1 of my 3 favorites this spring

Last year, I was lucky enough to pick up manuscripts of 3 books that changed my view of fiction. I’ll talk about the first one today: Alex Mindt’s Male of the Species.

I love short stories, but even so, they sometimes lose energy across the arc of the book, or they are uneven. Not in Male of the Species. So moving and unique is each story that I did not want to ruin the afterglow for a week by reading much of anything else. Then, with deep breath, I’d enter another of Alex’s little big worlds. Almost a year later, images from this book are still with me: the Vegas trapeze guy; the befuddled Hispanic father at his gay daughter’s wedding; the son trying to get a date for his dad by writing letters to a woman down the street .

I can’t do justice trying to encapsulate each story. More amazingly, Alex carries a theme throughout the book, as the title suggests: Men and our particular befuddlements and failings, especially as fathers and sons, and the women we frustrate beyond all measure. There is a lot of life experience and observation in this collection.

Alex is a writing teacher here in NYC and has won a Pushcart Prize. He is a writer to watch, and I urge you to get a copy of Male of the Species when it comes out May 8. He’ll also be reading in NY, New England and DC in May as well as his native Pacific Northwest in June. Schedule tk.

Comments

[Greg Trine]

Okay, you've sold me...a book about men stuff. I remember years ago Garrision K's (can't spell his last name) The Book of Guys...another good read.

Greg