These stories involve ordinary people confronting extraordinary circumstances. A paperboy's favor for an elderly man on his route faces him with a profound ethical dilemma. A woman cannot decide whether to marry a neighbor who witnessed her husband's tragic fall from the neighbor’s roof.
The central theme these characters face is timeless: Do we shape the future, or does it shape us? On a mountaintop encounter, a man meets a mysterious stranger and must decide whether to follow the stranger's guidance. A woman hires a male nurse's aide for her mother with dementia, forcing the woman to face the complexities and contradictions of his caregiving.
The stories are set in diverse places, from the vibrant streets of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s to the serene landscapes of the Scottish Highlands. Other tales unfold on an Iowa farm struck by a tornado and within a museum teetering on the brink of closure on New York City's Madison Avenue.
With a keen eye for the subtleties of human nature, Polf (author of Magical Ballyglass) explores the inner dilemmas that shape lives, especially of the desperate and those hungry for connection: a pedestrian who witnesses a traffic accident and wonders if he’s somehow the one at fault; a queer sexworker in San Francisco’s Tenderloin on the run from a proudly “psycho” cop; a newspaper delivery boy who unexpectedly befriends an old man who shares his interest in guns, to the boy’s mother’s chagrin; a husband who discovers a woman unexpectedly standing in the front hall closet. Consistently surprising, always humane, the 15 stories in this mesmerizing collection offer a profound exploration of life's decisions, how our choices shape our future, and the powerful dilemmas we face in everyday existence.
Polf’s storytelling proves both exquisite and haunting, capturing the pace of life in brisk, striking pose, delving into the underbelly of human experiences with candor but an absence of sensation or judgment: “Barnes sometimes found the predictability of their banter oddly comforting,” Polf writes of some old-timers’ coffee-shop mornings marked by “the humdrum repetition of their dialogue.” But the stories here, wise as they are to ritual, turn on days when lives get upended or his people at last demand something more.
Polf's characters are puzzled, mistrusting, and sometimes distrusting, worrying over stray remarks (“Was she depressed, as her aunt believed? She couldn’t tell; her feelings were a mystery to her”) and navigating a world that offers no easy answers. By design, the stories often leave the reader wanting more closure, a longing that mirrors the search for meaning in our lives. The prose is a masterclass in slice-of-life storytelling, offering true-to-life scenarios that veer into often harsh and tragic storylines. Water themes recur throughout, symbolizing the flow and turbulence of life.
Takeaway: Gripping stories offering a profound exploration of the human condition
Comparable Titles: Nickolas Butler’s Beneath the Bonfire, Richard Ford’s Sorry for Your Trouble.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
