The Amazing Mr. Morality: Stories by Jacob M. Appel
My rating: 4/5 cats
i don’t love reviewing short story collections, so i’m gonna keep this short and sweet. however, it is important to note that i didn’t used to love reading short story collections either, and this guy is one of the authors who changed my mind about that, so that’s a pretty strong point in his favor, since i’m not really a person known for my ability to change or grow or evolve.
The Children’s Lottery
★★★★☆
a lottery system as dreadful as the one in that shirley jackson story, but with way more pedophiles.
Jury of Matrons
★★★☆☆
this one had some great coming of age details in it, but it wins the day for a casual, throwaway mention of a new england beachfront hotel called “the Vengeful Scrod.” as a rhode island kid well-exposed to cutesy nautical kitsch, that is so perfectly absurd a name i can’t believe it’s not real.
Gable’s Whiskers
★★★★☆
you could use this to teach extraterrestrials what a human short story should look like – rise, fall, setup, execution, with a little nugget at the end that pulls it all together like a drawstring bag. actually, he’s 3 for 3 with his endings in this collection, and that might be why i like his stories more than i like other stories – he knows how to end ‘em. not with a “gotcha” pop of a twist (which i do love), or some anticlimactic writing workshop denouement but with a sentence or two that invites a kind of emotional simmer, and it sticks with you even after you’ve moved on to other reading.
Burrowing in Exile
★★★★☆
okay, this one does have the “gotcha” brand of story-ending, and it’s a good one, if not entirely unexpected. funny, cute, full of woodchucks – and facts! this story taught me that groundhogs and woodchucks are the same damn creature, which i did not know! nor had i ever heard them called “whistle pigs,” which i do not like and hope to never hear/read again. i want my own mr. whitman.
Tracking Harold Lloyd
★★★☆☆
this one didn’t leave much of an impression on me, but i’m not sure why – it’s a nice, tidy little serving of melancholia and it does have that emotional simmer. sometimes reading-responses are unpredictable. this is why algorithms and robots can’t do readers’ advisory.
Next of Kith
★★★☆☆
i gave this story three stars, too, which isn’t a bad rating in the least, it just wasn’t as shiny as some of the other ones. it does have a memorable ending, though, and well-scored. oh, english horn – thou art so wistful…
Right of Way
★★★★★
this is the shiniest story of them all. i like everything about it. so will you.
A Change of Plumage
★★★☆☆
birds, identity theft and infidelity. it’s hard to say which of the three is the most despicable.
The Desecration at Lemming Bay
★★★☆☆
this takes place in LITTLE RHODY! and features an imaginary ocean state poet (who no doubt once stayed at the vengeful scrod), the author of such works as Diphtheria and Other Mementos, Typhoid Is for Lovers, and Polio Serenade, once again making me wish that these were real things in the world.
The Amazing Mr. Morality
★★★★☆
the titular novella, in which great moral dilemmas are examined: If you’re going to commit a murder, is it worse to kill when the victim is sleeping or awake?, Is it wrong to remove a demented relative from life support before Jan 1 to avoid adverse changes in the tax code?also, a quince pudding festival serves as an alibi, a date ends when a man vomits on a woman’s head, and there’s a healthy (unhealthy?) dose of (to borrow a reference from another story in the collection), non, je ne regrette rien.
and that’s all you get from me!
***************************************
last thursday, i was planning to buy this book at work, but the trains during my 4 am commute were so messed up that i couldn’t even get into manhattan, so i gave up, turned around and took the day off. that very afternoon, it came in the mail for me, from the author himself.
lesson i have chosen to learn from this experience:
the MTA is run by ANGELS!
i will read this as soon as i possibly can. thank you, jacob appel!
