Amazon.com Review
Daniel Stolar's debut story collection,
The Middle of the Night, is the work of a deft hand and a sharp mind. Set largely in St. Louis, M.O., Stolar tells the stories of people uncomfortable with who and where they are--outsiders looking in at their own lives, trying to understand the circumstances beyond their control. Coping with the loss of a parent or spouse, and wondering what could have been are prevalent themes. There is not a bad story in the bunch, but a few stand out. "Crossing Over" follows a high-school kid as he works after school in a restaurant, befriends the black staff, and holds his own as they play basketball--high, and late at night--in the slums. When he joins a black fraternity at Boston University his freshman year, he submits to intense hazing and finds that despite his "crossing over," his whiteness may not be overcome. "Jack Landers is My Friend" describes a high-school reunion where Jack, a transfer student who longed for acceptance, meets up with Kara, a popular girl he befriended to the envy of the elitist boys. Jack notes: "The thing that had marked me was more subtle and even less forgivable: not only had I wanted to be accepted among them, I had assumed it was my God-given right. I still don't know what I did to give it away." Although their lives have diverged, the reunion underscores that no matter what Jack ever wanted, Kara would never be more than his friend.
The Middle of the Night is a sober, high-quality collection by a reflective, new talent.
--Michael Ferch
From Publishers Weekly
Simply written and carefully crafted, the eight short stories of this debut collection revolve around the continual surprises life springs on us when we are least expecting them. Several of the tales are set in St. Louis, Mo., which becomes a character in its own right ("Could it be that there was a different quality to the very air in St. Louis?"), and Stolar's protagonists are often Midwesterners uncomfortably adapting to shifts in social status or to family tragedies. In the opening story, "Jack Landers Is My Friend," a young father returns to St. Louis for the holidays and takes a wistful look at what might have been when he reconnects with the girl who was his best friend in high school and college. In two of the tales, characters lose their mothers to cancer. "Mourning" is the story of Matthew, whose mother dies while he is at Harvard. In his grief, Matthew's WASPy friend Tim is unexpectedly solicitous. As the years pass, and Matthew comes to rely on Tim, he realizes that their relationship is much more complicated than he ever imagined. "Marriage Lessons" tells the story of a young woman whose mother dies, refusing to the end to reveal anything at all about the girl's father. With the help of a private detective, she looks for him, but in the end it is he who finds her. In "Second Son," a 70-year-old man resists teaching his 16-year-old son to drive, yet when he sets out to do so, the results, though not what he expected, are much more pleasant. If sometimes a bit chilly in their quiet detachment, these stories are intelligently written, thoughtful, precise and memorable.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
