Down to a Sunless Sea is another one of those books I probably wouldn't have come across except that I was offered a copy to review. I didn't know much about the book except that it was a collection of short stories about troubled people written by Mathias B. Freese, who is a clinical social worker and a psychotherapist in addition to being an author. Down to a Sunless Sea was apparently a finalist for a 2008 Indie Excellence Book Award in addition to receiving an Allbooks Reviews Editor's Choice Award. Unfortunately, I am not familiar with either honor. So, I accepted the book, not really knowing what I was getting into, but I am glad that I did.

Down to a Sunless Sea consists of fifteen short stories. Nine were previously published between the years 1974 and 2007, one ("Unanswerable") being an excerpt from Freese's historical novel The i Tetralogy. The other six stories make their publishing debut in this 2007 collection. Each story focuses on a person, portraying the interactions between society and self. Although overall the collection is somewhat dreary--the Holocaust is often used as a touchstone, for example--there are some very beautiful moments as well.

Despite the fact that the cover of the book declares the contents to be "short stories," for the most part I think it would be more accurate to call them character sketches. Even when there is a significant plot, Freese focuses more on the people rather than on the action. The stories tend to depict the darker aspects of human nature, but they are not approached without a sense of hope, compassion, and understanding. The writing is superb and the style is different from piece to piece, exhibiting Freese's skill and command of the English language.

The portrayals of the characters are exceedingly intelligent and relentless--Down to a Sunless Sea packs quite a punch for such a slim volume. I could see bits and pieces of myself throughout the book and so while I didn't always completely understand, I did feel a connection with these broken people. It certainly doesn't make for easy or light reading, in fact it's rather serious and even disconcerting, but it is very potent and very good.

Stories include: "Down to a Sunless Sea"; "I'll Make It, I Think"; "The Chatham Bear"; "Herbie"; "Alabaster"; "Juan Peron's Hands"; "Little Errands"; "Arnold Schwarzenegger's Father Was a Nazi"; "Echo"; "Young Man"; "Nicholas"; "Billy's Mirrored Wall"; "Unanswerable"; "For a While Here in This Moment"; and "Mortise and Tenon."

Experiments in Reading ( )

The book has some real bright spots. My favorite story was "Little Errands": the narrator has a compulsive disorder and the story is basically 4 pages of panic. Did she mail the letters, did they make it from the mail tray into the mail box, will the mailman pick them up, were there stamps on them...it made my skin crawl a little as I tried to imagine every little errand turning into this sort of enormous production. (I found it interesting, on a personal level, that I assumed the narrator to be a woman; looking back, the story doesn't indicate a name or gender.) I also found "I'll Make It, I Think" and "Herbie" very moving. The first is a story about a handicapped man and how he has dealt with his disabilities, naming his uncooperative body parts and dealing with his bitterness. I found "Herbie" terribly sad, a son being crushed by his father, even as his father tries to toughen him up.

I finished this book quite a while ago and have been letting it roll around in my head before I wrote my review. I thought with some more time, maybe the book would grow on me, but I have come to realize this one just wasn't for me.

There were a couple of stories that I really did like, but the majority didn't appeal to me. My favorite story was I'll Make It, I Think. It is the story of a young man who is physically disabled. You get a glimpse into his life and mind, and what you see isn't always pretty. He is angry and sometimes unhappy, but the story is unflinchingly honest.

I also enjoyed Little Errands a lot. It is a stream of consciousness type story and I really related to it. I occasionally have days when I feel like I am always second guessing myself and feel ragged and run down, like the character in the story.

I didn't really connect to the characters in the other stories though. It wasn't the writing, but more the feeling that I just didn't have anything in common with them. These stories are very short, sometimes only a few pages. I usually like my short stories to be a little longer so that I am able to get a sense of the character before moving on to the next story. ( )

Down to a Sunless Sea is a collection of stories about people who are at worst suffering from some defined or undefined mental illness and at best have a grim outlook on life.

