A Waste of Shame and Other Sad Tales of the Appalachian Foothills

by Geoffrey Smagacz

As the Russian great Anton Chekov infamously noted, when a loaded rifle appears on page one, it absolutely must go off. In A Waste of Shame Geoffrey Smagacz does not ignore this dramatic principle. Before the last page is turned, someone sadly pulls the trigger. Smagacz debuts a short novel and an accompanying collection of short stories written in a vein that carries the blood of Hemingway, Wodehouse, West, and Sherwood Anderson. Enter a small town where tragedy collides with fish fry cooks, soap-opera addicts, and the convenient but strained friendships of youth. Minimalist through and through, this is literary fiction that scrupulously avoids being literary.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 25, 2013

Reviews

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book.
A Waste of Shame perfectly describes how mind blowingly numbing rural life can be. I know, I've lived there. You could spend your whole life looking for something exciting or even a literate conversation.
The stories after the first one became so beautifully, lucidly, imaginatively real they were breathtaking. and the prose, oh the prose
Highly recommended

[Valerie Ci · Rating 5 out of 5]

With simple, elegant language -- language pared down to only the right word -- the novel A Waste of Shame draws the reader into the stark world of going nowhere. We meet a post-high school group of friends trapped in the small town they grew up in. The drama begins in the very first paragraph and holds on to the very last word. There is a sense that life has already happened for the characters in this novel. It doesn't get any better; it doesn't get any worse. Everyone is trapped. Kevin, the narrator, lives at home with his mother and younger brother. He works a dead-end job at a local chain restaurant. This is his world. And yet he is a messenger of hope for the people he knows. He has taken some college courses; he has a chance to escape. There is an underlying envy of this loser nerd. That he might get away. The novel is dialogue driven with very little description. It's characters are vividly defined by their words and their actions. It moves like a play relentlessly toward the final scene. Alas, the final scene leaves the reader believing that these people are doomed to relive the same drama tomorrow.

[Noah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars really. I enjoyed reading it; felt like I was reading the beginning of a good novelists career. Maybe woulda been 4 stars but it did feel a little too much like short stories strung together, and it had a short story ending. But I'll read whatever he writes next.

[Brenda Schneider · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story was ok. Interesting to have a novel with short stories included. I won this book through goodreads.

[Karen Carroll]

Probably one of the worst books I've ever read. In addition, like many B movies, it gives readers a very negative opinion of a particular group of people as a whole.

[Charles Sauer · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the interest of full disclosure - I won a free copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway.

The novel/novella after which the book takes its title makes up the bulk of the work. It is a tale of a circle of young people, trapped in a small town, seemingly doomed to live and relive sad episodes that largely focus on who is sleeping with whom and on the threads upon which friends and family relationships are built and broken. I can't say that I found it very appealing. The author is able to capture a high degree of verisimilitude, but I'm guessing this is gained from actual experience. I started out life in such a place and can vouch for the reality of the painful, inane dramas that make up much of this existence. That being said, Smagacz doesn't bring anything new to the table. There is no insight nor observation that invites us into the characters' inner world or finds any particular value or lesson in their suffering. In fact, I found myself wanting to flee from all of them. It was a real task to finish this part of the book.

The real entertainment and literary value of this book lies in the vignettes after the novel. It is here where Smagacz finds his real voice. With colorful turns of phrase and a true sense for the ironic and perverse dimensions of life, he offers quickly sketched characters who, all the same, manage to shine in the narrow slices of life in which we see them. His ruminations in the author's voice also offer some succinct and piercing observations worthy of further development. Pages 143-181 almost make up for pages 3-139.

Overall, I would recommend passing over the novel portion of a "A Waste of Shame" and cutting directly to the meat of the book, the short essays and observations. Worthy of the title, these vignettes show Smagacz at his best.