Customer Reviews

Drowned Boy: Stories (Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction)

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We have an appreciation of who we are because of where we came from even if where we came from is despised by who we are.
Jerry Gabriel's "drowned boy" is a collection of related short stories that takes a peak at coming of age in the Midwest, small town Ohio.
The characters we all know and can relate to, but they are very open to interpretation,- likewise the plot at times goes nowhere- trailing off and leaving you wondering what next.
Yet if you've been there (brought up in rural Ohio or anywhere in America) you know that what happens next is not relevant. You reach a point in your life that if you stay one more day - you will die here. "receptionist by day movie renter by night". Later in life you can look back at your upbringing with almost nostalgia which is shattered by the realization that you were right; that those who stayed have become lifeless portraits jaded by failures and circumstance. Those who cannot relate to these stories probably won't understand it, and will probably be frustrated by the open plot line ending. Read it again. You missed the climax. They drove AWAY.