Customer Reviews

Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha: New and Selected Stories

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The press release accompanying this book of short stories states that Edward Falco has been quietly establishing himself as master storyteller for years. His stories have appeared in Atlantic Monthly and Playboy as well as prestigious anthologies. His fans will relish this collection. Readers
unfamiliar with his work, like me, will remember Edward Falco's name from now on.

Each one of the sixteen stories in this collection is distinct. Falco gives us mysteries, unexpected salvations or revelations, and forces us to examine the sacred and profane with fresh eyes. His plots are gripping, woven from threads familiar to us all: dysfuntional families that somehow work; people who wear their human vulnerabilities like a badge of honor as they flounder; lives derailed or hopelessly wrecked by choice or circumstance; hapless mortals forced to deal with the unthinkable and horrible; and unacceptable but inevitable compromises made amidst chaos. Characters vary, from
peaceful people just trying to survive, to teenagers struggling to find their own identity, to dangerous or pathetic human animals at heart. Regardless of the milieu in which the author places them, each character is solid and memorable.

Falco reveals the rage and fear that often trembles hidden at our core. His prose is alternately haunting and tender, comforting and disturbing. Edward Falco's writing beautifully explores the lights and shadows of human existence.

Falco is a master of a writer, forging character and plot into engaging stories. Many of the stories of this collection involve teens involved in precarious, often sexual, situations. Falco exposes the minds of these teens as he leads them into dark predicaments and then takes them back out again. In one story, "Sweet", Falco discribes a pot-bellied middle-aged man's lust for a teen-age girl almost as well as Nabokov; but he does it differently. Without the paint and wordplay of Nabokov, Falco does it straightforward, and in his own realistic, believable manner.

In "Instruments of Peace", Falco puts the father of a sixteen year old girl into a morally challenging position. At the end, the reader is left just thinking, "Wow!". This story was originally published in Playboy. Who says that magazine is only for the pictures?

SABBATH NIGHT... has a lot of conversations in cars, a lot of teen sexuality, a lot of family men taken out of their traditional roles and plopped down in the middle of a moral predicament. Falco handles plot, characterization, point-of-view, pacing, all the elements of fiction like a master. It's amazing that this guy is not better known.

As a writer, some publishers have told me that the platform of short stories is slowly becoming a thing of the past with readers. Edward Falco is here to prove that theory wrong. Here we have a fantastic collection of 16 unique stories reflecting the uniqueness that Falco possesses. The story lines are familiar as we play witness to characters that don't quite fit into the world around them attempting to struggle with the intense situations they find themselves in. The reader finds themselves able to relate to some aspects of each character and are quickly consumed into the story. A noteworthy read that should not be passed up by anyone.

Frederick A. Babb

This sixteen short story anthology is a great collection starring individuals with flaws that lead them into precarious situations often not of their direct making. Each story is loaded with unbridled suspense as the prime characters find themselves going from the frying pan into the fire as the heroes struggle with dark forces that seem overwhelming to the protagonist (and the reader). Interestingly in spite of these being shorts, in most cases the beleaguered hero seems developed enough to star in a novel. The audience will appreciate the genius of Edward Falco, as in almost every entry, a reader can picture themselves falling into the same type calamity that beguiled the respective lead character. Title aside since it is taken from one of the tales, courage comes from within, but that does not guarantee the outcome as piranhas feed on nice innocent victims too. This novel is worth reading but readers should keep the lights on or better yet peruse it in daytime.

Harriet Klausner