Book Review: Ladies and Gentlemen
Ladies and Gentlemen by Adam Ross
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s description:
Following his celebrated debut novel, Mr. Peanut, Adam Ross presents a stunning collection of stories about brothers, loners, lovers, and young people navigating lives full of good intentions, misunderstandings, and obscured motives.
A hotshot young lawyer, burdened by years of guilt and resentment, comes to the aid of his irresponsible kid brother, only to realize he’s a pawn in a treacherous scheme. A lonely professor, frequently regaled with outrageous tales by the office handyman, suddenly fears he’s being asked to abet a murderous fugitive. A man down on his luck closes in on a mysterious job offer while doing a good turn for his fragile neighbor, but his efforts backfire in a terrifically surreal – and hilarious – manner. And an enterprising adolescent uses his brief career as a child actor to fulfill the crush he has on a friend’s older sister.
Laced through with glimmers of redemption and a refreshing combination of warmth and cynicism, these noirish narratives have a youthful energy that belies their hard-won wisdom, and together they showcase one of our truly essential new writers.
I normally don’t care too much for short stories but I loved Adam Ross’s Mr. Peanut so much that I had to pick up his collection of short stories. These stories were haunting like Mr. Peanut. They reminded me of Twilight Zone episodes because most of them ended with a dark moral and seemed eerie. I enjoyed most of them but was left wanting more. I thought some of them ended too abruptly.
I may just not be a short story person and I also think I had my hopes up way too high for this collection after reading Mr. Peanut. I think that’s why I felt unsatisfied these stories. I think they were good, just not as good as Mr. Peanut. If you haven’t read either, read this one first so your expectations aren’t over the top like mine were.
Buy this book at:
Amazon
(I received this book courtesy of the Amazon Vine program.)
