John Young’s FIRE IN THE FIELD & Other Stories (June 2021)
Connie Shakalis
Arts Columnist, The Herald-Times
Freelance writer
I said Let me read a few minutes of these stories before I start dinner. At midnight I was still crying, laughing, and fond of Young’s ability to take me with him. I entered a furniture repair shop rife with lies, the innards of a rotting pumpkin, a chainsaw-accident scene, 80 acres of a farmer’s burning corn.
At last, a father-son story that abandons schmaltz and tackles hilarity; bored-couple syndrome without melodrama; dialog so real I forgot I was in my living room.
That’s my old minister, I thought, my neighbor, my sister-in-law, ME! Young focuses his people-reading and peers right through me, directing his spotlight onto my pride, mistakes and miseries.
Phrases such as “slowly cooking in the heat of anger. . . ..” and “lifting a layer of snow like a sheet on a clothesline” add as much impact as his uncanny understanding of who we are.
Connie Shakalis
Arts Columnist, The Herald-Times
Freelance writer
