Visitations: Stories

Some stories dance tantalizingly out of reach. Trying to summarize them is impossible because any brief description proves artlessly bland in comparison to the story itself. This is especially true in short story collections like Visitations, in which every story enjoys that Turn of the Screw feeling of being balanced on a knife-edge between fantasy and reality.

These are stories steeped in melancholy, filled with people who never seemed to find their niche. Whether they’re on a quest or distracted from the everyday by a strange quirk of events, the protagonists are all in motion. And every story hints at a bigger world by concluding, as it were, at what feels like a key moment, meant to push the reader to wonder what should come next, what will come next, and whether those two options are the same thing.

The collection itself takes a little while to get going but offers some sharp moments and word choices that linger in the brain long after the stories conclude. (The line where one character “weaponizes” himself with a wife and two kids is a fascinating choice.)

Visitations will not be everyone’s cup of tea, a bit more bitter than warm, but still quite filling.