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Stories from the Blue Moon Cafe III

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Like the previous volumes of short stories by Southern writers, this anthology is packed with short stories and poems from below the Mason-Dixon Line. All of the stories have those Southern roots in common, the culture that influenced the memories and creative energies of these writers.

Some of the authors are quite familiar, some not, but all have a truth to tell and most perform an admirable job of storytelling, selected through the diligence of editor Sonny Brewer, who offers an introduction that aptly sets the mood, as Brewer strolls the streets of New Orleans. At times uneven, the stories range from good to excellent. It is those small gems that jump out at the reader that make this anthology such a pleasure. All the stores are of above average quality, but there are a few that reach deeper, taking chances with the material.

Because these writers are rooted in the South, race underlies everything, if not explicitly in the story, then through the scenes and dialog, the exchanges between whites and blacks. There is subtle acknowledgement that things have changed forever and there is no going back, regardless of nostalgia for the good old days. But the most attractive aspect of these stories is that each author speaks his truth unflinchingly, be it pleasant or ugly. Reality is not a commodity these Southerners fear; in fact they embrace it, truth a vehicle to understanding.

Tales range from fading Southern belles to dirt-poor families who live from hand to mouth in the relentless grip of poverty, where lack breeds its own kind of discontent regardless of skin color; the inevitable loss of a aging loved ones, love's constant betrayal and the conflicts that arise in life's everyday challenges. Some stories are shocking and memorable, others, sweet vignettes of a past lost years ago, but all share the common values of ordinary people, both good and evil. In a paean to humanity at its best and worst with a southern twist, Stories from the Blue Moon Cafe III evokes a bittersweet angst of a way of life so deeply embedded in a culture that its memory shrouds the future still. Luan Gaines/2004