"There’s a brutal beauty to Tom's ability to drop all his armour and present emotionally intense stories filled with warmth, humour, and carnality on the edge of an abyss."
Each of the short stories in 'Alcoves Inside the Lining' focus on 11 people living very different lives, facing life-changing conflicts, the kind each of us will find ourselves embroiled in during our own lives. From a man lost in himself who seeks out a woman he once dated after seeing her in his store ('The Middle'), a photographer who lived his life through the people in front of his camera now finding himself without identity ('I'm not there'), to an older man dealing with his wife's ever-deepening dementia ('Take me home'), at it's heart 'Alcoves Inside the Lining' is about being human and the conflicts we face along the paths of our lives, no matter who we are.
'Alcoves inside the lining' also features a preface from Dave Louden, author of Lost Angeles, Bone Idol and White Mexicans.
Tom Rowe was born in a small town in South Yorkshire, England. He moved to Manchester six years ago and hated it. Writing followed shortly after and, when he looked a little harder, he fell in love with it.
His debut novel, under the pseudonym Todd Levin, 'Not Dark Yet', a semi-autobiographical story of a man on a downward spiral following the loss of the two most important people in his life, was released in early 2014. A darkly humorous story compared to works by Charles Bukowski, John Fante and Donald Ray Pollock, it is as much a love story to women and the city of Manchester as it is a tale of loss and moving on.
There are some lines you read that make you set the book down until they've sunk in. Alcoves inside the Lining is populated with such lines.
Rowe's writing style might live on ground level, amongst the smog, stench of beer and the lipstick stained mugs of life but it's content lives up with the Angels. There's a richness to AITL's understanding of human nature, death and decline that creates a superb literary tapestry.
I'd been privy to some of his shorts through the Literally Stories website but Rowe has outdone even his finest work available there.