Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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58 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'You were just around for a series of coincidences and then you died.', January 11, 2006
Christopher Meeks bounces onto the literary scene as a vibrant new voice filled with talent and imagination. THE MIDDLE-AGED MAN & THE SEA is one of the finer collection of short stories that will rapidly rise to the top to of the heap of a battery of fine writers of this difficult medium.
Meeks writes about all the little bumps and stumbling blocks we all face in our contemporary journey through life. His stories deal with broken marriages, fractured dreams, death, brain damage, isolation, envy, frustrated communication - all topics that hardly sound like fodder for interesting stories, but in Meeks' polished hands these topics become the conversation of life in society today. They contain keen humor, pain as well as tenderness, and insights into topics that most other writers consider taboo.
There isn't a weak story in the thirteen works here, most having been published in literary magazines prior to this book form. 'Green River' is a family outing that reveals the dissolution of companionship in a few terse pages. 'He's Home' is a quick tale of a man, probably cyclothymic or bipolar, bringing flowers home to his wife only to find she has left him: his response to this lonely discovery explains the probable reasons for her departure. Meeks is able to travel back in time to explore personal idiosyncrasies as in 'The Rotary' and in 'Dear Ma'. In the latter he also manages to take us inside the mind of a failing senile woman (?Alzheimer's victim?) and is written with such finesse and grace that we actually find ourselves thinking in the way Dear Ma's deteriorating mind works. It is a jewel of a story. 'The Fundamentals of Nuclear Dating' is a funny tale that holds a bite and says a lot about our 21st century computer driven dating (read data gathering) consequences. 'Engaging Ben' is as keen an observation of current bonding as any story out there. Et cetera for the rest of the tales.
The odd and strangely wonderful and unique aspect of these is not only the fine writing of a terrific wordsmith, it is also the fact that Meeks is asking us or inviting us to look at the darker things in our lives that go bump in the night. Life in Meeks' stories is full of random coincidences that, depending on our state of vulnerability vs our state of awareness, can either uncover hidden pain or turn on a light to illuminate the elected darkness in which we have chosen to live. He peoples his stories with variations of us and our extended family of humanity and turns us inside out, showing us how our microsecond of life on this planet can be a time of significance or inadvertently squandered.
Biting and sassy, eloquent and intelligent, this collection of short stories is excellent reading. Meeks knows his craft: these tiny microcosms of living offer proof that his novels, soon to come, will be works to watch. Very Highly Recommended.
Grady Harp, January 06
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Why can't all writers be like Christopher Meeks?, April 4, 2006
I'll admit that I'd started reading THE MIDDLE-AGED MAN AND THE SEA during an evening, becoming so engrossed in its chapters that I'd wanted to finish it off in one sitting. I couldn't -- Fairies and Dreamland were calling -- but that was the sole reason I hadn't.
Middle-aged Man is *that* compelling. Meeks has this uncanny ability to thrust you right into the center of his characters' sundry dilemmas, desires, and demands -- as if you're standing right there next to them, or sitting one bar stool over listening to their wonderful chats about wine, their musings about the wisdom of the next Shuttle launch, or their ebullient waxing about the velveteen smoothness of Breyer's coffee-flavored ice cream.
As an unrepentant reader, I simply crave books like Middle-aged Man. In general, I want my hard-copied prose to move me. I wish it to twist up my emotions up like a high-tensile spring, then tossing it hither-tither; only at the end to liberate it majestically, like the former occupation of Czechoslovakia: glorious, unencumbered, and free.
I'll only give you a smattering of Meeks' prosaic samples to whet your appetite:
"...a man who ran a steakhouse, but looked like he could run the country."
"...Californicated"
"...Plan your work, and work your plan."
Punctuated. Polished. Perfect!
Like I said, this is merely a smattering.
Within a compact 145 pp, Meeks manages to cram in a delectable smorgasbord of witty metaphors, sage middle-aged reflections, and the wisdom of a well-loved and well-lived man who possesses a depth well-beyond the deceptive chimera of a finite number of earth-years.
As I happily breezed through this read, pondering the magnitude of Meeks' mantra, I couldn't help but let a part of my mind drift towards what I staunchly felt was more than a handful of captivating film ideas. Producers? String a few of these stories together, and you've got the makings of the next MAGNOLIA. I digress...
I guess I can speak for most readers who are fatigued with all the spoonfed jujeune runaround which seems to adorn the spic-and-span oaken shelves of our box-store book emporia.
What we desperately need is more gritty, more hard-hitting, more so-viscerally-real-it-smarts copy that Meeks skillfully dishes up in this astounding collection of tales.
I'll certainly be keeping my eyes out for more from this scribe. In other words, count me in. Big time.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The art of storytelling, March 3, 2006
Christopher Meeks, author of several children's books as well as a playwright, has put together an interesting collection of short stories in 'The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea'. Meeks is a good storyteller, and draws on the ordinary and mundane and combines it with the sublime and esoteric in new and fascinating ways.
In the first story, there is a new look on envy and keeping up with the Jones, as a couple visits their neighbours for an Academy Award party, but find the grass-is-greener life in that house isn't in fact the perfect bliss one might hope for; in another story (the one that gives title to the collection), an ordinary fishing trip turns into a psychological trip as significant revelations are made that leave the characters at a want for words.
Most of the stories look toward a darker impulse, a foreboding or ominous presence, or some other indication of limitation and mortality. 'The Scent' explores in some ways the psychological power of the sense of smell, but also the ways in which decay comes into our lives on a larger level. One can get from these stories a sense of love and sense of loss, a feeling of hope and the stab of despair. A remarkable aspect of these stories is their subtlety - the stories don't jump out with neon signs signifying meaning, but rather let the meaning seep into the more-ordinary tasks and situations of life.
Meeks is a good narrative writer, equally adept at description as well as a conversation and explanation. Each story has engaging characters who are familiar, yet with significant attributes that make them interesting to follow. I kept finding myself wanting more from each story, which is the mark of good writing for me, that the well has not run dry.
I look forward to further writings by Christopher Meeks.
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