Review of The Reasons I Won't Be Coming (Paperback)

The first few stories here are best left quantified as 'good' or not in terms of personal tastes rather than the type of subjective judgments usually found on reader review pages. I liked them all -- but since the styles vary quite a bit, you may end up with two or three favorites, while others may not work as well for you.

But keep reading. Get to the last story, a novella called 'A Tale in Two Cities'. This entry alone makes the book worth substantially more than the price of admission -- and more importantly rewards your decision on how best to spend valuable reading time. It stands alone as one of the best short stories I've ever read.

'A Tale in Two Cities' is objectively superb writing as it combines the suspense of well crafted crime fiction with serious literature. Perlman accomplished this delicate feat to a startling degree in his novel 'Seven Types of Ambiguity', but he may have topped even that excellent work here. You'll get so caught up in the story that you may not even realize, at first anyway, that you are experiencing nothing less than an artful telling of the effects of the Holocaust, oppression in Soviet Russia and the modern day conflict in the Middle East.In both physical and emotional terms none of the characters are left unscathed by history.

As this goes on and the story unfolds, we get to know a modern family and see the strains that addiction can cause. These large themes are set inside of a good old fashioned detective story (complete with a cameo by a barmaid practically saying in perfect noir dialect 'yeah, so what's it to ya copper?' and a brilliantly funny Private Investigator). It all keeps the reader engrossed until the final skillful conclusion.

Yes, all the stories in this book are good and varying themes and styles are explored. But in the finale, Perlman speaks with what is undeniably his best voice. Stories like this are why I love great fiction. Based on that alone I can not recommend this book any higher.



Click Here to see more reviews about: The Reasons I Won't Be Coming (Paperback)