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A review by paperknotbooks
Thunderstruck & Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken
4.0
I’ve been thinking of this short story collection a few days now, and there are parts of it which linger, and other which fade into brain clouds. Flipping back through the pages, I keep thinking “oh yeah! I loved that!” But how had it gotten lost to me?
It’s a ghost. It hovers in the pages, and at first makes a literal appearance (“Something Amazing”). But is fades to the background so the ghost may not make an obvious entrance, (“Some Terpsichore” or “Thunderstruck”). It’s in the absence of those characters which makes this collection haunting.
Anyway, I decided to rates each story on its own merit. My final rating is based on the average:
“Something Amazing”: 5-star; the ghost story I needed.
“Property”: 4.5-stars; home is where the art is.
“Some Terpsichore”: 4-stars; immediately thought of the movie Delicatessen.
“Juliet”: 5- stars; the gothic tale I needed.
“The House of Two Three-Legged Dogs”: 3-stars; “Ah, the budgies...”
“Hungry”: 3-stars; Americana.
“The Lost & Found Department of Greater Boston”: 4-stars; can’t help but think of that swimmer who went missing.
“Peter Elroy: A Documentary by Ian Casey”: 4-stars; wolves are real, my dear.
“Thunderstruck”: 5-stars; the ghost story you don’t wish upon anyone.
It’s a ghost. It hovers in the pages, and at first makes a literal appearance (“Something Amazing”). But is fades to the background so the ghost may not make an obvious entrance, (“Some Terpsichore” or “Thunderstruck”). It’s in the absence of those characters which makes this collection haunting.
Anyway, I decided to rates each story on its own merit. My final rating is based on the average:
“Something Amazing”: 5-star; the ghost story I needed.
“Property”: 4.5-stars; home is where the art is.
“Some Terpsichore”: 4-stars; immediately thought of the movie Delicatessen.
“Juliet”: 5- stars; the gothic tale I needed.
“The House of Two Three-Legged Dogs”: 3-stars; “Ah, the budgies...”
“Hungry”: 3-stars; Americana.
“The Lost & Found Department of Greater Boston”: 4-stars; can’t help but think of that swimmer who went missing.
“Peter Elroy: A Documentary by Ian Casey”: 4-stars; wolves are real, my dear.
“Thunderstruck”: 5-stars; the ghost story you don’t wish upon anyone.