A review by msw
Snapshots by Eliot Parker

4.0

Eliot Parker's new collection of short stories is set largely in Eastern Kentucky, Southern Ohio, and West Virginia. Eliot is an observer and imaginer of life's quirky, ironic, random pay backs. His stories almost always have some twist or turn or surprise at the end-- in many cases the punishment of a nasty main character. "Reckless" is a good example of this with a drinking-on-the-job Sheriff about to retire, who has a hit-and-run accident. The reader watches the sheriff try to cover his deed, and the payoff is a chilly frisson at the end.

It's especially interesting to me that Parker's endings, whether ghostly retribution or change in a character, have a similar satisfying quality of payback. Some are more hopeful: at least twice, for example, couples get a second chance after almost losing each other. This, however, is also a surprise, given the dark endings of most of the stories,

Parker also has a penchant for how things operate. One of my favorite stories is "The Ten Pin," which has some very precise analysis of what is entailed in a successful strike in the sport of bowling. This story is about a couple of college age young men who get involved with some low lifes in the drug trade. much of the action takes place in a very well envisioned bowling alley. The rest is driving around the streets and back roads of Hinton, West Virginia. It has a solid realism of missteps and frustrated intentions–and a surprise at the end!