Still re-reading George Singleton. Great group of stories with the exception of the last one, which really appears to be a add on and has little to do with the other stories (most revolve one way or another around the flea market) ( )

Set in South Carolina “where every original, abstruse philosophical tract begins with ‘I think, therefore I think you’re wrong,’” and featuring hapless husbands and smart wives, this collection revolves around a loosely connected group of characters in the rural town of Forty-five. Flea markets and the people that sell things at them figure in a couple of the stories. There’s a pharmaceutical salesman who changes his name to Seldom and becomes a “phony primitive artist.”

In Bank of America a group of professionals meet in the swamp at a treehouse annually, at least until a mild Deliverance type outing. In This Itches, Y’all a boy infamous for a head lice educational video reprises the role in adulthood. George Singleton’s stories are humorous and good-natured. They poke fun without a hint of meanness. And his narrators are usually poking at themselves. ( )

Honestly, I bought this for "This Itches, Y'all" alone. While most of the other stories were pretty great, this short story was fantastically funny. I enjoyed this book very much. It's great for those who appreciate short stories and/or Southern writers. With this one you get the best of both worlds. ( )

The Half-Mammals of Dixie by George Singleton is a collection of short stories centered around the fictitious town of Forty-Five, South Carolina. These are tales of the South, but not the stereotypical South (genteel and racist) so many people love to read about – these stories are more of the “good ol’ boy” South variety. I generally stay away from short story collections, because I usually don’t think there’s enough character development in them, but after reading this collection, I’ve decided that I was probably reading the wrong collections before – these stories are simply a hoot!

As you would suspect with a collection of stories, I enjoyed some of them more than others. My favorites (and the ones Carl had to hear about) are:

* Show-and-Tell – is the story of Mendal Dawes. When his mom deserted the family, his dad began calling himself a widower. Mendal’s third grade teacher is one of his dad’s old girlfriends, so in an effort to woo her, Mendal’s dad gives him all kinds of crazy things to take to school for show-and-tell, like a love letter written by a famous person that contains the line, “That guy who wrote that “How Do I Love Thee” poem has nothing on us, my sugar-booger-baby.” The way Mendal and his dad end up handling this potential relationship is priceless.
* Public Relations – tells the story of V.O., who loses his job when he proceeds to tell a potential client his theory of the decline of the American educational system at a business dinner. He has a crazy theory of how the women’s movement has ruined the schools in this country and, as you can imagine, it doesn’t sit well with the female client his company’s trying to lure.

The Half-Mammals of Dixie is a solid collection of short stories with lots of quirky characters that readers will delight in. I think those who live in, or have a love for, the South will enjoy these stories the most. ( )

This was actually a very funny and clever book. Each story was about a resident or visitor to the town of Forty-Five in South Carolina. Some of the stories ran in with others, which added some plausability to the stories. I liked most of the characters, if not all of them, because they were smarter than their fellow Forty-Fivers, most of the time, and knew that they were.

I always enjoy reading about the residents of the funny little towns in the Southern states, and this was no exception. ( )

A short story collection from a South Carolina author. Most of the stories are set in SC too. I’m headed to the SC Writer’s Workshop in October, and Singleton is one of the faculty, so I’m doing my homework, so to speak.

Singleton is the master of the non-sequitur, in both dialog and narrative. That’s his style, and you don’t have to read far to encounter it. The stories challenge the reader to keep track of what is going on and what the characters are talking about, but that’s part of their charm.

Southern topics, southern characters, and a creative imagination make these stories well worth a read.

www.samfsmith.com ( )