Author: Eric Shapiro

Publisher: Permuted Press

ISBN: 097655593X

The following review was contributed by: Jennifer Murray Jennifer Murray. Click  HERE   to view more of Jennifer's Reviews.

Just when you think you have your ducks in a row and you have your whole life in front of you to explore the world, achieve whatever career goals you set for yourself, fall in love, marry, have kids if you so desire, and die at a ripe old age in your sleep, a giant asteroid comes along and throws that all out the window. Thus is the premise to Eric Shapiro’s second book, It’s Only Temporary. We meet Sean ten hours out from the end of the world as he comes to the conclusion that he wants to spend his last few moments in the arms of his lost love Selma. Of course this is no easy task, it being the end of the world and all. We experience his journey in truly a world gone mad since the trappings of society have become obsolete in the quest to make the most of the last few days of life as they know it.

I found Shapiro’s take on the apocalyptic end of society did a nice job conveying the struggle to experience things we’ve always wondered about, even those in the extreme of acceptability and then some, but have stopped right at the edge of doing. In turn he subliminally poses the question as to what you the reader would do in those last hours before everything that you know now changes to the unknown. I appreciate Shapiro pushing of the envelope to the point of surrealistically being almost unbelievable within the journey that Sean embarks on within the limit of just 100 pages. By doing so Shapiro cuts to the meat of the story while holding to the old adage that it’s so surreal that it could actually be true.

I found this story to be very reminiscent of the writing style of Harlan Ellison, especially of his short stories during the sixties. To me this would find a very appropriate home within the contemporaries of that time who pushed the envelope of literature into forcing readers to think and experience outside the confines of their snug box of knowledge and understanding of the world. This is not so much a horror story of what could happen, but more of a surreal roller coaster ride that could, and probably has happened, in a mind that is skewed to being outside the accepted norms of society. It’s a short read, but a trip down the rabbit hole of surreal questioning of what exactly is reality.