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 spirit of grace under pressure and creativity under fire animates a wonderfully diverse set of stories.
Ng selects 20 stories that illustrate why we might still read fiction in a time of disinformation and lies.
As the trials and tribulations of the 21st century have unfolded, the Best American Short Stories anthology has become a particular way of taking the temperature of each passing year. As Ng writes in her introduction to the latest group, “Short stories in particular can act like little tuning forks, helping us to clarify our own values—then allowing us to bring ourselves into alignment with what we believe. In a time when our values are being tested daily, it’s hard to think of anything more important.” Many of them are also fun to read, a quality appreciated more than ever by depressed and overwhelmed readers. The stories are ordered alphabetically, a structure maintained in the following selection, which is unfortunately limited by space. “Take Me to Kirkland,” by Sarah Anderson, is very funny, a little weird, and certainly one of Costco’s finest hours. “What Would I Do for You, What Would You Do for Me?” by Emma Binder is a cinematic mini-thriller about a trans kid visiting his hometown, terrified of being “clocked” by the people he grew up with after he saves a local from drowning. “Time of the Preacher,” by Bret Anthony Johnston, is one of several pandemic stories—in it, a snake, which may or may not be under the refrigerator, inspires a quarantine-breaking cry for help from a fence-builder’s ex-wife. Another story of that time, “Yellow Tulips,” by Nathan Curtis Roberts, also combines endearing, funny first-person narration with a more serious theme. A Mormon man in an uptight Utah suburb has to manage his developmentally disabled adult son through the complexities of quarantine. One day, he discovers that his son has “gotten into the provisions Mormons are all but commanded to keep, eating Nutella and Marshmallow Fluff from their jars.…Brig, we put these things aside for the apocalypse,’” the father says, while his son “grinned gleefully, sugary goo smeared across his lips and fingers. ‘It’s an apocalypse now!’”
The spirit of grace under pressure and creativity under fire animates a wonderfully diverse set of stories.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9780063399808
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
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