(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

As I've mentioned here many times before, I'm not much of a fan of story collections, and in fact don't particularly care for short fiction in general, mostly because of the wispy nature of the format to begin with; it seems in fact like every time I finally reach the point of getting emotionally invested in a short story, that's precisely when that short story ends, sending me zooming along to the next one without the previous one making any kind of lasting impression on me whatsoever. And that's what makes Curtis Smith's new story collection Bad Monkey problematic in my eyes, because although there's nothing specifically bad about it whatsoever, to me it seemed no different than any other collection of stories by some B-minus creative-writing student out at some midwestern college campus or nighttime community writing workshop -- you know, plaintive tales of noble hillbillies, Cheeveresque nightmares about the Big Bad Suburbs, the kind of stuff you just see over and over and over again in the endless amount of online literary journals that now exist. Like I said, none of it is bad for what it is, and people who naturally like these kinds of stories are bound to like this collection as well; I just question whether the world needs its officially one-millionth collection of unremarkable short fiction, or whether Smith's time would've been better spent working on a longer project with a much more unique idea at its core. Now that he's proven that he can write just as well as anyone else, I would highly encourage him to take the next step, and prove that he can write better than most others; that's the way to really make a mark in the literary world.

Out of 10: 7.3, or 8.3 for lovers of short fiction ( )