Reading short stories is very different from reading novels, and as I hadn't read any short stories in a while this collection was quite startling. Novels give you a chance to get the lay of the land and you slowly come to realizations about the characters as they unfold not all at once, but over several chapters. Short stories plunge you right into the heart of the action, and in this book that is right into the minds of some seriously unbalanced people and their often grim experiences and/or outlooks on life. These differences definitely colored my reading of the stories in the first half of the collection as I struggled to find my balance in territory I hadn't explored in a while. Still I didn't get the point of a lot of these stories and it made me start to think about what is the point of short stories or any stories at all. I think all writing fiction, short stories and novels, when they are successful, convey at the very least how things affect people or other things. I'm not quite sure I got that here. I felt as if I were reading a bunch of vignettes or characters sketches in someone's writing notebook.

The characters are a strange bunch. I didn't like any of them but I didn't dislike any of them either. They just were. There were moments when I caught a glimpse of ways I have felt and reacted to things, albeit to a different degree. Little Errands, one of the best pieces for me, details the neurotic and obsessive-compulsive behavior of an unnamed narrator who is trying to run errands and mail letters, and having a very frustrating time of the experience, which unfortunately is their way of life. Fortunately for me I can have my little moments of neuroticism and infrequent OCD behavior and just call it a bad mood or a bad day. Insanity is in degrees and as with most things in life usually just a few steps away.

There was a little moment that resonated with me. It was brought into focus from the unformed knowingness in the back of my mind with this sentence:
"I missed Billy not because we were close, that is nostalgia; I missed Billy because he is a part of an arc in my life, a player in it, part of the context that explains me to me." [106]

I definitely have some people in my life that have defined periods of time for me and who I was then.

Some stories that stood out for me were The Chatham Bear, Little Errands and Nicholas (and this one probably because the pov was so different than the rest of the book, it was more interesting for the misspellings and grammar of the character). The tone of the first story was dreary and it remained relentlessly so throughout all the stories. No bright spots here. I worked through them slowly over a couple of weeks as they were hard to pick back up once I had put them down. If you're looking for light or upbeat read, I think the title says it all.

The older I get, the more I appreciate the short story format (and no, not just because my attention span is waning, smarty-pants). Not only do I enjoy being able to read a story here and a story there, but I've also come to appreciate the difficulty of writing the short story. It is, in my considered opinion, one of the trickiest genres out there.

One of the of authors who have mastered this art form is Mathias B. Freese. Down to a Sunless Sea is a treasure-trove of fifteen short stories in which Freese captures verbal snapshots within the human brain. In other words, he explores what makes people tick. As a psychotherapist and teacher, the author commands extraordinary insight into the mind. But so do a thousand others in his field. So what makes Down to a Sunless Sea so impressive? It's simple: Freese's ability to present each errant character in an understandable light.

My favorites? Since you ask:

"Little Errands" takes only four pages to perfectly convey what it's like to live with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. (I know, I know, I ramble on about my book OCD all the time, but this is the real thing.) This poignant vignette takes one small incident -- the mailing of a letter -- and manages to convey the scope of living with the disorder without condecesncion.

In 1987, the tomb of former Argentine President Juan Peron was broken into and the hands removed from the corpse (they were ransomed for $8 million, in case you're wondering why someone would steal a dead person's hands). In "Juan Peron's Hands," Freese delves into the (just a little bit creepy) minds of the graverobber.

Two unclenched hands in a back street, no self, no name, no one, a reminder of us all. Two hands against a Magritte sky.
"Juan Peron's Hands," by Mathias B. Freese

Creepy the story may be, but prose like this is certainly beautiful to read.

"Alabaster" is the touching story of an elderly Polish concentration camp survivor who befriends a young boy. The boy, of course, knows nothing of the evil perpetuated during the War. His innocence, however, lies in stark contrast to the irreperable damage done to the old woman in the camps. The story is a haunting snapshot of a destroyed life. The woman survived, but at what cost to the psyche?

