cover image Puzzling Through the News: Stories

Puzzling Through the News: Stories

Pat Rushin. Galileo Press, $11.95 (126pp) ISBN 978-0-913123-33-1

While some of the stories in this debut collection show traces of writing-class experimentation (one contains dialogue written without quotation marks) and some feature endings that are so enigmatic as to be arch, others are hard-hitting, lingering in the reader's memory. ``No Visitors,'' a poignant tale told in an effective, flattened style, describes a crusty old man and his exasperated son as they try to regain their lost closeness. In the unflinching ``Summer Rape Tally Hits Record High,'' a crime victim discovers pk an iconoclastic way to cope with her secret trauma. ``Young and Attractive Suicidal Romantic Seeks Help'' chillingly depicts a young woman wounded by her father's long-ago suicide. Most of the stories, though, treat such themes as the conflicted feelings of young couples as they work to advance or change careers, find themselves attracted to people other than their spouses and dream of impending parenthood. Rushin illuminates issues not by offering solutions, but by presenting his tales with uncommon clarity. (July)