An imaginative if only fitfully satisfying collection.
McKenzie incorporates Eastern philosophical concepts into this assemblage of speculative tales.
In “A Ghost Story,” one of the pieces in this quirky collection, a married man goes on his yearly solo retreat to a remote beach community to walk, read, and meditate. When strange things start occurring in his rented cottage—utensils stick together, furniture is found stacked in strange piles—the man realizes he might not be alone. In “The Day the Children Remembered,” children across the globe are born with memories they should not possess. It soon becomes apparent that people are beginning to remember their past lives, a trend that completely upends society: “Episodes from their life before would at first appear like flashes or pieces to a puzzle. It was only when they reached a certain age—usually during the height of their teenage years—that the puzzle pieces would begin to fit together and show a pattern.” And in “Like a Man With his Hair on Fire,” a swami rumored to have many extraordinary abilities refuses to share them with anyone other than followers who are “like a man with his hair on fire looking for a pool of water.” On a trip to North America, however, he is confronted by an unworthy student who won’t take no for an answer. In these nine stories, McKenzie skirts the edge of the fantastic, from virtual reality to hidden patterns in paintings to the afterlife, to see what lessons are to be learned there. The author’s prose is simple and smooth, reminiscent in tone of the SF fables of Ted Chiang: “Suddenly, scientists and academics in all fields, from psychology to biology, were expressing their expert opinions in the abstract area of metaphysics, and specifically, on reincarnation—concepts that just years ago couldn’t even be mentioned without fear of reprisal from their colleagues.” Most of the stories feature Indian religious concepts like karma, samsara, or the quest for enlightenment. A streak of didacticism seems to run through McKenzie’s project—perhaps because of this, most of the stories don’t quite land. Even so, fans of a certain stripe of mysticism-tinged fiction will find much to enjoy.
An imaginative if only fitfully satisfying collection.Pub Date: March 1, 2024
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 175
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
The range and virtuosity of these stories make this Mosley’s most adventurous and, maybe, best book.
A grandmaster of the hard-boiled crime genre shifts gears to spin bittersweet and, at times, bizarre tales about bruised, sensitive souls in love and trouble.
In one of the 17 stories that make up this collection, a supporting character says: “People are so afraid of dying that they don’t even live the little bit of life they have.” She casually drops this gnomic observation as a way of breaking down a lead character’s resistance to smoking a cigarette. But her aphorism could apply to almost all the eponymous awkward Black men examined with dry wit and deep empathy by the versatile and prolific Mosley, who takes one of his occasional departures from detective fiction to illuminate the many ways Black men confound society’s expectations and even perplex themselves. There is, for instance, Rufus Coombs, the mailroom messenger in “Pet Fly,” who connects more easily with household pests than he does with the women who work in his building. Or Albert Roundhouse, of “Almost Alyce,” who loses the love of his life and falls into a welter of alcohol, vagrancy, and, ultimately, enlightenment. Perhaps most alienated of all is Michael Trey in “Between Storms,” who locks himself in his New York City apartment after being traumatized by a major storm and finds himself taken by the outside world as a prophet—not of doom, but, maybe, peace? Not all these awkward types are hapless or benign: The short, shy surgeon in “Cut, Cut, Cut” turns out to be something like a mad scientist out of H.G. Wells while “Showdown on the Hudson” is a saga about an authentic Black cowboy from Texas who’s not exactly a perfect fit for New York City but is soon compelled to do the right thing, Western-style. The tough-minded and tenderly observant Mosley style remains constant throughout these stories even as they display varied approaches from the gothic to the surreal.
The range and virtuosity of these stories make this Mosley’s most adventurous and, maybe, best book.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8021-4956-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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