"Billy's Mirrored Wall" was perhaps the most resonant story in the collection. A man reflects on the importance of a seemingly innocuous event in his childhood. Coming from a solid blue-collar background, he remembers being vaguely impressed (in a twelve-year-old-boy, off-hand sort of way) after being invited over to a upper-middle class friend's home. The modern dishwasher, carpet instead of linoleum, but especially a wall covered in mirrors were all things he was unused to seeing in a home.

Boys being boys (even in the 1950's), his interest was passing at best. Just enough to mention it off-handedly to his own mother who, to his surprise, took great umbrage to the entire event. Her hurt at not being able to provide her own son with such minor luxuries morphs into anger and while the matter is quickly dropped, it is an event that her son never forgets. In fact, it incorporates itself into his adult life-view.
What Ma has done is to put something into me of her own design, unwillingly, and here I am left to master it, or make sense of it - really to metabolize it.
"Billy's Mirrored Wall," by Mathias B. Freese
The story begs the question of any parent: how much do we unwittingly damage our children in such passing moments?

I thoroughly enjoyed reading these stories and Down to a Sunless Sea has earned a permanent spot on my bookshelf. ( )

3.5 out of 5: Down to a Sunless Sea is a collection of fifteen short stories. Some of the stories are longer than others, but for the most part, these are very brief set pieces. More often than not, nothing happens. The apparent point is to invoke a certain mood or to describe a particular emotional state. My favorite in the collection—“Little Errands”—is only four pages, but that small space is sufficient to expose the minor paranoias and insecurities we all confront, even when completing the most mundane tasks. In another favorite—“Mortise and Tenon”—Freese manages to tell a story, and even to build suspense, using little more than shape imagery. In the better stories like these, the overall effect is impressionistic and a bit mysterious. The weaker stories in the collection could use more focus and precision.

The brevity of these stories, combined with their edginess, leaves you feeling uncomfortable—not uncomfortable in a negative way, but in a way that makes you question how you managed to avoid the unhappy situations and states of mind these protagonists inhabit. In short (literally), these stories will leave you feeling thankful your life isn’t as bad as it could be.

This review also appears on my literary blog Literary License. ( )

"Write what you know" is an adage that can both help and handicap writers. It clearly seems a source of Mathias B. Freese's collection of short stories, Down to a Sunless Sea, and may also serve as a handicap.

Freese is a psychotherapist who will tell you that these stories take us "into the minds of troubled, complex human beings." He uses a variety of styles because the stories are were written "to express emotional states, thereby requiring different approaches and voices. Yet while many of the characters might well be composites of people he dealt with both as a psychotherapist and as a licensed clinical social worker, they are also reflections of his own life experiences.

For example, the character in "I'll Make It, I Think" suffers from cerebral palsy, as did Freese's cousin. The character in the short story gives names to various body parts, calling his damaged right hand and arm and his damage left leg Ralph and Lon, respectively, while naming his penis David. While he refers to himself as "Schmuck," it is clear he has worked to cope with his disabilities. At the same time, he recognizes the reality of his struggles from the story's opening sentences:
It's always been this way; it's always going to be like this. I know it, and there's no changing it.

Sometimes I can take it, almost, and sometimes, you know, I can't take it and I want to cut my throat.
Such harsh reality is present in the minds of many of the characters. Freese even expresses it from the harsh realities of his own life. "For A While, Here, In This Moment" was written for his daughter, who suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome and eventually committed suicide. In it, the character openly ponders the purpose of existence. "Which is worse, death or the disease itself? .... The appalling choice is all I have, or it appears."

Some of the other damaged psyches that appear include the award-winning "Herbie," the story of a boy physically and psychologically abused by his father with the added impact of an almost emotionless mother; "Echo," which explores a man who, for whatever reason, cannot maintain attachments with anyone; and, "Nicholas," with whom we share time in his "slow learner" class and begin to grasp his desire for respect.

