After reading his new book,
the short story collection The King is Always Above the People, I have read
every one of Daniel Alarcon’s books (not counting his graphic novel City of
Clowns) and it is hard to think of a more vanilla writer. From his debut story
collection War By Candlelight, to his two novels Lost City Radio and At Night
We Walk in Circles, I am struggling to recall any details about either of those
three books, and it looks like I will have a similar feeling about this one in
a few months, or even a month from now. This book is far from being bad (in my
experience, bad books announce themselves loudly and proudly early on), but it
is further away from being good, and what it does do good I have seen many
writers do better with a much shorter page count. That is the real problem with
these 10 stories, which range from a brisk 10-15-page length to an arduous 40-50-page
length. Sure enough, the best two stories here are the ones in the former category,
with “The Ballad of Rocky Rontal”, a second person account of a gang members
journey from the streets, to prison, to freedom and leaves us the reader on the
cusp of his revenge, being the best one here: it presents a concept and when it’s
novelty wears off the story ends. It is easily the best story here. I can’t say
the same for the longer stories, such as “The Provincials” and “The Bridge”,
each a story about families that overstay their welcome by 20 pages. And don’t get
me started on “Abraham Lincoln Has Been Shot” a story that tries and fails to
do what Wells Tower did with Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned”. This isn’t an offensively bad book, but it is
middling at best, it’s best parts in the short bursts amongst pages and pages
of dead weight.
Rating: 3/5
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