- The good news is - He's fat, divorced from Blythe, now with Lana though he's started seeing Rachel. He starts losing weight at last. It's operable cancer. Blythe distances herself, scared of cancer, later asking for more money from him. Lana finds out about Rachel. He falls in love with his nurse Maura and asks her to marry him. He discovers she's stolen from him but that doesn't matter.
- Pet fly - Rufus Coombs works in the postroom of "Carter's Home" with other blacks, though he has a degree. He delivers mail to Lana (the quiet one) and Mona, identical white twins. Ernie, black, has been promoted out of the group. The bosses are white. Getting home one night he decides not to kill a fly that he'd normally squash. He starts confiding in it. He starts chatting up Lana, leaving gifts on her desk. He's about to give her a $347 bonsai tree when she formally complains of sexual harassment. He's going to be sacked. When he has a meeting with a manager, the manager says that Ernie's spoken up for him, and the manager wants to put Rufus on a trainee management course. On the way home Rufus finds some vials of crack. He puts the dead fly in a vial and buries it in the roots of the bonsai tree
- Almost Alyce -1979. Albert was doing ok at college until he fell in love with brown-skinned Alyce who left him for Roald. His father Thyme left his wife Georgia for Betty. Albert moved back in with his mother, became a labourer. His mother died, his father sold the house. For 20+ years he drank, lived in the streets, did casual labour. At 53 he stopped working. In New York, a girl nothing like Alyce except for style asked him to distract security guards while she shoplifted. He invited him to live in her smart squat. When 2 thugs tried to attacked her, he got in their way. She shot the thugs dead. He woke up in hospital, his sister at his bedside. She invited him home. He said yes - he'd amassed $83,297.
- Starting over - Now he's 60, each day is like a new start for Jared. He had 3 kids and a wife Marguerite. She left him for Gary then soon returned. A son married an Alaskan and had a child [why do we would to know this?]. When Holly, an intern, says that he should live life, he smokes outside their house. She wants a divorce. He has a kid with Holly who then found a boyfriend. His wife's cancer returns. He helps her.
- Leading from the affair - Lassiter, 59, asks his girfriend Jool about Jon Silver. She leaves him. Lassister sees a therapist because he feels his life is going nowhere. He's been going to another therapist for 30 years. Jool keeps phoning Lassiter. She says she's not seen Jon for 6 months. Lassiter asks Kara, 29, a waitress, out. They start sleeping together. Kara visits Lassiter. They make love. She tells him the Jim has returned to her and they're getting married. Kara breaks up with Lassister - he's too intense. He tells the therapists about each other. They both stop seeing him. He starts a "Broken Hearts" online magazine which is so successful he has no time for a social life.
- Cut, cut, cut - Martin (a plastic surgeon) and Marlee meet on a blind date and sleep together. He's not much to look at, but he's considerate. When his wife disappeared with a friend of his who was researching gene modification, the police thought he might be to blame. There's a flash-forward - "Years later, after Martin had been sentenced to 117 years in prison ...". She keeps seeing him, taking on other lovers too. The police interview her, saying he's still a suspect. This excited her. She sees him daily. He invites her to his lab. A superbeing is there. He says that there were many failed attempts, and 12,306 successes that were living in secret. He's already given her the treatment. She's growing taller and wiser. She leaves and tells the police. She hides away in Australia, evolving.
- Between storms - Michael uses the excuse of a brewing storm to isolate himself in his flat. He becomes famous, telling his fans that they should do the same.
- The black woman in the Chinese hat - Rufus (20) sees a pretty, older woman sunbathing in New York. They start talking, have a meal. She has 2 boyfriends - a cop and an ex-con. They go on Statin Island Ferry - all they can afford. He climaxes while she pets him.
- Local hero - There's a lot of family tree info on the first page. The main character, Stewart is nothing special. His cousin Sherman is clever and popular. Sherman invites him on a double date and Stewart loses his virginity. Sherman dies in a streetfight because his lover's husband hit her and he hit him back. Stewart begins to live Sherman's life. Sherman's mum says that he and Sherman had the same father. He takes a gun from a mugger and threatens to kill him.
- Otis - Reginald (Crash) is clever. At school he helps pupils cheat. Thinking he's about to be expelled, 15, he runs off with a tent. He meets Otis, who's been expelled many times. Crash thinks Otis understands him. Otis kisses him. In the night Otis steals all his stuff. The police take Crash home. Years pass. His twin brother becomes a soldier. Their mother left. His brother dies of a heart attack. Crash tracks down his mother. find that she's with an old schoolfriend who recovered from cancer after she cared for him. Crash makes money creating a web site to help kids pass exams. When he discovers the Otis has died, he goes to the funeral. Otis's mother said he kept talking about Crash, the only person who took him seriously.
