cover image The Harry and Sylvia Stories

The Harry and Sylvia Stories

Welch Everman. Sun & Moon, $12.95 (160pp) ISBN 978-1-55713-052-5

Everman's debut short-fiction collection explores various relationships between contemporary men and women, all of them named Harry and Sylvia. In some of the pieces, Harry and Sylvia encounter each other for the first time. In others, Sylvia and Harry have divorced or split up. In still others, Sylvia is nothing but a figment of Harry's imagination, his wished-for ideal lifemate. In nearly all of these situations, Harry goes to some sort of extreme. In one story, for instance, he buys several pets and names them all Sylvia in an attempt to replace a Sylvia who has divorced him. Another episode has Harry on the telephone non-stop for several days, waiting for Sylvia to pick up at the other end. In one of the few stories where the usually absent Sylvia actually appears, Harry builds for himself a treehouse and reaffirms in the process his simple love for her. In one of the oddest stories, Harry breaks into the apartment of a Sylvia who has jilted him and he makes plans to take up phantom residence in her broom closet. Throughout, Everman provides consistent portrayals of Harrys at various levels of obsession over Sylvias. This strange book, with its themes of romance, separation, and desperate loneliness, provides lightly provocative reading. (Feb.)