At its best, Tony Earley’s Here We Are in Paradise is solid collection that may not be a classic in its own right, but its main accomplishment of introducing you to a new talent who you are eager to find out what he does next. Early does not seem to have a gimmick, he is just a classic American writer chronicling a time and people he loves dearly in the way he sees it, and like those before and during his time, he is very good at what he does. The people in these stories all seem to have secret desires that will either destroy the person if kept inside, or destroy those around them if they let those desires be known. As a wrestling fan, it was nice to see it play a role in the story “Charlotte” where a wrestling promotion’s downfall brings about a man’s courage to declare his affection for the woman he has loved for so long. But the two shining stars in this book have to be the title story and the story that closes out the collection, “My Father’s Heart”. The title story really hit a note with me. It is about a woman who is losing her second battle to breast cancer, and is trying to find a way to tell her husband that she is sick of him and that he has never really tried to understand her. It shows how loving someone and having the tools to love them back are not always codependent on each other. Her husband loves her, but rarely did the wife ever feel that the relationship was anything more than two pathetic souls coming together out of mutual loneliness. “My Father’s Heart” is the history of one man’s family, who began as moonshiners, and the shell that man has become today. It is just a good story that will entertain almost everybody. Here We Are in Paradise is good introduction to a great talent that will leave you hungry for more.
Rating: 4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment