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Author:
Shelby R. Lee III
Publisher: Outskirts
Press, Inc.
ISBN: 978-1-4327-5569-0
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Lee’s
enthusiasm for writing permeates this collection of short stories (or
‘volumes’, as he calls them). Most definitely they are not in the
conventional short story mode, so don’t expect a snappy beginning,
middle and end. Rather, they are sketches of characters and scenes
written in a stream of consciousness style, in a way that is
reminiscent of Lee’s literary doyen, William Faulkner. One can
readily tell that the author is a Southerner, who has been exposed to
much of the harshness of life. He, in fact, refers to himself as “a
survivor in the key of life.” His stories are not for the
faint-hearted, being gritty, zestful and, in places, harsh, as he
exposes the vulnerability of members of the human race.
Using
relatively little dialogue, but a great deal of discussion of inner
musings, Lee covers a wide range of characters in the thirteen
stories, of which the most memorable I found to be “Boy Freud,”
which deals with the perversions of a psychologist. A sense of
redemption is lacking from these tales, and, being relatively
unstructured as they are, they leave one with an almost indefinable
sense of unease. For those who are keen on yachting, “All Points
North” should prove to be of great interest, dealing as it does
with the rivalry existing in a regatta, with all concerned fiercely
contending for the trophy of the day.
One aspect of
stream of consciousness expression tends to be the use of extremely
long sentences. The reader need have no fear on this account, though,
as the longest sentences that are included in this book tend to be
those in the Foreword, in which Lee describes the role of writing in
his life. If you’re more interested in the story than in the
process, you could safely skip this section of the book. Personally,
I find such descriptions quite fascinating, though (most probably
because I enjoy writing myself). The following sentence clearly
exhibits Lee’s penchant for stream of consciousness composition:
“Then suddenly I was moving fast to my writing table, grabbing
another legal pad, a new pen, then, deep into the night, with near
heart failure, sitting, writing and thinking, and it was so painful
to capture on paper, it came out of me so fast, so difficult to
capture on paper, it seemed as though it was being fed to my head
telepathically, but there were different phases of long thinking with
little writing.” As I say, there isn’t anything like that in the
course of the stories, and, even though All Points North bears
minimal resemblance to Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, it is
worthwhile reading, as long as you don’t expect the sketches to
conform to the requirements of the conventional short story genre.
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