For me, though, the two strongest pieces are "Alabaster" and "Little Errands."

Balance of review here.

“Down to a Sunless Sea” is a collection of dark, character-driven stories. Freese dives deep into the psyche of some very damaged and disturbed people. In some ways, these stories would be more aptly characterized as ‘thoughts’. A good deal of them are internal monologues with little to no action.

I enjoy a good character driven story (or set of stories), but this was almost too character-driven for me, perhaps because of the format. Not enough was able to happen in so few pages for me to be able to care enough about the characters and their internal struggles. I suppose I just needed more plot.

If you are a big fan of character-driven stories, this may be something you will want to check out. If you need plot and action, this isn’t for you. ( )

Down to a Sunless Sea is a short story anthology by Mathias B. Freese that is truly sunless. The stories in this collection exude darkness as they delve into the minds of disturbed souls. That the author is familiar with such human darkness is not surprising since he spent twenty-five years as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist. He doesn't offer answers or solutions to the problems that disturb humanity, but a sense of compassion for the damaged does come through as he refuses to look the other way and ignore the ugliness that is a part of life.

The format of the stories is not traditional, with beginnings and middles and ends, nor are they plot driven. Each story has its own style which is tailored to the telling of that story. As with even the most tragic things in life, humor can sometimes be found within the pages of Down to a Sunless Sea.

I've got two favorite stories from this collection, and true to my nature they include a touch of the humorous. I was reminded of the tendency of folk to fear the wrong things in "The Chatham Bear." As the residents of a small town run for their guns in order to defend themselves from a foraging bear that all but ignores them, these same townspeople don't even notice the human cruelty that confronts them on a daily basis.

I laughed as I recognized a bit of myself in the compulsive behavior of the character in "Little Errands." I admit that I too have opened the chute to the corner mailbox repeatedly just to make sure my letter did indeed drop down into the collection bin! Haven't you?

The stories were sometimes baffling and mostly sad. If you're looking for something light or "sunny" to read, then these stories are not for you; but if you don't mind looking at the darker side of the human psyche, then you will find Down to a Sunless Sea thought provoking.

For more about the author, Mathias B. Freese, visit his blog or read an interview with the author. ( )

Down to a Sunless Sea is a nice ecliptic collection of short stories. Down to a Sunless Sea features everything from growing up to dealing with death as well as dealing physical disabilities. Each story is only a few pages long but within those few pages are some very powerful, meaningful life lessons.

In Down to a Sunless Sea is a sweet but sad story of a son who remembers loves his mother and all the good times as well as laughs they shared together. Then there is the story of a son who is so in awe of his father shining his shoes that he wants to open a shoe shining business during the summer in Herbie. In Nicholas, the student is beyond his years more advanced then the teacher. Or how about the one titled Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Father was a Nazi. Mr. Freese makes sure there is a story for everyone big or small…young or old.

I usually am not a big fan of short story books for the simple fact that I either just start to get into the story and it ends or the author can’t fit all that they want into so few a pages that the story just sort of fizzles. So you can imagine my complete surprise when that was not the case with Down to a Sunless Sea. To my amazement I really enjoyed reading this collection by Mathias Freese. I sat down and started reading and about an hour later I was finished. After reading Down to a Sunless Sea, I am happy to report that I would read more by Mr. Freese. ( )

I am not sure what to think after finishing this award winning collection of short stories. They are "case studies" of physically and mentally broken people. The author uses his background as a clinical social worker and psychotherapist to get into the minds of each of his characters. (edited: The author shared with me that he wrote half of the stories before he was a shrink. He does a good job; I can't figure out which ones are which.) Some of the stories are clear and others are enigmatic. They range in emotion from regretful to frustrating, angry to morose. Though we would and do normally laugh at some of the situations presented, the reader feels that laughing would be highly inappropriate. There is nothing humorous about the damaged mental health of these people. They feel like real people struggling with real issues that they may never be able to overcome. A man with Cerebral Palsy suffering from natural urges, an old woman lamenting the loss of her youth to Auschwitz, a boy traumatised by his father's callous sink or swim technique of teaching him about life, a man too absorbed in himself to form any lasting relationships. You could easily run into these people on the street. You could secretly be one of these people.

