Mr. Bird has been a very busy bee of late. In addition to the recently released Pulp Ink collection which he co-edited, he also has a relatively new short story collection of his own, Beat On The Brat, out in the wild.
Featuring nine entries – seven short stories, a poem, and a little haiku just to mess with you – Beat On The Brat is a wonderfully diverse collection. Though I enjoyed them all, these two really resonated with me:
“Back in Black” is a beautifully layered recounting of Johnny Sullivan’s return to his hometown for his mother’s funeral. Things are a little more complicated than simply the loss of his mum, however, as it is also Johnny’s first time back since being sent up for child molestation. Things go about as well for Johnny as you’d expect, but you know an author has some serious skills going on if he can make you actually feel sympathy for a child molester.
“Snow-Angel” graphically demonstrates something I fully believe: all practical jokes and other forms of messing with people done in the name of “good fun, no harm intended” in fact comes from a much darker, mean-spirited place. In “Snow Angels,” a group of punks’ snowball ambush on a complete stranger spins horribly out of control, with devastating consequences for a Good Samaritan. (more…)
