Find out the latest indie author news. For FREE.

ADVERTISEMENT

Formats
Paperback Details
  • 02/2020
  • 0578591693 B082TRQ23T
  • 234 pages
  • $14.95
Charles Souby
Author
A View From the Borderline
A View from the Borderline is a collection of short stories by Charles Souby that runs the gamut from dark and gritty satire to sweet and serious love. They include a man plotting to poison a park full of pigeons to frame a bothersome old lady; a high school delinquent who falls for a dispossessed girl about to be shipped off to an asylum and an LA police detective who encounters a rave promoters’ diabolical plot to abduct young mindless teenagers for unthinkable purposes. Stories in this collection have appeared in the Saturday Evening Post Online, E-Fiction Magazine and the Opening Line.
Reviews
This eclectic short story collection by Souby (A Shot of Malaria) mixes the macabre and the sweetly romantic while considering the push and pull of relationships in flux. A man's attraction to a woman at the track leads him to drunkenly lose his money in “Silver Slumdog,” and a young woman revels in her burgeoning adulthood in “Godot Meets Guffman.” A couple navigate intellectual and sexual attraction during their second date in “Geese & Ganders.” A woman's desire to have children proves a breaking point for her boyfriend in “Thornchild.” Situations spin out of control and into absurd conflict in “Silencium,” in which a camp director forces two boys to resolve a dispute about nonviolence by fighting, and in “The Plaid Golf Pants,” in which a hostage negotiator is called in to parley with a woman holding a dry cleaner’s clothes hostage. Souby’s narratives take a darker turn in several stories: in “Monkey Business,” monkeys in India bludgeon young baseball players to death, and in “Eloi Reduction,” young people are lured to a rave where they are brutally butchered and processed for cannibalistic consumption.

Souby’s characters are expertly drawn. All are driven by clear emotions and desires, motivating them to act out in ways that range from tender to violent. The story lines that focus on how people navigate relationships with one another are believable and intimate, especially in stories such as “Nymphs, Woods & Cottages,” in which a man meets his future wife while she’s camping out in the woods after leaving her abusive home.

The contrast between the study of relationships and the darkness in some of the stories adds depth to the collection. While the violence of “Monkey Business” examines the retribution of the monkeys against the minister who harmed them, the cannibalism of “Eloi Reduction” as perpetrated by Hollywood moguls is more darkly disturbing than anything else in the book. While some elements may shock some readers, literary audiences with wide-ranging tastes will be drawn to the collection’s variety and depth.

Takeaway: Fans of eclectic short stories will appreciate these intimate, tender, sometimes disturbing narratives.

Great for fans of Alice Munro’s Dear Life, Richard Russo’s Trajectory.

Production grades
Cover: B
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: -
Editing: B
Marketing copy: B-

Formats
Paperback Details
  • 02/2020
  • 0578591693 B082TRQ23T
  • 234 pages
  • $14.95
ADVERTISEMENT

Loading...