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Ghost Words and other Echoes...

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There are moments in Adina Pelle's GHOST WORDS and OTHER ECHOES that cut like shattered glass. There are also instances of breathtaking beauty and images that will haunt you. Once you start reading, you'll put this book down for only two reasons: the need to mull over what you've read (savoring it like a favorite taste on the tongue or touching it with that fascination we all have with reopened wounds)or because you've finished it.

Ghost Words and Other Echoes...
by Adina Pelle
Curva Peligrosa Press, 2009, US
Literary Fiction/Short Story Collection, 210 pages
Hardcover, $19.95
ISBN: 978-0-9754-3146-7
Review by Ruth Cox

A ghostly image of the grandmother of author Adina Pelle escorts us from the front cover of "Ghost Words and Other Echoes" to the back, amid reverberations of life drawn upon every page between the covers. Pelle's collection of short stories reads more like a novel, the storyline occasionally intercepted by ghosts of the past whispering words unto the reader.

Each story in the collection is connected to the previous tale and joined together with the next tale. We set out on our imaginative journey with Pelle's one and only "First Story," which is described by the author as her "most-loved story" and "begins with a frail, dark-haired girl dreaming of magical earrings and ends with sunbeams exploding on a glass shelf in a crowded city filled with busy people who have no time for silly stories."

We'll meet Matilda and Saul in "Don't Mind the Naked Man on the Couch," of which there are numerous Chapters paced throughout the collection, each with its own literary lesson to share with those readers who dare to embrace the words of wisdom and beware the words of the ghosts. According to Pelle, the only true protection from the ghastly damage of a nighttime attack of ghost words is that of sleeping with a teddy bear. Further explanation of these whisperers of the dark is found in the book's title story, "Ghost Words." (Of course.)

Love, tears, sex, and laughter are woven into the fabric of each fictional selection, each story its own offering of Pelle's poetic prose. In "Prisoner," nothingness seems real to the character thrown into a cell with room for nothing but thought and haunts of the past. "Ellie Tsar" spends a lifetime in a hospital psychiatric ward caring for, as she says, "the patients who disturbed the patterns of her thinking." And Pelle's "Guardian Angel" loses her grip on her wee daughter's hand and must watch "as her little girl perished in a mortar shell's hellfire." And the author asks, "What motivates people to survive grim strikes of misfortune and tragedy?"

Witches, gypsies, a mutt, and a mailman -- what could these have in common? All have had their portrait painted in the colors of the ink of Pelle's palette.

Adina Pelle is a true artist; one who crafts her collecion of short stories with sometimes subtle narrative, but always with superb imagery. The author uses a natural and sensitive style of subtle shades in broad strokes to beckon the reader into unleashing the mystery of the narrative voice, allowing it to resound in a procession of riddles to be solved.

Plan to settle in for an evening in your favorite reading room. Make yourself comfortable. Permit "Ghost Words and Other Echoes" to lull you in to Adina Pelle's painting of a dreamscape.

Oh ... Don't forget to grab your favorite childhood teddy bear.

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This review is written and ©Ruth Cox.
Reviews written by Ruth Cox are the sole property of said reviewer. Ghost Words and other Echoes...

Some things once said cannot be taken back. "Ghost Words: And Other Echoes" is a collection of short stories from Adina Pelle. Almost flash fiction, she presents her stories, which sometimes carry narrative over multiple tales, in very short bite-sized morsels that easy to digest and enjoy. Fine, fun, and thought provoking reading, "Ghost Words" is a treasure trove of unique tales and will do well to please any short story reader who wants something different.