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Executive Times |
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2008
Book Reviews |
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The Fires
by Alan Cheuse |
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Rating: |
** |
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(Mildly Recommended) |
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Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Grief Alan Cheuse’s new book, The Fires,
offers two novellas to readers: The
Fires and The Exorcism. Both
novellas explore grief. In The Fires,
a wife learns that her husband died in a car accident in Uzbekistan, and she
heads there to retrieve his body for the cremation he wanted. Cheuse burns
out on the fiery theme, from the accident itself, to the wife’s hot flashes,
to the Hindu cremation ceremony. While finely written, The Fires suffers from the novella structure: a short story would
have been tighter, and a novel would have had greater character development.
This being neither of those, it lost a bit as a result. The Exorcism delves into a husband’s sadness following his wife’s
sudden death, alongside the reactions of their daughter, Ceely. Dark humor
made this novella a bit more enjoyable, but it also suffered from the
shortcomings of the structure. Here’s an excerpt, from the novella titled
“The Exorcism,” beginning of Chapter 2, “The Dogs,” pp. 85-6: I
awoke at first light, basking in the luxurious silence that enveloped the
room, the floor, the entire hotel, the street, the town, perhaps even the
state and the entire eastern seaboard, the nation, the hemisphere, the world.
The headache hit me just as I lay my head back onto the pillow, hoping for
more sleep. I had clocked only about three hours, and I was suffering, and my
compassion for the couple in the next room had evaporated in the night. I
knew my room number and from that subtracted two, and picked up the telephone
and punched out that new number. Through the wall I could hear their
telephone ring once, twice, and then I broke off the call. Three more times I
did this before either of them could pick up receiver. I could hear faint
mumblings. I punched the number again. I got up, took a shower, and called
the number again. Twice more, and then I got dressed. Twice more. And then I
left the room. The
lobby was deserted, except for the young college boy behind the desk. He
looked up at me as I passed by, but didn't speak. It was cool outside, and
the hot coffee I found at a little doughnut shop on the main street filled me
with warm cheer. After a while I returned to the hotel, called the room next
to mine several more times, and by then it was almost time to meet Ceely for
breakfast. She
was waiting on the porch, smoking and staring into space, in a dark sweater
and baggy jeans looking beautiful and fresh, which made me, in my nearly
sleepless condition, feel as bad as I had ever felt. But Rashid wasn't there,
and so I sighed a father's sigh of relief. Ceely
flicked away the cigarette and picked up a bag and carried it to the car. "What
about the rest of your stuff?" I asked. "Rashid
is going to put it in the storage room for me," she said, settling in to
her seat. "That's
awfully nice of him," I said. "That means you plan on coming
back?" "Father,"
she said, as if that were an answer. "Father,"
she said again when I reproved her for ducking out of the breakfast place for
a quick cigarette. "You'll
have to direct me to the dean's office," I said when it got near the
time for our appointment. Silence
for a while as Ceely sipped at her coffee. "I'm not going," she
said. "Hey,"
I said, "Charmaine is fixing up your old room—" "I
mean I'm not going to this meeting," she said. "I don't want to
talk to that lame bitch. She's the one needs psychiatric care. Lonely old
dyke." I
sighed and wiped my mouth with my napkin, looking around the room as if there
might be something the waitress could do for me. That was when I caught a
glimpse of Rashid standing outside the restaurant, leaning against a parking
meter, smoking casually. The Fires
will provide just the right amount of reading for a short flight. If you’re
arriving in a place where you want to be, that should be just the ticket to
wipe away any lingering sadness or recollections of grief that may be
triggered by these novellas. Steve
Hopkins, May 15, 2008 |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the June 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/The Fires.htm For Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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