One of the things I struggled with while reading was a sense that it was way above my level of understanding. If I had had a dictionary handy I would have consulted it frequently. And several times I wanted to ask the author what was going on. Someone with a history in the mental health community might pick right up on the various dysfunctions but I was at a loss a couple of times. The author's intellect, education and experience are far beyond my own. While I am not sure of my feelings for this work I can recommend it as a well written example of character driven and "less is more" writing. If you love people, especially those in need of compassion, you may be interested in reading Down to a Sunless Sea. It will give you a deeper understanding of how they think and why they act the way they do. ( )

"Give me the children until they are seven and anyone may have them afterwards." As this motto from the sixteenth century Jesuit, Francis Xavier, demonstrates, our adult behaviour is shaped by the people, environment and events of our childhood. Few people can have a greater comprehension of this than writer Mathias Freese, with his background in clinical social work, teaching and psychotherapy. In this collection of short stories, he portrays fifteen individuals whose lives have been shaped by traumatic events or aberrant relationships in their early years.

Down to a Sunless Sea is a challenging, frequently uncomfortable read but it doesn't fall into the usual category of books about abusive childhood. There is no call for judgement, blame or pity; the writer presents a character and, for a brief time, we see life through that character's eyes, the past experience revealed but not interpreted. Those experiences include some of the darkest and most disturbing examples of humanity's turpitude, from the horrors of the Holocaust to the less obvious, but still devastating, physical and emotional abuse of children in the home.

I admit that I put the book aside several times because the subject matter was difficult to read but not to read on would have been to turn away from the damaged people that Mathias Freese presents with such insight and compassion. Perhaps he wants to challenge us to see and acknowledge what is happening around us, the alternative is to be like the mother in 'Herbie', who, at any time, could have saved her son from physical and verbal abuse and her husband from sinking further into depravity.

The book is not all doom and gloom; there is humour, courage and hope. In 'Alabaster', an elderly woman survivor of the Holocaust, isolated inside her memories, is touched by the innocent companionship of a small boy. The narrator in 'Unanswerable', the son of a Death Camp guard, recognizes the evil of his father's behaviour even if he cannot understand the reasons for it; he will not follow his father's example, although in 'Arnold Schwarzenegger's Father was a Nazi' we get a hint that some sons might.

Down to a Sunless Sea is an excellent example of the power of the short story in the hands of such a talented writer as Mathias Freese. Humankind, as we know, cannot bear very much reality* and these brief glimpses into the reality of the lives of people living with painful memories, physical disabilities and emotional scars are probably more effective than a series of novels. They offer no answers but a great many challenges to our attitude towards others and to our complacency: "It only takes a minor adjustment here or there before the living are viewed as inanimate, subhuman. Once you don't see humanity in the other, he becomes a thing, and a thing can be rendered dead if one so chooses." (Unanswerable)

* T.S.Eliot ( )

This is a group of short stories, some previously published, on a variety of subjects, but with an overall, general theme.

There are a couple of stories about growing up in post-World War II Brooklyn. In one of those stories, a couple of kids want to set up an after-school shoeshine stand, to bring in a few dollars. The father of one of the boys totally forbids such a thing. Until the son is old enough to get a job, the father believes, the only thing on his mind should be education.

The main character of another story chops the hands of former Argentine dictator Juan Peron right off his corpse, and steals them. What is it like to have a body that is half normal, and half disabled by cerebral palsy? The title of another story is "Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Father was a Nazi." During a trip to the beach at Coney Island, a father teaches his young son to swim by taking him into deep water (for the son), bodily throwing him into deeper water, then forcing the son to find his own way back to shore.

