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apostrophen's review
5.0
"Intricacies of Departure," by William Sterling Walker
This is the first tale from Desire: Tales of New Orleans and if this tale is any indication, I'm going to really enjoy this anthology. Here we have a pair of men who are meeting in a way that's unusual and random - the narrator notices this man trying to shoplift a book, and on a whim decides to help him get away with it. That chance encounter turns into something less than a relationship and more than mere acquaintance, and as the narrator learns of this man's desire to go back to New Orleans (though he seems powerless to actually do this), there's a resonance with the way the narrator feels about parts of his life now that his lover has passed.
There's a reality to these two men that was immediate and powerful - they were people I somehow instantly knew and connected with, even before they had names or pasts, and that's a trick I don't see pulled off well that often. On the cover of this book, [a:Alexander Chee|158735|Alexander Chee|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1185550140p2/158735.jpg] calls this book "A welcome heir to [a:Ethan Mordden|51482|Ethan Mordden|https://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-e89fc14c32a41c0eb4298dfafe929b65.png]'s classic [b:Buddies|229475|Buddies|Ethan Mordden|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327888709s/229475.jpg|222224]." I find myself - only one story in - agreeing. I hope to visit these characters again before the collection closes.
"Aubade," by William Sterling Walker
The second story in Desire: Tales of New Orleans evokes the city from the first word. The scents, the weather, the food, the tastes and drinks - New Orleans comes alive in "Aubade," and the reader is introduced to this city by the collision between a man who lives there, and his cousin from San Francisco.
Walker's characters blur all sorts of lines - between the man and his lover, between the man and his cousin, between art and reality, and between what should be and what is. This is the core of the story - these three men, and I don't want to ruin anything by explaining anything more. Avoiding spoilers aside, this tale was freaking smart, and walked one hell of a line.
"Two Lives," by WIlliam Sterling Walker
This story, from Desire: Tales of New Orleans, is what got me thinking about monsters and how I think of illnesses like Alzheimer's. The story itself has a simple enough premise - a man, and his mother who he has had committed due to her illness, and the effect on his life, and the way he connects with other people thereafter.
It's not an easy story, but the sense of reality that it brings to the reader makes it so easy to have empathy for him. Most of us know someone - or have at least a one-degree-separation - who has a degenerative disease. The thoughts that run through the mind of this man as he wonders about his own future made me shiver beneath my skin.
"Odd Fellows Rest," by William Sterling Walker
This next story from Desire: Tales of New Orleans is this wonderful character piece. I connected with this character immediately - a clerk at a store who learns and memorizes bits and pieces of the lives he brushes with on a daily basis. There's a beautiful ache to this character, who writes notes to himself, smokes only when he drinks coffee, and has a narrative inside him that was touching and calm and a bit sad and sweet all at once.
New Orleans is alive and bright on the page here, from the taste of chicory to the cadence of the language, and a lovely bit of geography dashed in that was familiar enough to me to make me smile.
The more I read this book, the more I want to savor it.
"Farewell to Wise's," by William Sterling Walker
Every time I go to New Orleans, I go to the Clover Grill. It's a wonderful 24 hour diner, and it serves the best damned breakfast I've had anywhere. Also hubcap burgers. Really, it's not New Orleans for me until I visit there - and it's funny, but I don't have a place like that here in Ottawa - there's no one "spot" that I go to all the time that it would really sadden me to see go. I used to feel that way about the Elgin Street Diner when I was in university, but it isn't a place I really visit any more.
That's the sense drawn from this story from Desire: Tales of New Orleans, and two men who - when one buys a car - decide to visit a restaurant they used to frequent more often in their younger days. What follows is part nostalgia and part realization that it might be time to move on. But the trouble with memories and the past is that so often there's conflict with the present day, and things, people, and places have a habit of changing.
This was a gentle story that packed a surprising amount of emotion at its core.
"Menuetto," by William Sterling Walker
Speaking of endings, there's a lovely feeling of the penultimate to this tale, which is full of a gritty reality, a harsh emotional honesty, and still - somehow, among all that edge - a gentle loving friendship between two men. Told in a hospital visit in two parts, these friends have a conversation. One is ill, the other isn't pulling punches, and as memories are brought forward, held, hidden, and retold.
