Customer Reviews

Where the Money Went: Stories

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I first fell under Kevin Canty's spell after reading `Winslow in Love'. Since then, I've read everything he writes.

His newest book, `Where the Money Went', is a collection of nine short stories. Almost all of them are about damaged people, the precariousness of life and happiness, what it feels like to be dispossessed, lonely or disenfranchised, and the role of alcohol in the aforementioned.

My favorite story in the collection, by far, is `No Place in This World for You'. It is about a couple that has a little boy who bites. The boy bites rarely, but for reasons. As the story opens he has just been expelled from his day care program for biting. Neither parent can get a handle on their son or his biting. Mom is more interested in keeping in shape and exercising, not wanting to spend time with her son. Dad is a realtor who takes his son with him when he goes to show houses, setting him up with his own videos in a back room.

The collection starts off with `Where the Money Went', a very short story about the dissolution of a marriage. The husband is looking back at his marriage with anger and wondering where all the money went. `The Emperor of Ice Cream' is about two brothers who see each other for the first time following a terrible car accident that occurred about two months previously. One of the brothers was driving and escaped the accident uninjured. The other brother has been injured terribly and has spent the time since the accident in a nursing home.

In `In the Burn', a young boy finds a dog in a burnt forest where his mother's boyfriend works. His mother and her boyfriend are splitting up and the young boy feels lost and alone. `They were Expendable' is a powerful story about a man who has been grieving the death of his love for the last year. He gradually tries to enter the world of the living and connect with others. Themes of the other stories encompass loneliness, alienation, secrets in marriage and lost people. In `The Boreal Forest', Canty uses secrets in a marriage as a metaphor for the unknown and frightening occurrences in the natural world.

Canty's stories are often metaphorical or allegorical, laying out situations that appear simple at first but are frequently deeper and more complex than what they first appear to be. I especially appreciate the way that Canty creates situations primarily through dialogue and almost always from the male point of view. His stories are not happy ones, nor are they light. However, they are filled with the stuff of life, often the unhappy stuff. Despite unhappiness and challenges, the human spirit usually prevails.

"Where the Money Went" (the story) is a truly brilliant three-page story. It is the first story in the colllection and sets the reader up for a wonderful reading journey. Unfortunately, there are some bumps along the way. The second story, "The Emperor of Ice Cream," is also a great story, one of those dysfunctional family types but with a sort-of modern Cain and Abel theme. I say sort-of because the narrator had not intended to harm his brother but is living with the guilt he feels for what happened. A truly existential story. I will skip "In the Burn" because it really did not do much. But "No Place in This World for You" is wonderful, the story of a couple with a four-year-old son who has anger issues. The family essentially choses to ignore Walter and the damage he causes to others. The narrator (the father) is a realtor while the mother is much more interested in keeping her body toned than in dealing with her child. They pawn Walter off on each other. A sad statement, but one any reader can identify with. I also like "The Birthday Girl." All his characters are sad beings, unable to connect with others. Existential all the way.

Ofcourse one should support local booksellers as they are to be preferred instead of virtual shops.
In a fysical shop you can browse, see, feel touch, smell the book, read a bit in it.
In this case I expected the book to be more bigger. But no problem.
Having said (written) that. I searched in English bookshops in Amsterdam but just could not find it...

Better than average collection of writing with a "true-to-life" feel and realistic dialogue. Covers a wide range of characters and situations symptomatic of the quandries of modern life. All told, I enjoyed eight of the nine stories-- which is a pretty good percentage in my experience.