As you may have guessed, these are not happy, optimistic stories, but they are very good stories. These are short, almost psychological case studies of troubled people. The author is a psychotherapist and social worker, so he knows what he is talking about. This book is easy to read, and very much worth checking out. ( )

This collection of short stories written by a clinical social worker and psychotherapist is unlike any other collection I have read. The writing is compelling and the stories are deep and dark. It is hard to call each story a "story" as most of them do not have a plot in the general sense but are more like character studies or as it says on a blurb on the back "case studies". Each tale takes the reader inside the life or inside the mind of a person who suffers, whether it be physically, mentally or from trauma but each character was either a victims or a tormentor. Some were disturbing, some were enlightening, some were sad, and I admit a couple I just didn't get. A couple of stories hit me personally as I related to certain events. One story that particular stays with me is Little Errands which places the reader inside the mind of an individual with OCD as he obsesses over his small daily compulsions. If you are looking for happy endings this is not the book for you. If you like delving into the minds of people who do not fit the societal "norm" this is a treasure. Recommended. ( )

This slim book is a collection of 15 extremely short stories that fall in the category of character sketches. They look, for the most part, inside the psyche of people dealing with disturbing experiences or memories. Each of the vignettes are serious and dark in nature and you just get a little taste for each character before meeting the next. I was almost equally curious to know more about the character I just met or thankful to be moving forward.

Of the 15 stories, three of them have sat with me since I finished the book a week ago:”The Chatham Bear, ” “Alabaster,” and “Little Errands.” “The Chatham Bear” tells the story, through the eyes of a seasonal visitor, of how the residents of Chatham reacted to sightings of a bear in their community. What the narrator ultimately thinks about the bear and the community is thought provoking. Equally interesting is “Alabaster,” the story of a young boy who often sees an elderly woman and her middle aged daughter sitting on a park bench. The story of their single conversation, while dark, reminds me of exactly how it used to feel to find myself in a conversation with an elderly person when I was a child. One never knows the impact that a simple conversation between strangers might have to both parties. My favorite sketch, however, was “Little Errands.” As someone who has experienced deep and lasting anxiety will completely understand this narrator. There wasn’t necessarily any insight provided within “Little Errands,” but anyone reading this should be able to understand the way anxiety feels and prompts those suffering from it to think and act.

It’s hard to say how I would classify Down to a Sunless Sea. As most of the stories were less than 10 pages, this book was good to have in the car to read when 10 to 15 minutes of free time occurred. Still, there wasn’t much to connect to either positively or negatively as a reader. “Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Father Was a Nazi,” a heavy-handed look at Schwarzenegger’s ancestry, was so short that it was over before I realized how much it bothered me. I would recommend this to someone studying abnormal psychology. If for no other reason, this book could provide interesting case studies. Otherwise, I would suggest that a casual reader wait until Freese, a gifted writer, publishes a full length novel. Many of his characters are deserving of more time and attention.

http://literatehousewife.wordpress.co... ( )

http://bookchronicle.wordpress.com/20... ( )

Just over a month ago I came across a review of this book by Heather at Errant Thoughts and knew I wanted to read Mathias B. Freese’s short story collection, Down to a Sunless Sea. I had already placed the book in my shopping cart at Amazon.com when I received an e-mail from the author offering a copy of his book if I would review it on my blog. Now that I’ve said that he’s probably wishing he had waited a little longer before contacting me.

What drew me to this particular book was the description of it as a book that “plunges the reader into uncomfortable situations and into the minds of troubled characters.” That and the fact that the author is a social worker. The description on the back cover is true to its word; the stories are in fact ones that offer glimpses into the human condition and are at times disturbing, each one shining a light on someone’s life, revealing truths that many of us can relate to on some level—even if we do not want to admit it.

