Illusions of Isolation

Chapter 3

You read enough short story collections, you start to figure out what you like. Also what you don’t like. We’re all different so we like different things. What turns your crank might feel too cold on my...anyway, the point is we’re all different. I can only speak to what I like in a collection and what I don’t.

First of all, give me quality. That might go without saying, but let’s be honest. How many collections out there have no duds? How many are crammed with bangers from cover to cover? It’s actually pretty rare for a collection to reach a lofty level of quality and sustain it, so when an author populates a collection with one strong tale after another, it’s cause for fist-pumping.

Secondly, give me surprises. This sounds crusty-old-and-jaded, but when you’ve read a great many tales, you come to expect certain beats, twists, and reveals. So when an author can subvert your expectations without resorting to head-scratching deus ex machinas, that’s another reason to rejoice.

Lastly, I want variety. Sure, some of the best stories are grooves that strike a mood and maintain an unswerving path into madness from beginning to end (no one did this better than Poe; see “The Masque of the Red Death” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” for proof), but in a collection I want to feel more than one emotion. I want fear, I want hope, I want joy, I want pain. “I want it all,” to crib from Freddie Mercury, and when a collection can provide that cartwheeling tumble from one extreme to the next, I’m a happy dude.

This collection made me happy. It opens with “Dressed for Success,” a tale so off-kilter I knew immediately this experience would be the equivalent of one of those funhouse spinning tunnels where the floor keeps revolving and your reflexes are always a step behind. “Piece by Piece” begins with a stunner of a first line and only gets better from there. “Year of the Black Rainbow” is as engrossing as its title.

And so goes this collection. Brennan LaFaro clearly knows how to tell a riveting tale, and he demonstrates again and again a willingness to go where the story goes. I don’t know if he’s a pantser (writing by the seat of his pants) or a plotter (the opposite) or something in between, but I can tell you how these stories feel: they feel like they’re written by someone with an excellent imagination who’s discovering the events a split second before the reader, the time it takes to depress the computer keys the only difference between our experience and his. And that sense of plunging ahead into the darkness, that sense of mouth-agape revelation, imbues these stories with that delicious and rare trait: uncertainty.

One thing I’m certain of is that you’re going to be glad you picked this collection up. It’s outstanding. Just be sure to brace yourself a little; this spinning tunnel moves fast, and once you’ve lost your balance, Brennan won’t let you regain it until the ride is over.

Jonathan Janz