Book Review for Thread and Other Stories by Eric Halpenny
Thread and Other Stories, by Eric Halpenny, is a series of stories that illustrate different aspects of humanity, unified by a single conversation between an unnamed protagonist and a higher power.
The book has six stories. Thread is about three young children who struggle to survive in a cruel world, while learning how to rely on each other for comfort. Shrink describes a psychologist who is helping a soldier deal with severe psychological problems. Chance follows a young boy who contracts a doll out of hay, which unknowingly invites a witch onto his family’s home. Conflict is about two soldiers who decide to enlist in the army, both of whom have differing opinions on war’s purpose. Oversight is about two space archeologists who are studying the unknown, though soon, they are consumed by the fading boundary between reality and fiction. Perception is about a spy who struggles against his enemy, as he tries to survive a harsh reality where no one leaves with their innocence intact.
I loved the conversation between the protagonist and this higher being. At first, the protagonist came off as arrogant, but as more and more time past, the protagonist slowly began to warm up to this being. I particularly loved the statement, “I can wait”, which is both humorous and meaningful to me. The very sentence alone reflected my own relationship with religion, forcing me to think beyond my own prejudices and biases. With each story as well, Penny introduces a level of humanity that each person needs to deal with, alongside conflicts that the literary genre sometimes takes for granted. I’ve read many stories where humanity was characterized not as a group of individual thoughts, but as a whole being either bent of hatred, or as two thoughts fighting against one another. Perhaps the best thing that could be said about humanity it that whatever our ideas may be, we all try our best to live our own lives.
Because of this, I would give this book a rating of a 4.3 out of 5 stars. The stories were well written, as is the conversation between the protagonist and this higher power. As a whole, the story represented a more refreshing picture of humanity that, in the end, exposes us as imperfect beings that endeavor to live to the best of our ability. As such, I would recommend this book to fans of Abandoned Breaths by Alfa.
