Edward J. Delaney

I loved this collection of stories from Edward J. Delaney. There are five short stories and two novellas, all of them engrossing. My favorite was the novella "House of Sully" which felt very familiar to me. I am three years younger than the protagonist, and remembered the events that Delaney touched on very clearly. One thing puzzles me; he makes reference to a "wept" nail. I have consulted five online dictionaries and my enormous, unabridged Mirriam-Webster, and can find nothing that could possibly apply to a nail. All of the stories in this volume are memorable and well-written; each of them are worth the reader's time.… (mehr)

The Big Impossible is an eclectic mix of stories and perspectives, from a bullied high school student who turns to extreme violence to a man who uses Google Street View to revisit his past lives. The book is divided into three sections: part one contains five short stories; part two, the novella "House of Sully"; and part three, "The Big Impossible." Standouts in the collection include "Clean," "My Name is Percy Atkins," and both novellas. I particularly enjoyed "House of Sully," which perfectly captures the zeitgeist of New England in the late 1960's, during the political turmoil following the Kennedy assassinations, the uncertainty of the Vietnam War, the nascent of the second feminist wave, and the changing demographics of urban neighborhoods. Edward J. Delaney has such a talent for writing that his stories more often than not come across as a natural dialogue between the narrator and the reader. Take for example this excerpt:

"I looked in a veined mirror and sized it all up: rough-cut hair, windburned red face, the T-shirt and the grimy jeans and beaten leather jacket. I wasn't young, but I wasn't too old to not think I could still change. That mattered: the point in your life where the old part is dead and fallen away, and the new part isn't anything yet. You just are. You look in that cracked glass and see a face that can't quite start all over, can't erase the invested years, can't bargain for many more..."

In just a few sentences, Delaney's prose skillfully conveys the emotional nuances of trying to start over and find oneself. The way his stories speak to the human condition lend Delaney's works a precious verisimilitude. Overall, I found The Big Impossible to be a profound and powerful collection of novellas and short stories. Many thanks to Turtle Point Press for sending me a finished copy of the book for my honest review.… (mehr)

Edward Delaney’s new book Follow the Sun makes for compelling reading. This is a mystery story about a couple of working class brothers, one a lobsterman the other a sportswriter, their offspring, wives and girlfriends. The setting, the gritty underside of a New England coastal fishing village.

The younger brother, Quinn Boyle, left the harbor one day on his small lobster boat and never returned. He has apparently died at sea leaving behind a daughter who very much regrets losing a father she barely knew and a brother with many questions and boat loads of guilt.

There are no romantic literary heros here. These are ordinary folks stuck in a world with few options and many pitfalls, a cast of potential losers, poised at the edge of the abyss and sucked into the complex vortex of contemporary life in the U.S. of A. There is some beautiful writing here! Delaney shows himself to be a master at wrapping small kernels of quotidian truth in beautifully honed, razor sharp metaphor.

What really happened to Quinn Boyle? Follow The Sun is a fast paced, compelling mystery set in the real America. It is a tale written with brutal honesty by a contemporary American master. Highly recommended!… (mehr)