George Thomas Clark (3)

I received a free copy of the book through LibraryThing's Member Giveaway in exchange for an unbiased review. This book would be 262 pp. as pbk, and consists of 38 short stories, in extremely plain prose.

"Fallen Star" You'd think the book would start off with the strongest possible story, but this, about a mediocre, has-been, alcoholic actor is eminently skippable.
"Exhumation of Edgar Allan Poe" Maybe a Poe fan might find something in this story about his literary executor/rival and his show more death.
"Greatest City in the World" SPOILER ALERT: The first and last sentences of this story contain its essence: "The mandate to this planet was swift, bold, and utterly devastating: make Bakersfield the greatest city in the world within three years or face annihilation.…So, on deadline day, at the midnight hour, everyone screamed: Fuck You."
"The Collector" is about a man suspected of murdering 6 mid-career artists who seemingly committed suicide in a matter of 10 days. Abrupt ending.
"Book Tour" This is seemingly an autobiographical story about a book tour taken by George Thomas Clark, promoting a biographical novel, HITLER HERE, which George Thomas Clark has actually written. Parisians find his contention, that France (and England) let both Czechoslovakia and itself down by not resisting the initial invasion when Hitler could have been stopped, offensive. (That idea is certainly not controversial.) There is then an abrupt turn, and sudden halt to the story, which seems typical of GTC. Apparently, he's an alcoholic, which casts light on the final (title) story of the book, which is also about an alcoholic. Hmm.
"La Zona Rosa" A Nebraskan learns Spanish in order to go to Mexico and get him some Spanish women. THIS abrupt ending seems as if he just lost interest in finishing the story.
"Cold City" If a military historian + his professor of Russian wife used a time machine to go from 2042 to 1942, what would happen? Nothing very interesting.
"A Warm Coat" An alcoholic loser goes to a bar.
...I got tired of all the unrewarding stories in simple declarative sentences+decided to skip the rest. I'd already read the next two stories, so...
"Prosecution of Thomas Jefferson" is a fantasy I myself have shared, with a "surprise" ending marred by a grammatical error, "won't not", that I do not think the character would have made. I got a bonus by being directed to the October 2012 Smithsonian cover story, "Unmasking Thomas Jefferson" (available to read free online at http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=unmasking+thomas+jef... upon which the story is sourced, although the title is given incorrectly as "Thomas Jefferson Unmasked".
...
"The Bold Investor" is the eponymous final story of the collection, more than twice as long as any other. It's a depressing tale of alcohol and drug addiction that I made myself finish in order to be able to write a decent review of the book with that title. A nice of humor was that going to NA + AA meetings and talking about crack + alcohol causes relapses! I grew to enjoy this story just before it ended abruptly with a sting. This caused me to go back and read some of the stories I'd been going to skip. show less

The writing in these short stories is extremely effective and evocative. I found the stories mostly unsettling and often disliked the characters. I had trouble reading it as I did not want to 'know' the characters. I suppose my personal taste is a bit 'lighter' at the moment. I received this book free via Librarything giveaway.

I received this from Library Thing to read and review. Up front, I was not impressed with this book. I had difficulty with some of the writing. I found sentences that stretch line after line, taking up a good portion of the page of my kindle. I guess I would have preferred shorter sentences rather than having everything expressed in one sentence with commas at appropriate places. Perhaps I just wonder about sentences that seem to be run-on, though I am not a grammarian. They just make show more reading hard for me. The stories were all unique and quite eclectic, but I had difficulty understand the point of some. In one, an actor resembled Errol Flynn, but was not a success—I guess that was the point, though I am not really sure. However, I saw no real storyline. In another, a city, ordered by extraterrestrials to improve, strives to do just that, but ends without resolution. I could go on about the stories, but in the interest of not divulging too much, I won’t. I found the author’s writing style to be fairly good. I just did not like the storylines he developed for each of the stories. Because of this, I had difficulty getting through the book, though, if you read other reviews, other readers did not. show less

Vincent Brothers written by Greg Thomas Clark was by far the shortest books I have ever read but yet it captivated my attention and had me wondering the real truth behind everything that happened. Based on a true story, it is the telling of a series of murders that happened in 2003. It made me wonder about the many killings that has happened around the world and those that were wrongly locked away and the guilty that walked. Want to know the verdict, well simply read it yourself. Great read!