- Showdown on the Hudson - Felix, 16, lives in New York. Billy, a black cowboy his age, arrives from Texas. He works looking after police horses in Central Park. He has a duel with Nacogdoches (a rich delinquint who dresses like a cowboy - no bullets), winner decided by looking at the video. Billy wins, entitling him to take Felix Nacogdoches' white girlfriend out. He does, innocently. Nacogdoches later punches her. They duel again, this time with bullets. Nacogdoches dies. Billy flees. Years later, with a Ph.D in literature, Felix gets letters from him, thanking him for his friendship. Felix welcomes the clarity of his morality.
- Breath - He wakes confused, breathless. He thinks he's an NYC prof. He's in a hospital room with 3 other old blacks. He's had an asthma attack and a heart attack. Colleagues arrive to get him released.
- Reply to a dead man - Roger's brother Seth died 6 months before. Lots of family tree info. Roger had been too poor to attend the funeral. A messenger arrives, saying that Seth paid then to give this delayed note. It says that the white girlfriend he had when he was 17 had been pregnant when Roger's parents forced him to dump her for race reasons. Seth had been keeping in touch. The girl died a year ago. Roger visits her daughter, likes her, and gets another message from the messenger saying Seth has $137k to give to the daughter. Roger, decides he'd like to apply to be a messenger.
- The letter - Frank's wife Corrine has white/black parents, is 41 (he's 55, black) and earns 3 times what he earns. He's had 3 affairs. His father killed himself when Frank was a kid. He intercepts a letter to Corrine from a man who has talked to her about things that matter to her. He's sacked from work for incompetence, not telling his family. After 4 months he writes a letter to his wife saying they don't talk any more. He starts living rough, ends up fighting for his life in hospital. His son appears at his bedside. If he lives, he'll return home.
- Haunted - When 68 y.o. Paul Henry's 1000th story is (like all the others) rejected, he's so grumpy that his partner Mira leaves him. After he dies, his hatred of editor Clark Heinemann keeps his spirit alive. Mira goes to him asking for Henry's stories to be published. She sleeps with him, he publishes a story, she sleeps with him nightly. They marry and have a child they call Paul Henry. Clark gives talks about Henry, has an affair. The boy can see the ghost of his father. They chat. The father thought it was hatred kept him haunting, but he realises he's going to be around for a while yet.
- The sin of dreams - A start-up company offer transmigration of souls (downloading into a computing then uploading into a new body). There's a court case about whether there's only one soul though there may be multiple copies - if a new body kills the old one, is it murder? [Chris Beckett for example could have done so much better than this]
- An unlikely series of conversations - Laertes Jackson (50-something - he has an ex-wife Bonita, 35, and an 11 y.o. daughter Medea), a bank teller, goes to an interview at MMM and fails because he argues about the term "African-American". He's had no dates for 6 years, since the divorce. He joins a dating site and gives essay-style replies. MMM's boss offers him a job on the strength of these replies. He waits to reply, spending months.
Lots of overweight men, family trees, men with younger wives, broken families, 5- and 6-digit numbers. I wasn't impressed by any of the stories.
Other reviews
- arefugefromlife (Several of these stories were just depressing, though. Some even seemed pointless. Rufus and Frank both appeared multiple times, enough that I learned that I didn’t want their lives, even though they proved to be equal parts entertaining, exciting, depressing and super, super awkward. Another thing to note is that I’ve never been a fan of the author’s science fiction—mostly it seems too far out there, too unrealistic, even silly—and the few scifi reads within didn’t disprove this. My favorite stories were: Almost Alyce ... Between Storms ... Local Hero ... Reply to a Dead Man )
- L.D. Barnes (The internal dialogue of each man is different, yet the message is the same. “I have been injured and/or abused by people and/or the world.” Each one he talks about is intelligent, yet fragile. Sensitive, yet doggedly resilient.)
- John Paul (Mosley imbues each and every character with an astonishing degree of detail and genealogical backstory (often rendered within a single, almost impossibly informative sentence) that makes many of these stories read more like biographies in miniature. ... The sole exception to this almost hyper-real approach is the sci-fi-leaning “Cut”.)
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