As mentioned in a previous blog of mine, I am a lover of short stories – a personality trait that I’ve determined just cannot be helped. Every now and then my brain needs a break from the novel and I turn to a good collection of short stories. Recently, I’ve been getting my short story fix from Dan Chaon’s newest collection of stories entitled Stay Awake. And keep me awake they do. Chaon, author of Among the Missing (another wonderful collection of stories,) possesses the uncanny ability to bring to life characters who embody the sadness and off-beat humor of the human condition, often simultaneously. He is a master of drawing the reader into his characters’ worlds of loneliness, anxiety or undeserved happiness and does not hesitate to insert multiple plot twists along the way.
Hence the being kept “awake” as I read this collection of stories. I am physically anxious as I read them because I know that a wonderfully grotesque plot twist is coming my way, yet I cannot stop myself from finding out what happens next. Whether reading about a woman on the brink of mid-life crisis who begins sleeping with her brain damaged ex-husband, or a couple who undergoes in vitro treatment only to have a baby with an extra head, these stories straddle the thin line between the ordinary and unfathomable in a haunting and suspenseful way.
And if you are not as enthusiastic a fan of the short story, I suggest checking out Chaon’s novels Await Your Reply or You Remind Me of Me, which are just as captivating as his stories but in novel form!
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