Voodoo Heart

This darkly funny clutch of short stories shines new light on love gone bad. Most take place in everyday, albeit eclectic, settings. A spurned lover madly trails his fiancée around the country after she disappears aboard a blimp in “Blue Yodel.” In “Happy Fish, Plus Coin” a young man hiding from an overbearing family befriends Gay, a wheelchair-bound motivational speaker, at a pigmentation disorder convention. Although Gay has cheated death several times, his positive outlook makes him a mentor for the miserable protagonist, so much, in fact, that Gay feels stalked and abruptly distances himself from his new friend. “The Star Attraction of 1919” finds a barnstorming pilot interrupting a wedding, then whisking away the bride. She convinces him to let her co-pilot long enough for him to fall in love, and then she, too, takes off. Written from a masculine viewpoint, each story is simple, strong and engaging while Voodoo Heart explores the frustration of opening one’s heart and getting kicked in the nuts.