Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours

Here's what we know about the narrator of the 14 stories that make up Goebel's debut: he's a Catholic boy from Ohio who moved to East Texas. He has a dog named Jewely, loves a woman named Catherine, and has lost a brother named Carl. The stories are raw footage of life in clever, contemporary idiom in which thoughts and feelings spill out onto the page uncurated. Goebel is clearly a very talented writer, and his experiment in this collection is noble. We know his narrator misses his beloved brother, "with a laugh like Christmas was today," but we catch such disparate glimpses of the rest of his life%E2%80%94snatches of memories of his love affair with Catherine (in the story "Boot of the Boot"), strange stories involving an eagle's feather ("The Adventures of Eagle Feather"), or a fierce man with half a hand ("Apache")%E2%80%94that nothing else much adds up. Even if the sum of this character's parts is compelling, there is in the end only a snappy voice-over, not a whole being to know or love. (Sept.)