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A review by grahamiam
War by Candlelight: Stories by Daniel Alarcon
4.0
I love reading books like this - preambles to other works that I've fallen in love with. Like Lipsky's Three Thousand Dollars and Debra Monroe's Source of Trouble, War by Candlelight is a portent of things to come. That's not to say the collection doesn't hold up on its own. After all, it includes lines like the following, which knocked me over:
"I should call Elie and tell her I'm dead."
--
"I'd be a good father," he said.
"For how long?" she asked.
However, it doesn't quite have the full-fledged voice or self-editing cuts that Lost City Radio does. In some spots, this collection sounds like Alarcón trying to sound like Hemingway. In others, the prose begs for less. An example: the opening lines to the last story in the collection, "A Strong Dead Man."
"Rafael's father started to die in March. By summer, it was nearly complete. It came upon him all at once, a summer storm brewed from a cloudless sky, and rendered him--in quick and cold fashion--a ghost, a negative image, weak and formless, a fourth cup from a single bag of tea."
Too much going on, which makes it lose any punch it has. The conflicting nature of "started to die"+"it was nearly complete" with "It came upon him all at once" only makes the string more difficult.
These problems were resolved in his first novel. Now, with his second one coming out soon, I'm looking forward to what further steps his craft has taken.
"I should call Elie and tell her I'm dead."
--
"I'd be a good father," he said.
"For how long?" she asked.
However, it doesn't quite have the full-fledged voice or self-editing cuts that Lost City Radio does. In some spots, this collection sounds like Alarcón trying to sound like Hemingway. In others, the prose begs for less. An example: the opening lines to the last story in the collection, "A Strong Dead Man."
"Rafael's father started to die in March. By summer, it was nearly complete. It came upon him all at once, a summer storm brewed from a cloudless sky, and rendered him--in quick and cold fashion--a ghost, a negative image, weak and formless, a fourth cup from a single bag of tea."
Too much going on, which makes it lose any punch it has. The conflicting nature of "started to die"+"it was nearly complete" with "It came upon him all at once" only makes the string more difficult.
These problems were resolved in his first novel. Now, with his second one coming out soon, I'm looking forward to what further steps his craft has taken.