Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)An uneven collection of seven short stories by the author of "The Bird Artist" and "The Museum Guard". Many of the stories feature one of Howard Norman's typically quirky, unmarried, 'male in his 20s or 30s' narrators. In his novels, these characters have the opportunity to grow on, and charm, the reader - this is less the case within the confines of the short story, so that often what remains with the reader is the eccentricity, without the charm.
I found the title story, in which the main protagonist never transcends his wilful eccentricity, to be the least successful among the seven included in this book. "Old Swimmers", with its alienated teenager and geriatric survivors of a torpedoed ferry, also failed to rise above the quirkiness of its characters. "Milk Train", in which an engineer considers his life while waiting for rescue in the aftermath of a train crash, seemed pointless, lacking in any kind of resolution.
However, I really enjoyed the remaining four stories: "Jenny Aloo", in which an Eskimo woman believes the spirit of her son has been trapped in a jukebox, "Laughing and Crying" (a young teenaged boy's confusion following his parents' divorce), "Whatever Lola Wants" (a man's special 50th birthday gift to his wife), and - the best in the book, in my opinion - "Catching Heat", in which a racing announcer describes his sadness at the loss of his girlfriend to a jockey.
As I said, a mixed bag. But the four best stories are really exceptional. Norman stays on my list of interesting writers to look out for.
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