Neither of them are entirely likeable, but I found myself drawn to them nonetheless. Like in all the stories in Desire: Tales of New Orleans, William Sterling Walker breathes such life into the characters that you are drawn in completely. This is short fiction at its best, folks, and every tale just strengthens that conviction.
"Fin de Siècle," by William Sterling Walker
This story saw fit to break my heart. Like many of the tales in Desire: Tales of New Orleans, the emotional edge is just an inch away from raw. The main character here is returning to New Orleans after the death of a loved one. He meets up with a singer he knew back from when he, she, his lover, and their friends were still alive and it's the mix of their conversation and admissions to each other, as well as memories replaying, that spin this bittersweet story into the reader's heart.
Now if you'll excuse me, there's some ache in my heart matching that ache in my back.
"Risk Factors," by William Sterling Walker
Desire: Tales of New Orleans ends with this short story. Now, having been in anthologies - and on good enough terms with the editors to ask blunt questions - I know how hard it is to choose an order for tales, and how important it is as well. Will the starting tale represent the whole well enough and invite a reader to keep going if they read a paragraph or two in the store before deciding whether or not to buy it? Is there enough variance and emotional cadence in the arrangement of the stories to still surprise and delight the reader and make them want to keep going? Does the final story leave the reader pausing, not quite wanting to close the book, but ultimately satisfied (and ready to tell others to make the same journey)?
Rest assured, Desire hit all of these points. It's all the more astounding to me that all of these tales came from one person - I'm in genuine awe of my betters, and William Sterling Walker evokes very different voices, while holding to his theme. This last voice, in this last tale, is a perfect example of that - a married man, by most accounts straight, hard-working and teetering on the edge of the dot-com collapse, who is just maybe flirting with blurring some of the lines he has drawn in his life and around who he is.
Desire itself is treated in so many ways within this one story - not to mention the collection as a whole - and I did indeed close this book with that odd feeling of contentment and sadness you get when you've finished a great anthology. I will definitely be on the lookout for more William Sterling Walker.
This is the first tale from Desire: Tales of New Orleans and if this tale is any indication, I'm going to really enjoy this anthology. Here we have a pair of men who are meeting in a way that's unusual and random - the narrator notices this man trying to shoplift a book, and on a whim decides to help him get away with it. That chance encounter turns into something less than a relationship and more than mere acquaintance, and as the narrator learns of this man's desire to go back to New Orleans (though he seems powerless to actually do this), there's a resonance with the way the narrator feels about parts of his life now that his lover has passed.
There's a reality to these two men that was immediate and powerful - they were people I somehow instantly knew and connected with, even before they had names or pasts, and that's a trick I don't see pulled off well that often. On the cover of this book, [a:Alexander Chee|158735|Alexander Chee|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1185550140p2/158735.jpg] calls this book "A welcome heir to [a:Ethan Mordden|51482|Ethan Mordden|https://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-e89fc14c32a41c0eb4298dfafe929b65.png]'s classic [b:Buddies|229475|Buddies|Ethan Mordden|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327888709s/229475.jpg|222224]." I find myself - only one story in - agreeing. I hope to visit these characters again before the collection closes.
"Aubade," by William Sterling Walker
The second story in Desire: Tales of New Orleans evokes the city from the first word. The scents, the weather, the food, the tastes and drinks - New Orleans comes alive in "Aubade," and the reader is introduced to this city by the collision between a man who lives there, and his cousin from San Francisco.
Walker's characters blur all sorts of lines - between the man and his lover, between the man and his cousin, between art and reality, and between what should be and what is. This is the core of the story - these three men, and I don't want to ruin anything by explaining anything more. Avoiding spoilers aside, this tale was freaking smart, and walked one hell of a line.
"Two Lives," by WIlliam Sterling Walker
This story, from Desire: Tales of New Orleans, is what got me thinking about monsters and how I think of illnesses like Alzheimer's. The story itself has a simple enough premise - a man, and his mother who he has had committed due to her illness, and the effect on his life, and the way he connects with other people thereafter.
