BOWLING AT THE LAUNDROMAT

A debut collection of short stories surveys obsessive aspects of human behavior.

Long Island–based author Cannella’s creative volume of eight tales is inspired by the ways people allow specific relationships or situations to fester, then to consume them. Though haphazardly written, the title story is a great example: It chronicles the reality of a reclusive, newly 50, twice-divorced man named Chuck Baber, who laments strangers’ “unconscious rejection” due to his age. Dealing with some “emotional kinks,” he finds trips to a large, nearby laundromat therapeutic and the best chance he has for human connection. Unfortunately, Chuck becomes furious and implausibly vengeful after the dryers damage his new clothes. He hatches a plan to irritate the arrogant owner by washing and drying bowling balls in every machine at once, with disastrous results. The author’s stories range from nearly novella-length yarns, like “A Malevolent Year,” about a college student whose life quickly spirals out of control when he becomes embroiled in a serial killer’s murderous existence, to more condensed tales spanning just a few pages. The shorter pieces include “Harry’s Invisible Box,” which finds a Central Park mime lethally boxed into his own container, and “Death in the Family,” a tale of a dangerously jealous sister. Some stories are more haunting than others, mostly due to the way the writer fleshes out his characters and briskly outlines the precarious and sometimes deadly situations they find themselves embroiled in. Delirious resentment is the extreme that consumes a bedeviled woman in “Donna Gets Her Man,” as the spurned lead character dons a bridal gown to interrupt her daughter’s wedding with what she hopes is her own. Collectively, the tales are wickedly entertaining and, through differing amounts of intensity, deftly illustrate the recklessness and peril of compulsive instability. Interestingly, the racy, explicit, cab driver–narrated closing story, “Hacking Without Martin,” set amid the racially intolerant mayhem of the mid-1960s in New York City, is noted as semiautobiographical. The tale is loosely drawn from Cannella’s own experiences during a time “when racism was undisguised even after the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, and reflects some of my own growth in understanding.” Thankfully, many of these torrid stories stray far enough from the formulaic to remain memorable.

A clever assemblage of tales sure to please psychological thriller and suspense fans.