez calls Albert 'The Retard', driving a wedge between him and his only surviving child. Cortez carries a dark secret with him, one of horrible proportions.

There's Jimmy, a ten year old boy with bad teeth, who lives near Cortez's farm in an old trailer. Jimmy struggles with his father's temper, his two half-sisters Evelyn and Velma, and his desire to fix the go-kart his daddy built for him. Jimmy's Daddy (known only in the book as 'Jimmy's Daddy') is a typical redneck loser. He drives around in his old '55 drinking beer and smoking cigarettes, fights with himself over trying to treat Jimmy better, and has an affair with a woman at the stove factory where he works that turns out bad (in pregnancy) which threatens his life and marriage to Jonette.

And then there's Cleve, an old black man who used to work for Cortez, mean as a polecat, and murderous to boot. He's been in prison twice and though he swore he'd never go back, he's not quite done committing crimes.

Typical of Brown's unhurried and languorous prose, there's lots of smoking, beer drinking, and driving around. There's surprises like DUI's, tractor accidents, unwanted pregnancies, affairs, fishing, hunting, and a young boy worried about having puppies.

These aren't exactly people you would want for neighbors, but Brown brings them out fully fleshed and alive, and you know there are people out there just like Brown's characters. Everyday folk struggling with everyday problems, inner monologues that both repulse and enchant, and scenes that will suck you into the story despite their slowly building climaxes.

While I highly recommend Brown's work, I would recommend 'Joe', 'Fay', and 'Father And Son' as a warm up to 'A Miracle Of Catfish', simply because this is an unfinished work and may leave the novice Brown reader feeling flat at the abrupt end. It's sad that this is the last time we will hear Brown's voice in the literature world. Enjoy!

The author of this book Natasha Wing does a fantastic job describing what a traditional Thanksgiving time is like before and after!!! It's is reminiscent of what Thanksgiving is like at my in-laws house! Both me and my children thoroughly enjoyed reading this book with me numerous times before Thanksgiving!!!

This is patterned after the Night Before Christmas. I had previously given a copy to my 2 granddaughters and this one was for a grandson. It's a good book to read in preparation of Thanksgiving.

My 2 year old twins love this book.
The rhyming text captures their attention as well as the lively pictures. There are lots of items I can ask them to find and count on the pages. Additionally, there are places in the text that are perfect for asking them to predict what is going to happen. Also, at the end of the book the family says a prayer of thanks which is a great place for me to show my children that other people pray to God, too.

It's along the lines of A Night Before Christmas. It's family harmony at T-giving.

Our whole family enjoys this book, which makes us giggle and feel the warmth and love of sharing a holiday with family.