It's not an easy story, but the sense of reality that it brings to the reader makes it so easy to have empathy for him. Most of us know someone - or have at least a one-degree-separation - who has a degenerative disease. The thoughts that run through the mind of this man as he wonders about his own future made me shiver beneath my skin.
"Odd Fellows Rest," by William Sterling Walker
This next story from Desire: Tales of New Orleans is this wonderful character piece. I connected with this character immediately - a clerk at a store who learns and memorizes bits and pieces of the lives he brushes with on a daily basis. There's a beautiful ache to this character, who writes notes to himself, smokes only when he drinks coffee, and has a narrative inside him that was touching and calm and a bit sad and sweet all at once.
New Orleans is alive and bright on the page here, from the taste of chicory to the cadence of the language, and a lovely bit of geography dashed in that was familiar enough to me to make me smile.
The more I read this book, the more I want to savor it.
"Farewell to Wise's," by William Sterling Walker
Every time I go to New Orleans, I go to the Clover Grill. It's a wonderful 24 hour diner, and it serves the best damned breakfast I've had anywhere. Also hubcap burgers. Really, it's not New Orleans for me until I visit there - and it's funny, but I don't have a place like that here in Ottawa - there's no one "spot" that I go to all the time that it would really sadden me to see go. I used to feel that way about the Elgin Street Diner when I was in university, but it isn't a place I really visit any more.
That's the sense drawn from this story from Desire: Tales of New Orleans, and two men who - when one buys a car - decide to visit a restaurant they used to frequent more often in their younger days. What follows is part nostalgia and part realization that it might be time to move on. But the trouble with memories and the past is that so often there's conflict with the present day, and things, people, and places have a habit of changing.
This was a gentle story that packed a surprising amount of emotion at its core.
"Menuetto," by William Sterling Walker
Speaking of endings, there's a lovely feeling of the penultimate to this tale, which is full of a gritty reality, a harsh emotional honesty, and still - somehow, among all that edge - a gentle loving friendship between two men. Told in a hospital visit in two parts, these friends have a conversation. One is ill, the other isn't pulling punches, and as memories are brought forward, held, hidden, and retold.
Neither of them are entirely likeable, but I found myself drawn to them nonetheless. Like in all the stories in Desire: Tales of New Orleans, William Sterling Walker breathes such life into the characters that you are drawn in completely. This is short fiction at its best, folks, and every tale just strengthens that conviction.
"Fin de Siècle," by William Sterling Walker
This story saw fit to break my heart. Like many of the tales in Desire: Tales of New Orleans, the emotional edge is just an inch away from raw. The main character here is returning to New Orleans after the death of a loved one. He meets up with a singer he knew back from when he, she, his lover, and their friends were still alive and it's the mix of their conversation and admissions to each other, as well as memories replaying, that spin this bittersweet story into the reader's heart.
Now if you'll excuse me, there's some ache in my heart matching that ache in my back.
"Risk Factors," by William Sterling Walker
Desire: Tales of New Orleans ends with this short story. Now, having been in anthologies - and on good enough terms with the editors to ask blunt questions - I know how hard it is to choose an order for tales, and how important it is as well. Will the starting tale represent the whole well enough and invite a reader to keep going if they read a paragraph or two in the store before deciding whether or not to buy it? Is there enough variance and emotional cadence in the arrangement of the stories to still surprise and delight the reader and make them want to keep going? Does the final story leave the reader pausing, not quite wanting to close the book, but ultimately satisfied (and ready to tell others to make the same journey)?
Rest assured, Desire hit all of these points. It's all the more astounding to me that all of these tales came from one person - I'm in genuine awe of my betters, and William Sterling Walker evokes very different voices, while holding to his theme. This last voice, in this last tale, is a perfect example of that - a married man, by most accounts straight, hard-working and teetering on the edge of the dot-com collapse, who is just maybe flirting with blurring some of the lines he has drawn in his life and around who he is.
Desire itself is treated in so many ways within this one story - not to mention the collection as a whole - and I did indeed close this book with that odd feeling of contentment and sadness you get when you've finished a great anthology. I will definitely be on the lookout for more William Sterling Walker.
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