Officer Friendly and Other Stories

November 18, 2002
Robinson establishes himself as a writer with a seductive, edgy voice in this dark debut collection of 11 stories set in and around the seaside town of Point Allison, Maine. Menacing authority figures play important roles in the early tales: in the title story, a pair of local miscreants inadvertently turn the tables on a heavy-handed cop when they goad him into a chase and the officer has a heart attack. "Diver" presents the plight of a picture-perfect young couple who are tormented by a teasingly malevolent local store owner who, as a diver, comes to their rescue when a rope is tangled in the propeller of their small yacht. The sense of menace and imminent danger ebbs in subsequent efforts, but Robinson adds a nice comic touch and some emotional depth in "Puckheads," a coming-of-age yarn about a pair of rowdy high school hockey players who develop an attraction for the same actress when they join the drama club for a production of Oliver Twist. There is more weird, off-kilter plotting in "Ride," which describes a father's attempt to celebrate his adolescent son's birthday by pulling off a jewelry heist with the boy in tow. Robinson goes to great lengths to establish his setting as a virtual character, although he never explains why Point Allison is so much more sinister than the neighboring towns on the Maine coast. The heavy, brooding atmosphere is another distinctive narrative element, although its effect begins to wear thin over the course of the collection. Keeping a judicious distance from his characters, Robinson allows ingenious plotting and scene-setting to drive these coolly absorbing stories.

June 1, 2003
Adult/High School-Teens will be drawn to the often quirky situations presented in this crisp short-story collection. The selections are quick reads, most under 20 pages, and they immediately hook readers with vivid and sometimes oddball characters. The fictional seaside town of Point Allison, ME, is the backdrop. In the title story, two teens running from a police officer must decide whether to stop and help him after he falls in the snow with an apparent heart attack. In "The Diver," a young husband on a boat with his wife worries about the menacing diver who won't leave them alone after helping them untangle a rope from their propeller. One of the most compelling stories is "Puckheads," a tale of two high school hockey players who have been kicked off the team for fighting. Now coerced into joining the Drama Club, they are performing in the school's production of Oliver and competing for the attention of the arrogant leading lady. What makes these stories so compelling is that nothing is as it seems. There are neither happy endings nor satisfying conclusions, plots often take shocking twists, and humor arises in frankly unfunny situations. Many of the characters are teens who are uncomfortable in their place in the world, and who are becoming aware that "life is a series of terrifying events, of grave and immediate result."-Ellen Bottiny, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

Copyright 2003 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2002
In the seaside town of Point Allison, Maine--the focal point for these 11 stories--outsiders are barely tolerated, and life can turn menacing in a moment. Even people from nearby Portland may be treated with humiliation or worse, as in "The Driver," in which a local with a knife makes veiled threats to the boater he aids. In the title story, two teenagers caught throwing bottle rockets by the cop they know as Officer Friendly, from his grade-school visits, turn unexpectedly heroic. Two high-school hockey players, kicked off the team after a fight and forced to join the drama club, learn more about life off the ice in "Puckheads," an exceptional coming-of-age story. Most startling is "The Toast," in which a young man who's just visiting is fingered to perform the mercy killing of the cancer-ridden guest of honor at his own birthday party. In crisp, concise prose, Robinson probes unusual aspects of the human condition in this debut collection of stories with an edge that snags the reader's memory.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2002, American Library Association.)