cover image All the Lonely People

All the Lonely People

David B. Silva, . . Delirium, $16.95 (204pp) ISBN 978-1-929653-96-6

Lost time and stolen memories make life difficult for a bar's patrons in this slim volume from prolific editor Silva (Post Mortem ). Strangers rarely visit the Last Stop, a mom-and-pop establishment with a steady flow of regulars and almost no other customers, so when an old man with an oddly carved box drops by and barely touches his beer, his presence draws notice. Then the box opens, the room spins, and everyone present descends into madness. Bar owner Chase Hanford struggles particularly hard as pieces of his life are stripped from his memory; he leaves himself notes and photographs, but he's impeded by his deteriorating mental state and the nightmarish “stragglers” that haunt and threaten to consume him. Due largely to Chase's dwindling sanity, the story topples into a loose assortment of bland, disconnected vignettes, leaving readers as confused as the characters. (July)