The story that most struck a personal chord with me was “Billy’s Mirrored Wall” about a boy growing up, at first indifferent to the class difference between he and his friend, Billy, as they play ball and have fun together. Later in life, perhaps in part because of his mother’s own insecurities, such differences became more obvious. I think back to my own childhood and being a part of a lower middle class family with our second hand clothes and toys while my playmates had all the latest toys and wore name brand clothing. At the time it didn’t bother me, however, it did bother my parents, who could not help but compare themselves to our neighbors, wishing they could give my brother and me more than they were able. It wasn’t until I was older that I had a better understanding of how my parents viewed the situation. To children it did not matter so much but to adults it made a world of difference.

Another of my favorite stories was “Alabaster.” I happened to be reading this particular story during my lunch break at work, which was probably not the best place to be at the time. The story touched me deeply, and I had to hold back the tears that threatened to fall. A holocaust survivor reaches out to a nine-year old boy. Their meeting is brief and while the boy does not quite understand what the moment meant for the older woman, he does know it was somehow significant for both of them.

Each of the fifteen stories in Down to a Sunless Sea take the reader into the hearts and minds of the characters, each one a case study, each one unique. Nicholas does not think much of school while Adam struggles against his fears. There is the frustrated and angry boy who just wants to be normal as well as a man who has trouble committing. The reader enters the mind of a dying man and walks in the shoes of a man suffering from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The author touches on topics such as fear, apathy, hate, and frustration. While each of the characters the author writes about is wrapped up in their own lives, the characters in the periphery play just as important a role. We are influenced by our friends, children and parents as well as by our experiences. Such influences can affect the direction our lives take and the decisions we make. This comes across in nearly every story.

Mathias B. Freese writes beautifully. His wry sense of humor comes through in his writing, but this is not a funny book. The author deftly captures the raw emotion that flows from the pages, and I could not help but to empathize with the characters, . It is complex and haunting, just as it should be. ( )

Unlike many short story collections by a single author, this one varies dramatically from piece to piece. Each one is told in a voice appropriate to its subject, whether that's a barely literate high schooler scornful of his English teacher or the inner chatter of an obsessive-compulsive.

What ties these stories together is Freese's remarkable empathy, his astonishing ability to get inside the heads of his characters and simply present them as who they are, show the world from their eyes without any outside judgments clouding the issue. A young man with a lame arm and foot (he's named them Ralph and Lon) swears and speaks frankly about all sorts of 'taboo' topics. A sighting of a bear in a rural community serves as a lesson in fear and normalcy. An old woman's chat with a boy on a bench one evening is a heart-breaking look at what it can mean to live life after a concentration camp. Several stories touch on the Holocaust from various directions, while others examine the everyday slings and arrows that leave their marks---for good or ill---on our psyches.

These are fascinating stories, and I don't know how to adequately express how worthwhile they are.

For a longer version of this review, visit Errant Dreams. ( )

http://lizzysiddal.wordpress.com/2008... ( )

Down to a Sunless Sea by Mathias B. Freese is a collection of fifteen strongly characterized stories that intrigue because they are so unusual. Most of the stories were previously published. The collection holds together based on a theme of the internal sea of emotion that people hide from the world but that directs choice.

Read more at:
http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/... ( )

