Picks of the Week

IDENTICAL STRANGERS, by Elyse Schein & Paula Bernstein

(originally posted on October 24, 2007)

This is truly a story too strange and weird to make up, but Bernstein and Schein's dual chronicle of how they discovered they were identical twins separated at birth - and what this meant, and how they could track down the mother who gave them up - is incredible and disturbing in the questions it raises about practices once considered normal. Who knows what memoirs will ensue from what we think is normal and might be deemed crazy 40 years from now?

SPACEMAN BLUES, by Brian Francis Slattery

(originally posted on October 24, 2007)

The first page told me it was awesome. The next page kept up the awesomeness. And the ensuing 200-odd pages is a magical, splendid cornucopia of apocalyptic New York, wild characters, crazy adventures and bright color that's quite unlike anything I've read in a long while. I felt quite giddy after finishing this and suspect many others will too.

THE MISSING, by Sarah Langan

(originally posted on October 24, 2007)

As good as THE KEEPER was, this follow-up is really something else, what with Langan devising a plausibly scientific explanation for a most well-known supernatural occurrence (hint: it involves being rather undead.) The terror striking ordinary people in Corpus Christi, Maine has a poetic quality that tightens further and further to the seemingly apocalyptic yet very humane finish.

DEAD BOYS, by Richard Lang

(originally posted on October 24, 2007)

It took me a while to warm to this debut short story collection - sometimes a false start happens when I'm not in the mood - but I'm glad I gave DEAD BOYS a second chance for how spare and raw the depicted realities of men facing difficult decisions and gut-wrenching choices are. There's no need to compare him to past masters: Lange already is exactly what he should be with the promise of much more to come.

WHO IS CONRAD HIRST? by Kevin Wignall

(originally posted on October 24, 2007)

Like his previous books, this is a meditation on the directness of one man killing another, but CONRAD HIRST goes yet further with ruminations on identity, the loss of a loved one and the emotional shattering that comes with having no idea who you're supposed to be and what you're supposed to stand for. Most writers would need double the word count to get so much across, but once again, Wignall packs more punch in as few words possible.