Sabbath Night in the Church of the Piranha

April 1, 2005
This third collection from Falco ("Plato at Scratch Daniel's"), which consists of 16 stories, provides spare accounts of two types of men: one full of rage, anger, and dysfunction and another struggling not to relapse into a former life marked by those very qualities. In "The Professor's Son," a rebellious son is frustrated by his father's milquetoast attitude over his mother's infidelities until the son confronts his mother's new boyfriend -and is subsequently rescued by his father. In "Acid," a religious bookstore owner finds himself reminiscing over his once-hedonistic lifestyle as he is tempted by a young, nubile woman and her drugs. In his compelling pieces, Falco shows a deft touch at keeping his characters empathetic while maintaining their occasionally disturbing flaws. Nevertheless, most of the characters lack depth and seem interchangeable. Several stories also lose some authenticity with abrupt shifts from the ordinary to the fantastic, seemingly with the aim of starkly revealing the character's true mental fortitude. For most contemporary fiction collections. -Kevin Greczek, Ewing, NJ

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2005
Falco's latest short story collection features 16 titles, 2 of them previously published in " Plato at Scratch Daniel's and Other Stories " (1990) and 4 in " Acid" (1996). As one might surmise from Falco's titles, he is an original and vivid writer. Featuring marginalized, often dysfunctional characters placed in extreme situations, his stories are hard to forget. In "Monsters," friendless 16-year-old Mike Swiggart is suddenly ushered into the crowd of the most popular kid at school, a musician nicknamed Train, who values Mike's writing skills. Invited to Train's custom-built studio for a party, Mike finds himself caught up in a vicious sexual assault on a girl he had always worshipped from afar. In "The Instruments of Peace," anthologized in " The Best Mystery Stories, 2000, " an overprotective father is talked into hiring the charming son of a mobster for a summer job and then finds he must deal with an explosive, impossible situation. In this outstanding collection, Falco excels at depicting the darkness that lurks within, yet he addresses this gritty reality with a soaring lyricism. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)