Mathias Freese has been a clinical social worker and psychotherapist for twenty five years. By his own admission, he has a dark view of humanity, but has kept a wry sense of humor. He shows understanding and compassion to the deviant and damaged in these fifteen short stories which are collected in his book DOWN TO A SUNLESS SEA. Jane Holt, MLA, wrote in the book’s foreword “To be understood-to be felt- is the author’s purpose in this collection of short stories as in all of his writings because it is his purpose in his relationships with others and the world at large.” The stories are all different and there are no happy endings or sense of closure. “I’ll make it, I think” is based on Freese’s crippled cousin. “For a While, Here, In this Moment” was written for his daughter showing his understanding of her physical agony and despair. Dark humor shows in “The Chatham Bear” and “Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Father Was a Nazi.” Chatham Bear was based on actual events while Arnold’s Father was written in 1991, before he became Governor of California. “Alabaster” is a about a concentration camp survivor, and “Juan Peron’s Hands” is about a psychotic and how he has regained himself. “Little Errands” was scary; it was easy to see how a person can become neurotic. “Echo” ends with “What a lethally fascinating if not insular experience it must be to value one’s own self above all others and not fully realize that narcissistic attraction for most of one’s life.” “Young Man” had emotionally died a long time before his actual death “Nicholas,” who is in high-school, is a commentary about our educational system. “Billy’s Mirrored Wall” shows how easy is for parents to instill their dysfunctional behavior in children. Another in this vein is “Mortise and Tenon”, which make you wonder if this is another serial killer in the making. “Unanswerable” uses a lesson from a father to a son to illustrate the unanswerable – what ignites human beings to hate feverishly, kill wantonly in huge numbers, and revel in genocide and final solutions. Each of these short stories ignited in me despair, or pity, or anger. I look on these characters and feel compassion and understanding, while being a little repulsed of them or their situation. Regardless, each leads to reflective thought and a bit more insight into me. DOWN TO A SUNLESS SEA is a great collection of dark, offbeat stories by the gifted and award winning author, Mathias B. Freese. While this might not be everyone’s type of read, for those of you that like it or want to expand your reading, I highly recommend it.Note: A copy of this book will be for raffle at http://j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com/... ( )

Down to a Sunless Sea is one of the most unusual short story collections that I have ever read. What makes this collection different from most is the way that Matt Freese varies his writing style from story to story to match the mental state and speaking style of each of his main characters, a technique that does not allow his readers to get comfortable with a “Matt Freese writing style,” but one that definitely increases the impact of each of his stories.

Plot is secondary in the fifteen stories offered here. Instead, Freese has written stories that seek to give a clear picture of what it is like inside the mind of damaged individuals who are struggling to make their way in the world. Some have suffered physical damage or they are handicapped. Others, for multiple reasons, are the victims of mental illnesses of various sorts that make it impossible for them to fully function in the everyday world.

Make no mistake. This is a dark and disturbing series of stories. Some of Freese’s characters offer inspiration but, for the most part, the reader finds that their situations are unlikely to improve and that they will probably continue to experience life as misfits, outcasts, or worse. Freese knows of which he writes. These stories were written over the course of thirty years, twenty-five of which Freese spent in the practice of psychotherapy or as a clinical social worker. They are about people he knows, including even members of his own family.

What is most remarkable about the collection is how Freese is able to make the reader feel solid empathy for each of his characters. Their minds and bodies may be impaired but his characters come across as real, sympathetic human beings deserving to be understood and respected for the people they are. They want nothing more out of life than we all want, and they deserve no less.

Among my favorites of the stories is “Herbie,” in which a boy holds onto his ambition and dreams despite living with a father who seems determined to physically and verbally abuse the boy into believing that he is worthless. But, damaged as he is by fear of his father and the abuse he suffers at his hands, Herbie keeps his dreams alive at least for now. And then there is “Little Errands,” a story about a man with a phobia about the mail system. He can never be certain that he actually placed something in the mail and fears that he might have somehow misplaced it and only thinks that he mailed it. And, if he actually mailed it, what are the chances that it will slip into some crack inside the mailbox that is inaccessible to the postman when he comes to gather the box’s contents? He can hardly bear to think of all the things that can happen to a mailed item before it reaches the destination for which he intends it.

Not all fifteen of the stories work for me but Matt Freese has created so many unforgettable characters that I find his collection to be well worth reading. He offers insights into people and situations that only someone of his experience could possibly offer, and despite the nature of his stories readers coming to them with an open mind will be happy that they did.

Rated at: 4.0 ( )