cover image The Palmer Method: Stories

The Palmer Method: Stories

E. S. Goldman. John Daniel & Company Books, $22.95 (320pp) ISBN 978-1-880284-16-2

These genuine stories take their time, but their meandering pace is often the point. Many of Goldman's (Big Chocolate Cookies) tales end up at a remove from where they begin. A man trying to recall ``that word they use in Mexico for a shawl'' starts with ``tortilla'' and, in the process, accidentally tells a ghost story, among other things. Things backfire: Lowry Greither attempts to create a myth around himself and ends up in jail in a foreign country. Angry with his wife for an affair, Clay Carter adds an unknown, deceased woman to his will and backdates the codicil, figuring it will anger his wife without hurting her financially--but things don't turn out that way. A few of the more straightforward stories are so sincere and traditionally structured that they edge close to popular magazine fiction. An American and his British wife, Audace, shock a business associate and his snobbish spouse when Audace reminisces with her childhood friend ``Lillo,'' Elizabeth II. A father astonishes his young son by pretending to change the traffic lights on Third Avenue by magic, then warms when he hears that his son has performed the same trick with his own child. Although of lesser quality, these simpler stories have an old-fashioned tone that makes them work. (Sept.)