Category: Short Fiction

  • Genius in the making

    Bob Moyer finds much to interest him in a collection of early Tennessee Williams stories. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer THE CATERPILLAR DOGS AND OTHER EARLY STORIES. By Tennessee Williams. New Directions. $14.95, paperback. There are pleasures aplenty in the youthful writing of what will become genius. This slim volume of Tennessee Williams’ writings exhibits…

  • When words come to life

    Bob Moyer says a lot in a few words about a book that does the same. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer KICK THE LATCH. By Kathryn Scanlan. New Directions. 144 pages. $17.95. Kathryn Scanlan writes minimalist fiction. Not short stories. Not flash fiction. Minimalist fiction. She eschews verbiage, and dismisses the drape of narrative novelists usually…

  • Tarheel troubadour

    Bob Moyer has returned from his latest adventures to give us another fine book review.   Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer IN THE VALLEY. By Ron Rash. Doubleday. 220 pages. $26.95   There’s gold in them thar mountains. North Carolina mountains, that is, and Ron Rash knows how to mine it. Critics frequently call him an…

  • Walter Mosley, the short version

    Years ago, a review by Bob Moyer introduced me to the works of Walter Mosley. Since then, I have read many of Mosley’s outstanding  and evocative mysteries, including many  of the early ones I had missed.  Now I’ll have to add this book of stories to my reading list. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer THE…

  • Not your fun-filled Florida

    Bob Moyer finds that there’s much lurking below the surface in Lauren Groff’s view of Florida – and most of it is menacing. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer FLORIDA. By Lauren Groff. Riverhead Books. 275 pages. $27. Florida’s gonna get you. According to Laura Groff, that is. Her Florida is not the glowing, fun-filled home…

  • America’s actor, America’s stories

    Bob Moyer takes a look at a book from last fall, short stories from someone we think of primarily as a very good movie actor. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer UNCOMMON TYPE. By Tom Hanks. Knopf. 405 pages. $26.95. Tom Hanks is America’s actor. By dint of good choices, good fortune and great talent, he…

  • Parting words from a fine writer

    Bob Moyer has taken a respite from his travels long enough to pay tribute to the last book from a favorite author. Reviewed by Robert P. Moyer THE ANCIENT MINSTREL. By Jim Harrison. Grove Press. 255 pages. $25. “No one has ever read novellas”: In an interview shortly after his last book came out, Jim…

  • A fresh perspective: Stephen King’s latest

    Reviewed by Victor James Lewis

  • A literary master

    Bob Moyer left from the Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, N.C., for a month in England and Germany a couple of hours after I left from the same airport on the same August day for a week in Italy. We were flying on different airlines, but before I left, I used my boarding pass…

  • From the days when a story was a story

    Bob Moyer enjoys new stories from an old favorite author, who died in 2007. By Robert Moyer WHILE MORTALS SLEEP. By Kurt Vonnegut. Delacorte Press. 253 pages. $27. Maybe it’s because we miss him.  Maybe it’s because the editor put the best of these stories at the back of the book.  For whatever reason, these…