Some diverting anecdotes about life in upstate New York, although many lack tension and depth.
Short stories about family life inspired by a strong faith and belief in miracles.
Beyea opens this collection of fiction and memoir with an endearing story about Sam—a puppy that the narrator’s four children adopted right off their front porch: “Yes, it was just a mutt, but to our kids this was the purest of pure breeds, delivered to them by divine providence.” Sam has a happy, full life despite her sad ending, and Beyea is not entirely figurative when he describes the dog as being delivered by divine providence. Overall, these stories are about everyday life, stressing a belief in God and occasionally invoking typical dad humor. In “He Was a Forty Niner,” the author remembers his “workaholic” father who used to take him and his older brother Bud to the “woodlot” where they would “recreate” things—cutting trees, converting them into fence posts, and indulging in other woodworking projects. In “Baked Beans and Apple Pie,” Beyea remembers his equally industrious mother, Gertie, an “expert seamstress and chef.” Overall, the stories focus on the positive and read more like anecdotal memories than complete narratives; Beyea is a reflective narrator, but his stories lack plot development and other aspects of truly engaging storytelling. The primary strength of the book is in its candor and rumination on the simpler things in life, such as bird-watching and taking in beautiful scenery. Describing his lake house on Lake Champlain, Beyea writes, “We watched magnificent bald eagles, swoop like dive bombers and snatch fish from the lake. For over a year, we were content to relax on our deck and enjoy the beauty created by God.” As a retired New York City police officer, Beyea also offers an intriguing perspective on criminal justice; in one vignette, he remembers coordinating a “restorative justice” program for youth in Clinton County in upstate New York.
Some diverting anecdotes about life in upstate New York, although many lack tension and depth.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5320-8413-3
Page Count: 156
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A newcomer to watch: fresh, funny, and tough.
Seven stories, including a couple of prizewinners, from an exuberantly talented young Thai-American writer.
In the poignant title story, a young man accompanies his mother to Kok Lukmak, the last in the chain of Andaman Islands—where the two can behave like “farangs,” or foreigners, for once. It’s his last summer before college, her last before losing her eyesight. As he adjusts to his unsentimental mother’s acceptance of her fate, they make tentative steps toward the future. “Farangs,” included in Best New American Voices 2005 (p. 711), is about a flirtation between a Thai teenager who keeps a pet pig named Clint Eastwood and an American girl who wanders around in a bikini. His mother, who runs a motel after having been deserted by the boy’s American father, warns him about “bonking” one of the guests. “Draft Day” concerns a relieved but guilty young man whose father has bribed him out of the draft, and in “Don’t Let Me Die in This Place,” a bitter grandfather has moved from the States to Bangkok to live with his son, his Thai daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren. The grandfather’s grudging adjustment to the move and to his loss of autonomy (from a stroke) is accelerated by a visit to a carnival, where he urges the whole family into a game of bumper cars. The longest story, “Cockfighter,” is an astonishing coming-of-ager about feisty Ladda, 15, who watches as her father, once the best cockfighter in town, loses his status, money, and dignity to Little Jui, 16, a meth addict whose father is the local crime boss. Even Ladda is in danger, as Little Jui’s bodyguards try to abduct her. Her mother tells Ladda a family secret about her father’s failure of courage in fighting Big Jui to save his own sister’s honor. By the time Little Jui has had her father beaten and his ear cut off, Ladda has begun to realize how she must fend for herself.
A newcomer to watch: fresh, funny, and tough.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-8021-1788-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2004
Readers who limit themselves to one story a night are in for a lot of sleepless nights.
Ardai celebrates the 20th anniversary of his publishing imprint, Hard Case Crime, by reprinting 20 of his own noir tales from 1990 to 2023.
Any collection this big is bound to be a mixed bag, but even the lesser stories here illuminate the formulas they depart from. “The Investigation of Things,” in which two Chinese brothers compete to solve the murder of a Buddhist monk, shows that Ardai’s gifts aren’t best suited to whodunits. The cancellation of a boy’s promised trip to see the circus in “The Day After Tomorrow” pushes Ardai’s ability to plot a short-short story to the limit. And “Nobody Wins,” which chronicles the gratuitously calamitous effects of a private eye’s search for his missing fiancee, has a title that would have been perfect for this whole volume. Ardai’s best stories walk a tightrope between noir fatalism and surprising invention. Some of them boast unsettlingly original premises. A fed pursues a doomed relationship with the grieving mother of a boy he arrested and got killed in “The Home Front”; “Game Over” follows a roll of quarters intended as a birthday gift; “My Husband’s Wife” showcases the coolly amoral voice of a conference attendee’s wife as she commits an escalating series of infractions. Other stories present endings bound to startle the most hard-bitten fans. “The Case” follows the adventures of a suitcase bomb that hasn’t (yet) exploded; a bodyguard’s search for a lubricious charge who’s disappeared from under his nose leads to a bloodbath in “Jonas and the Frail”; the man who hires a trio of contract killers in “Masks” turns out to have a shocking motive; and the ending of “A Free Man,” neatly balancing disillusionment and sentiment, provides a fitting close to the volume.
Readers who limit themselves to one story a night are in for a lot of sleepless nights.Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9781803366265
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Hard Case Crime
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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