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A review by helenoflombard
The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead by Chanelle Benz
5.0
This is a truly amazing collection of short stories. Each of these fictional stories focuses on a pivotal moment in someone’s life. The remarkable part is that the stories vary so widely in subject and tone that they read as if different authors wrote them all. These snapshots of characters’ lives are so descriptive and so totally immersive that each one felt like a whole novel.
The settings are mostly in the USA, but some in Great Britain. The time periods range from the year 1555 to the near future. Some stories are told in first-person and some in third-person, but in every story, the narrator adopt the voice of the character.
The first story in the book, “West of the Known”, is the most dramatic example using the character’s point of view. It is a fragmented point-of view of a half-white/half-Native American girl in the American old west, whose outlaw brother comes to collect her from an abusive home. I took me a a few pages to get into the rhythm of the ways she talks, but by then I was hooked on the story. The rest of the stories are easier to read, but “West of the Known” seems to be placed first so the reader can sink or swim right away. (The story that relates to the title “The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead” is one of the last stories in the book.)
The settings are mostly in the USA, but some in Great Britain. The time periods range from the year 1555 to the near future. Some stories are told in first-person and some in third-person, but in every story, the narrator adopt the voice of the character.
The first story in the book, “West of the Known”, is the most dramatic example using the character’s point of view. It is a fragmented point-of view of a half-white/half-Native American girl in the American old west, whose outlaw brother comes to collect her from an abusive home. I took me a a few pages to get into the rhythm of the ways she talks, but by then I was hooked on the story. The rest of the stories are easier to read, but “West of the Known” seems to be placed first so the reader can sink or swim right away. (The story that relates to the title “The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead” is one of the last stories in the book.)