TITLE: Through the Soul’s Window
AUTHOR: Gary W. Anderson
GENRE: Fiction, General, Short Stories
PUBLISHED: 2011
RATING: ★★★★☆
PURCHASE LINKS: Amazon
MOBILISM LINK: Download
Description: Emotions define us, for better or worse. Emotions more times than not dictate how we proceed through our lives. Whether our actions are motivated by guilt or passion or doubt or any number of other emotions, many of us walk around every day with said emotions written across our face viewable by all except ourselves.
Through The Soul's Window is a collection of 12 short stories dealing with people whose actions are driven by their emotions and how they react to them. Some react well, others do not. Some end happily, others do not.
Review: In short stories, and make no mistake, these short stories are quite brief, word choice is everything. The ability to pack a punch in small quantities is a talent not every author possesses. Mr. Anderson, however, has this quality in spades and uses it to his benefit in Through the Soul’s Window. For simple words make complex worlds.
None of the twelve stories truly overlap in anything other than the theme I took away from the collection, which is expect the unexpected and get ready to let go and have the feelings. All the feelings. My quandary with reviewing this collection and with selecting representative quotes is that these are very short pieces, with major twists and turns. In selecting quotes I wanted to reveal nothing about the tales themselves.
I found the pacing masterful and the selection ordering to be well thought out. My review will highlight my two favourite pieces, two with a bit more length, so I do not inadvertently spoil the jump or the sigh or the exhilaration a reader might feel.
My Encounter with Morris brings together a rehabbed addict (who chooses to pursue sobriety in Las Vegas, land of excess) with Morris the cat. The main character explains himself as
I got a job at a casino as a blackjack dealer, because after year of dealing drugs, dealing cards just seemed to make sense.
When I read this, I laughed out loud and nodded; makes sense to me. There are fanciful conversations, insight on choices and either hallucinations or some crazy encounters. It made me want an entire book with a talking cat who likes to gamble and pursues drink.
Vegas Baby has a different tone. I count this my second favourite because it reads like a country song full of done wrongs and regrets and regretful choices. It’s a monologue of a woman marked with profound regrets, and a soft, very new desire to do things differently this time around.
Again, I do not want to spoil the reader’s enjoyment of discovery, so my selected quote is more about the feel and knowledge that drives the piece’s narrator.
She feels eyes on her, but she ignores them. They don't matter to her, nothing does now. Those times were gone and her sympathy for others and her caring of what they may have thought of her were gone, having been replaced with a numbness that went from the surface of her needle to the depths of her soul.
When I spoke with Mr. Anderson I told him that his mind was twisted but in excellent ways. I think this is the best recommendation I could give because very little here in this short set of pages is what it seems. 4 stars of 5 because I foresaw a possible ending or two, but I can highly recommend taking a tour of Mr. Anderson’s warped but in a good way mind.
I'm serious about an entire book....