rest area
 Clay McLeod Chapman
 (Reviewed by The Editor - Rebecca Brown)
 2002 Hyperion
  ISBN: 078686737X


A debut collection of 20 stories in which a father chats with other drivers while he waits for his daughter at a rest stop; an elderly woman holds a fox in a grisly embrace; three boys weave a fantasy of good & evil about a worker at a water slide & a ventriloquist & his dummy argue.

Weird, immediate, darkly ironic & everso interesting, Clay McLeod Chapman offers the reader a smorgasbord of stories straight out of The Twilight Zone.

What I liked about this author's writing is its directness, no fuss, no muss -- headlong into the thoughts of each person's story, whether it's the father, waiting, waiting at the rest stop where he last saw his little girl; or the frantic & tough deaf kid on the bus; or an older brother feeding his deformed little sister; or a boy scout's memories of a hotdog thief; or a mother mourning the loss of her soldier son; or the man whose wives end their lives in the chicken coop.

Each story is quickly told, in a rapid silent conversation out of which you can glean the story of before & now.

Strange reading! Like catching glimpses into people's minds &, because they think so pungently, lingering there, enticed by the unfamiliar aroma of seething synapses...for as long as they let you.

Well done!
(03/31/02)

Rebecca