I am really not a big short story lover.  Evidently I am not alone since several authors have noted in interviews I have read recently that they get rather negative reactions from their fans when they talk about writing short stories. I think my main complaint is that it often it seems like the author wrote something and then after becoming stymied and uncertain about where to go with it, they just label it a short story. But the reader can instinctively tell when that happens. There is just something missing from it – a sense of completeness, if you will.

However in this collection of short stories by Johnson who wrote the Pulitzer prize winning book The Orphan Masters Son, you are in the hands of a masterful story teller. Every one of his stories is evocative and insightful and ends right where they need to end.  Johnson explores what it means to face into love and loss, the turmoil, both physical and emotional, that results from natural disasters, and how politics can often cripple our ability to see how we are becoming our worst selves.

In Nirvanna, a programmer tries to deal with his wife’s rare and debilitating illness and escapes from his current reality by talking to the digital simulacrum of the President of the Untied States which he has created.  Hurricanes Anonymous shows the chaos that occurred in the aftermath of that devastating twin disaster by following one young man and his son as the search for the boy’s mother.  George Orwell Was A Friend of Mine, is told from the perspective of a former Stasi guard who is unable to acknowledge what he did under East German rule, even though pieces of his past keep appearing on the lawn in front of his apartment in the former prison complex which has become a museum.  Finally in Fortune Smiles, Johnson returns to the topic of North Korea and explores how two refugees from the North and now living in the South are coping with the enormous changes they face.

This is a book to savour and enjoy, if only you can prevent yourself from gobbling it up! Johnson is probably one of the best American writers of our time and as another reviewer noted, “an indispensible guide to our new century.”

Brenda’s Rating: ***** (5 out of 5 Stars) 

Recommend this book to: Keith, Ken, Marian, Lauren and Sharon

Book Study Worthy? YES!

Read in ebook format

Pulitzer Prize winner