A bittersweet and, at times, bizarre collection that looks at the complexities of life with style and savvy…
In his absorbing latest collection of short stories, Toeg deftly explores love, life, death, family dynamics, loneliness, grief, guilt, regret, and redemption. In “The Last Words He Said,” a dying man in a hospital room receives three unexpected visitors. A unique but brief and horrendous experience brings two strangers together after two decades in “Falling in Love.” In “The Escape Artist,” a man finally realizes his purpose in life after a lifetime of struggling to find the reason behind his good luck. A man down on his luck and estranged from his family finds an unlikely ally in an old man in “The LG.” Toeg compassionately conjures nuanced characters, expertly weaves together their stories, and his consistent use of first-person narrative voices is highly effective, placing reading directly into his protagonists’ minds as they struggle with their fears, insecurities, self-doubts, and traumas. Trying to unravel his father’s mysterious past, a man finds himself entangled in a deep web of darkness in “He Who Sups With the Devil.” A fateful fiery event changes the course of a troubled ex-convict as well as his therapist in ”Changing Your Mind.” Toeg employs a sense of dread and foreboding to great effect in multiple stories—the young protagonist, though, finds her savior in her new friend, readers keep wondering about the latter’s true identity and motivations behind his actions in “Every Love Story Has Been Written.” Similarly, he imbues the plot with a sense of dread and urgency in “How the World Works,” keeping readers on the edge of their seats as the narrative draws to a surprising ending. Occasionally, emotional undertones flow over, as in the grieving wife’s somewhat melodramatic discovery about her late husband’s past in “The Widow’s Keeper.” While there is hope and happiness, many of these stories end with tragedies, the characters meeting a strange fate, either in their search for answers or in a simple twist of fate. Death and grief remain the book’s enduring themes, along with human angst, mental illness, trauma, friendship, relationships, forgiveness, regret, redemption, love, life, and the intricate, fraught bonds of family across the generations. An absorbing, haunting collection about bruised, sensitive souls struggling to make sense of the world around them and their own circumstances.
Love & Fate
Peter Toeg
Pub date September 5, 2023
ISBN 979-8351120638
Price $12.68 (USD) Paperback, $6.99 Kindle edition