A Book of Stories, none of them Storybook

Family and Other Ailments - Crime Stories Close to Home has launched.

The collection I’d been thinking about since Mystery Tribune published the short story by the same name in March 2022 is now out in the world. All because of the power of a title. It sounded too good to be on a short story, it needed to be on a book.

It’s a funny thing, a title. You can sweat on it for weeks, move words around, spend hours buried in a thesaurus looking for synonyms, and never get it right. It can also hit you in the face with the power of inevitability. This one was like that.

There are no quick and dirty rules about titles. Keep it short, some say. Jaws (much better film than book) is perfect, especially with a triangular fin on the cover. On the other hand, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy works great too, and it’s a mouthful. Douglas Adams’s book is a brilliant example of what a title should do: give you a feel for what’s inside the cover. Without reading the first line, you know it’s science fiction and it promises to be quirky. It’s also unique. No risk somebody else came up with the same combination of words, in that exact order. The only drawback is that long titles take longer to type in a search box.

When the publisher of the collection (Wordwooze Publishing) told me the book needed a subtitle, I understood why. Put the words Family and Ailments next to each other and the mind veers toward illnesses, of childhood maybe or of a psychological nature, unless it evokes all kinds of dysfunctional relationships.

I spent more time figuring out that subtitle than I did on titling the 26 stories in the book; each of those fell in place with a satisfying sound after I typed the final period. That’s how these things work for me. I rarely know, from the start, what a story’s title is going to be.

To avoid the medical undertones, I needed to make clear that these were crime stories, if not just crime stories, like classical crime narratives with murders and investigations. There’s very little of that in the collection. In a couple of them, you could argue that no real crime was even committed. In Razorbills, for example, Mike locks up his sister in the house when he goes shopping. He’s afraid she might hurt herself. They live near a cliff and she’s blind. Where’s the crime? In Lily, Jen imagines her best friend floating away to sea in an innertube. Maybe Lily does. Is Jen a little jealous of her? Probably … I could have easily called these Love Stories Close to Home, but that would have created even more confusion.

So it became: Crime Stories Close to Home.
The cover, by artist Margaret Loftin-Whiting, captures the mood just right.

I write crime fiction that does not fit squarely in a lopsided box.

Some of you might have read a few of the stories when they were published in a wide array of magazines, both online and in print, over the past five years. They feel different now that they’re all together. It has a lot to do with the umbrella they’re sitting under. That’s another effect of putting a title on a cover. It colors everything that’s inside.

And I had to make choices. What to put in the collection and what to leave out.

None of the San Francisco retro-noir and none of the Harry McLean, PI, stories are included. A couple pieces flirt with the light horror genre but there is no science fiction/fantasy in this book. Some of you know that I like writing a cool vampire yarn from time to time. Sorry, folks, my tender monsters have not been invited to this party. Other stories that did not harmonize well with the title theme also ended on the cutting room floor.

I cannot list here all the publications that gave these stories a chance. If I start telling names, I have to give them all. The writers among you might be interested but everybody else will be bored stiff. In the book, I say what appeared where, and you can also find a complete list on my website with links to the most recent published stories (none of those are in this collection).

I am now in the marketing phase of the launch, so here’s where you can get the book: https://books2read.com/u/3Lx0v5 - many formats are available, eBooks and paperback, however you like to read. Audiobook coming soon.

If you like the collection, consider leaving a review (Goodreads, Amazon, etc.). Believe me it helps an author tremendously! And if you get the word out, you’ll make me very happy indeed. Contact me if you’d like to set up a reading or Q&A, real or virtual.

Here’s a few things people had to say about the stories:

On “Hour of the Bat”: Awesome story. Visceral and atmospheric writing.
—Craig Terlson, author of the Luke Fischer series

On “Double Trouble”: There's a lot of joy in this screwball, playful short. A delight to read.
—John Bowie, author of Untethered

On “Key Ring”: Go read it, and wonder about that adult you knew as a kid that carried all those keys around...
—Jay Bechtol, author of The Great American Coward

On “Apples in the Attic”: Comparisons to the great Ray Bradbury cannot be ignored.
—Alec Cizak, author of Nobody’s Coming Home

To finish, I leave you with a recent short story that you won’t find in the book (maybe in the next one, who knows …).

A Path Taken was recently published by Shotgun Honey. It’s a short bite, in more ways than one.

Happy reading!