Apparition & Late Fictions
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- £9.99
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
A Methodist minister gone astray, a trout bum gone fishing with his father's ashes, an artist overwhelmed by embodied beauty-these are among the uncommon heroes and exquisite narratives in this first collection of stories by the American poet and essayist, Thomas Lynch. Set in Michigan's north woods, Ohio's interior, on islands, in casinos and distant cities, these fictions are linked by the gone and not forgotten: former spouses, dead parents, and missing children. In pursuit of love and its redemptions, Lynch's characters are haunted by memory, dogged by desire, made radiant by romance and its denouements.
With the elegant prose known to the readers of his earlier work, Lynch masterfully creates a world where mirage and apparition are commonplace, where people searching for safe harbour, reconnection and old comforts find them both near at hand and oddly out of reach.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Death haunts this underwhelming collection from essayist, poet (and undertaker) Lynch (The Undertaking). In "Catch and Release," the shortest and best story, a fishing guide disposes of his father's ashes in an unusual way. "Bloodsport" is an undertaker's grim reflection on his peripheral involvement in the life of a murder victim. "Hunter's Moon" is a decent character sketch about a widowed former casket salesman, but as a story, it's too inward-looking and inert. "Matin e de Septembre" presents a portrait of professor Aisling Black that strands her in a lugubrious female version of Death in Venice set in a Michigan resort. "Apparition," the centerpiece novella, is the story of Adrian Littlefield, a minister who becomes a bestselling self-help author after his wife leaves him. It's told mostly as flashbacks during Adrian's contemporary visit to the location of his ex-wife's first infidelity. Unfortunately, drawing this slight story out dilutes its promise. Overall, Lynch seems at a loss for what to do with his fictional creations; haunted as they are by deaths and burdensome back stories, his character's present lives feel contrived.
