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A review by katieparker
Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day by Ben Loory
3.0
UFOs and octopi and talking heads, oh my! The cover of Ben Loory’s Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day is what first drew me to the book, and after reading the review by Unabridged Chick, I knew I needed to download it right then. Inside are forty short (and I mean short) stories about everything from love to revenge and discovery to loss, usually using unexpected subjects.
My favorite story was probably “The House on the Cliff and the Sea,” in which the house and the sea fall in love with each other and try to be together. While the sea struggles to climb the cliff-face, the house tidies up inside to make the sea feel at home. I won’t spoil the outcome, but I will say it was satisfying, which is something I couldn’t say for many of Loory’s stories.
I’ll admit I’m not much of a connoisseur of short stories, but the endings of many of these felt abrupt and vague. I don’t need to be spoon fed the author’s intentions, but I just didn’t get a lot of these. One example is “The Tunnel,” in which a boy ventures into a drainpipe, leaving his friend behind. He eventually reaches the end where there is a door, and when he opens it up, he sees his friend asleep in his room. His friend sees him and screams, and “so the boy reaches out with one gnarled, twisted claw. Together the two boys reach the end.” I don’t even know what happened, much less what it means, and that was a common feeling that I had while reading this book.
Still, I enjoyed the use of fantastical subjects, like martians, animals, and even an opera-loving television set. I read this book while I was on a mini vacation on Washington’s Orcas Island with some friends, and occasionally I would have to read a passage to them, either because it was so amusing or so crazy.
If you’re just looking for something quick and easy to read, maybe something a little fun, then this is a good option. It’s certainly not a new favorite, and I’m a little hesitant to recommend it to a wider audience, but it has its merits and I can see how others might like it more than I did.
And, in case you’re wondering, the stories I liked the most were…
The House on the Cliff and the Sea
UFO: A Love Story
The Girl in the Storm
The Man and the Moose
The Shadow (the shortest, at only 21 words long)
Appendix (which is apparently not one of the other short stories)
My favorite story was probably “The House on the Cliff and the Sea,” in which the house and the sea fall in love with each other and try to be together. While the sea struggles to climb the cliff-face, the house tidies up inside to make the sea feel at home. I won’t spoil the outcome, but I will say it was satisfying, which is something I couldn’t say for many of Loory’s stories.
I’ll admit I’m not much of a connoisseur of short stories, but the endings of many of these felt abrupt and vague. I don’t need to be spoon fed the author’s intentions, but I just didn’t get a lot of these. One example is “The Tunnel,” in which a boy ventures into a drainpipe, leaving his friend behind. He eventually reaches the end where there is a door, and when he opens it up, he sees his friend asleep in his room. His friend sees him and screams, and “so the boy reaches out with one gnarled, twisted claw. Together the two boys reach the end.” I don’t even know what happened, much less what it means, and that was a common feeling that I had while reading this book.
Still, I enjoyed the use of fantastical subjects, like martians, animals, and even an opera-loving television set. I read this book while I was on a mini vacation on Washington’s Orcas Island with some friends, and occasionally I would have to read a passage to them, either because it was so amusing or so crazy.
If you’re just looking for something quick and easy to read, maybe something a little fun, then this is a good option. It’s certainly not a new favorite, and I’m a little hesitant to recommend it to a wider audience, but it has its merits and I can see how others might like it more than I did.
And, in case you’re wondering, the stories I liked the most were…
The House on the Cliff and the Sea
UFO: A Love Story
The Girl in the Storm
The Man and the Moose
The Shadow (the shortest, at only 21 words long)
Appendix (which is apparently not one of the other short stories)