Review of According to Adam compiled and edited by Beryl Belsky
Beryl Belsky, the owner of The Writer’s Drawer website, and compiler and editor of the book, According to Adam, is an academic editor and writer. She has pulled together twenty tales from writers around the world, and has done an outstanding job. All the stories are first-rate.
In “The Affair,”a rendezvous is recounted long years after the fact in aching detail — a man and woman, not married to each other, meet for one glorious day at a resort on Mount Tambourine in Australia. The ending is bittersweet, and I won’t give it away, but there is one touching passage I want to highlight from the story:
“What do I see ahead now? For me there is no blackness, no rebirth, just an eternity of nothingness interrupted by a wonderful moment of sentience.”
In a story from India, “A Tale from Ikkapur,” a woman on the way to visit her mother, with two small children in tow, must endure a dusty four-hour bus trip. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to her, the mother dies during preparation to meet her daughter and grandchildren. There are yet two more twists to this story, however, that leave the reader a little shaken. It too has a memorable passage:
“The funeral pyre was all burnt out, leaving only a few dying embers. The wisps of smoke rising from them created velvety curtains in the dusk. The unusual calm was deafening.”
In a story from Israel, “A Boy, a Girl, and the Sea,” a woman looks back fondly on her memories of an unconsummated teenage love. “Beyond the village is the Mediterranean Sea. I envy the Sea its coolness on this hot August day.”
In “Sign Language for the Blind,”a much-loved but taciturn grandfather who hangs himself is remembered years later: “Our world’s were separated by a fixed and impassable gulf that cut us off from him more surely than an iron-studded brick wall could have done.”
“Rain,” a reminiscence from Canberra, Australia, chronicles the dilemma of a farmstead locked in a drought 2,000 days long. It cannot deliver itself from foreclosure, and the owner hangs himself, overwrought with guilt and shame. His young son tries to sleep the night before the funeral. “It was a restless and disturbed slumber, full of dust and despair.”
“The Sleep of Reason” examines what may happen to you if you choose cryogenic sleep over cancer treatment, reasoning that a cure will be discovered by the time you wake up. “He finally distinguished the faces of those around: shapeless bulbs with disgusting fringes of flaccid flesh, hanging over things that could be eyes, or mouths, or beaks, or something else.” Deliciously creepy.
This fine collection of short stories is an international celebration of the craft of writing, and the editor deserves kudos for bringing them together.
You can also view our review of the first book in the series here
