cover image Wearing Dad's Head: A Collection of Short-Short Stories

Wearing Dad's Head: A Collection of Short-Short Stories

Barry Yourgrau. Peregrine Smith Books, $7.95 (128pp) ISBN 978-0-87905-283-6

In his latest collection of darkly humorous and imaginative short stories, Yourgrau takes readers on a wild trip through the subconscious. His dreamlike sketches are vivid and intimate explorations of universal fears and fantasies. In ""Cleavage,'' a boy watches anxiously as his father is transformed into a ``full-figured'' blonde ``bombshell'' at the dinner table. In ``Oasis,'' a sentry guarding a harem gets an ``unauthorized'' but ``wonderful'' view of sexual couplings inside the Sultan's conjugal tent. The author also brilliantly portrays the love-hate relationship between fathers and sons. In ``Story,'' a boy falls down the stairs after being hit by his fatherwho later helps him recover and tells a tale about ``two valiant soldiers. . . . The young one wounded the other, who loves him, in order to be able to nurse him.'' Although several stories, like ``In the Jungle,'' appear unfinished and ambiguous, this is generally an intriguing collection. (September)