Customer Reviews

Scar Vegas: And Other Stories

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I can't believe it. Just as I thought I could never find a short story with something important to say, Tom Paine erupts with stories that grab your attention and make you think. Great writing. Important ideas.Unforgettable. If you suspect that there's more to real life than internet IPO's and instant millionaires, read Scar Vegas. A breath of real air--fresh and shocking.

In truth, if half stars were available, I might have given this collection of short stories 4 1/2 stars, but I still though it was great. The stories were varied not only in their subject matter but in their style of being told, almost to the point where it feels that each story was written by a completely different author. In addition, they range from broad comedy to real tragedy to astute social commentary to everything in between. Quite an accomplishment. My only slight reservation was that, while I considered the second 5 stories to be very good, they were not in my view as uniformly excellent as the first five, which were truly great. In particular, I felt that the "Unapproved Minutes of the Carthage, Vermont, Zoning Board" (absolutely hilarious) and "The Spoon Children" were the best of the group. Buy the book and enjoy it.

This is an excellent collection of edgy and exquisitely detailed stories. All the tales have twists, which comment on the modern landscape. The writer has won a host of awards and his sumptuous and effecting prose produce thrills as well as introspection with regard to political events and corporate policy. Highly entertaining and recommended.

Paine mixes Laughtere and Joye in perfect measure. The wonder is how convincing his many divergent characterizations are. The social commentary, beneath it all, is stirring.

One of my favorite short story collections. Lean and powerful and insightful work, turning current affairs (modern war, the environment, corporate America) into compelling stories. It's pitch perfect.

"Scar Vegas" is a solid library pick-up, at the least: an entertaining collection that reads quickly.

Author Tom Paine delivers 10 short stories in his collection, "Scar Vegas". While the premise of many of the stories appear clever and promising, they too often end with the familiar and cliché. Mr. Paine clearly is a talented writer, and this first experience with his work would not stop me from reading what may follow.

The author deals with many serious issues with social and moral implications. The issues themselves are not in general that unique, so he has raised the bar for his task of writing new and insightful commentary. He has chosen, in the case of the opening story, a troubling facet that continues to hamper our species reaching closer to a humanity that is appropriate. Again a familiar theme, which he then compounds with additional familiarity by telling his tale through an episode in recent history, that is just too easy. The ending will be clear very shortly after you begin. Indeed with the first tale, the story may lie revealed after reading the description on the book's jacket.

The author also makes editorials of many of the stories. The edge these stories would need to make the reader feel uncomfortable, or perhaps become introspective, is made harder by the tone that approaches preaching. If a statement about war is the goal of a story, unless you happen to adhere to this author's opinions, it becomes difficult to concentrate on how he demonstrates his skills as a writer, when as a person he intrudes in his fiction. War can be commented upon without ever mentioning a specific nation or a specific conflict. War is unconditionally horrid. It can stand on its own and be criticized and judged, it need not be identified in meticulous detail to make its point. The conduct of war can certainly be more extreme in certain notorious historical examples. I truly think the author is capable of making his point without relying on events from the news, and his personal views that consistently shadow his words.

Tom Paine's debut collection of short stories has the rushed feel of a trip around the world in two weeks. In one 200 page volume the author takes us from a shipwreck in the Caribbean, to an anarchist convention in Seattle, through the despotic world of pre-1989 Romania, and onto the battlefields of the Persian Gulf War. On the way he introduces us to lapsed yuppies, latter day beatnicks, cross-dressing generals and construction executives at war with each other over the meaning of spirituality.

Like any ambitious voyage some of the destinations fascinate while others pale. "Will You Say Something, M. Eliot?" "Ceausecu's Cat", and "A Predictable Nightmare on the Eve of the Stock Market Breaking 6000", are three of the best ports of call. They each involve the tragedy of strivers derailed by the cruel nature of their environments.

The weaker stories get bogged down in overdrawn narrative and trivial dialog. "The Mayor of St. John" and "The Battle of Khafji" are both examples of stories where the author forces us to linger too long over themes he finds interesting. When Paine becomes overtly political, preaching about the evils of the money system and power politics, he undermines what he does best: providing skilled guidance through experiences we couldn't hope, or fear, to have otherwise.

I respected these stories and Paine's geopolitical stance more than I embraced the stories themselves. He's a talented, hard-working writer. But I found myself not connecting nor loving these stories as much as I knew I ought to. They weren't hair-raising as Denis Johnson nor beautiful and inspiring as Alice Munro or wicked little slices of life like a William Trevor or Updike. I found them to be rather dry as a matter of fact. Perhaps I'll pick it up again, later, but for now, it's on to other things.

don't believe me? read the first story and then get back to me