Fiction. Winner of the Second Annual Tartts First Fiction Award. These stories explore the darker side of human nature, moving from broken gamblers on the run to small time hold-up artists and disconsolate lovers. The settings are varied: Atlantic City, Key West, upstate New York, and--for many of the stories--the parks, playgrounds and streets of the Bronx. Place, like loss, is also a transformative force. It lives inside Cioffari's characters, shapes desire and the actions that derive from desire.
This was an excellently written short story collection. Most of the stories are set in NYC about people pursuing or picking up the pieces from lost or broken dreams.
This author was recommended to me by one of my college professors who wanted me to read more short stories as a way to help me write better short stories. I think I learned a lot from them because they were so well crafted. The characters were very realistic as well as their struggles. I'm definitely glad my Professor encouraged me to read this book.
This collection was not quite what I expected when I saw that it was an award winning book. The characters did all indeed seem to be broken in one way or another. It was dark and troubling and certainly not a happily ever after collection.
These stories are well-crafted, about believable characters, and almost read in black and white with a bit of a noir feel. They all deal with loss and are not your standard happily-ever-after stories, but they stay with you. I like how even though they are about different characters and set in different places, the stories feel like they belong together.