Mitchell Waldman's Blog: New Writing/Reviews, page 7

Sample PETTY OFFENSES FOR FREE

Now, if you have a Kindle, you can get a free sample of my short story collection, PETTY OFFENSES AND CRIMES OF THE HEART on Amazon. If you like it, you can buy it for UNDER 5 BUCKS!

Stories of ordinary people engaged in ordinary lives until betrayals, accidents, and misfortune put the puzzles of their weak choices and unfair chance into stark relief, leaving them with a kind of clarity they may have been happier not to have. Threads of danger and emotional trauma run through the stories in this collection. In crime, love, marriage, or friendship, it's the little things that matter most. It's the small betrayals or mistakes that often result in our downfall. Among the fourteen stories in this collection is the 2013 Pushcart Prize nominated story, "The Duke of Broad Street."

These stories startle with sudden, uncompromising insight. They seem ordinary people engaged in ordinary lives until betrayals, accidents and misfortune put the puzzles of their weak choices and unfair chance into stark relief when they are left with a kind of clarity they might have been happier not to have. -- Perry Glasser, author, Dangerous Places

Faulkner said that an author's job is to make the extraordinary seem ordinary and to make the ordinary seem extraordinary, and in Petty Offenses this is what Waldman accomplishes. While reading the stories you may wonder "Is there any place safe to go?," but you will be glad that you spent time in Waldman's world. -- Cybersoleil Journal

The stories in Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart leave the reader wondering who is the real criminal. . . .These characters have something to share -- something profound, something personal, and something that reveals a little about ourselves. -- TCM Reviews
Beautifully crafted stories .... "Missing Pieces"...is an example of Waldman's versatility as a writer. . .Each of these stories can be read as self-contained compositions but I would recommend you read them in sequence to experience the themes to unfold as most satisfyingly do. -- Dean Cowan for Bookpleasures.com

In [his] collection of short fiction...Mitchell Waldman talks on many topics throughout recent history and the struggles to understand an impossible to understand world. With poignancy and wisdom peppered throughout, Petty Offenses & Crimes of the Heart is a read that is well worth considering, highly recommended. -- Midwest Book Review

In Mitchell Waldman's PETTY OFFENSES AND CRIMES OF THE HEART, subtle paradoxes and paradigmatic shifts undermine the reader's sense of stable themes. As one example, "The Nazi Next Door" explores the relationship between two neighbors, the first our narrator and descendent of death-sentenced Jews, and the other, Borglund, the son of a Nazi collaborator. The narrator begins leaving poison-hearted gifts at Borglund's door, hoping to inflict shame upon a conscience he imagines as being free of guilt. Instead, the narrator shifts reader sympathy towards Borglund. In the final transition, a conversation reveals to both that, "thrown into the world" from the same historical events that bind their lives in opposite ways, only empathy lies in the void between them. In reaching this and other conclusions, Waldman's writing stays tight, even concise, and by not calling attention to itself all the more reveals everyday life as taking place on a far grander scale than we imagine.
-- Paul A. Toth, author of the 9-11 based AIRPLANE NOVEL

Waldman gives the reader a full buffet of crimes and offenses; from large to small, physical to mental and subtle to spectacular. There's something to chew on and sink your teeth into.
--Timothy Gager, author of TREATING A SICK ANIMAL: FLASH AND MICRO FICTIONS

CHECK IT OUT AT AMAZON: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005TUBR62

I was 21 (or 22) years old in New York City for the first time...

I was a Chicago boy, very impressionable. Read about it in my poem at The Piker Press:
New York City, 1979: A Collage

New Review of Petty Offenses and Crimes of the Heart

Thanks to Hardy Jones and Cybersoleil for the excellent new review of my story collection, Petty Offenses & Crimes of the Heart (Wind Publications, 2011), in which hardy says, in part, that:

"At the end of the story 'Bad Neighborhood,' the narrator asks, Is there any place safe to go?, and after reading the book you will feel the same. Waldman’s stories present characters ranging from the descendants of Holocaust survivors to small time thieves to distraught lovers, and while there is pain in these stories, there is always the possibility of redemption...William Faulkner said that an author’s job is to make the extraordinary seem ordinary and to make the ordinary seem extraordinary, and in Petty Offenses & Crimes of the Heart this is what Waldman accomplishes. While reading the stories you may wonder 'Is there any place safe to go?,' but you will be glad that you spent time in Waldman’s world."

You can check the whole review out at:
http://www.cybersoleiljournal.com/ind...

Thanks for looking!

Mitchell Waldman