Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day by Ben Loory
Review by Greg Dybec
Publisher: Penguin Books
210 pages, Paperback
Reading Ben Loory’s Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day is like being thrust into the protagonist role of somebody else’s dream. You will move, feel, and breathe in a world that is certainly not your own, but one you will be more than happy to explore.
Loory’s debut collection of laconic tales follows its own obscure logic in creating imaginative scenes that play out like dreams but end with the testimony of factual documents. The stories themselves have been labeled everything from fables to flash fiction to post -modern fairy tales, and though each tale differs in structure and content, each one promises to leave readers with a sense of puzzlement that will wrap them like a blanket that is a bit too itchy to be called comfortable.
What may be most fascinating about Loory’s writing is his tenacity to present such imaginative stories with mastered simplicity. It would be easy for Loory to map out winding circuits of obscurity for readers to navigate through before arriving at the stories heart; but instead he presents us with the heart and remains there throughout. Each story's opening line is a testament to the certainty with which Loory writes. Here are a few:
- “A man comes home from work one day to discover his daughter had found God.”
- “The octopus is spooning sugar into his tea when there is a knock on the door.”
- “A Man finds a fish in his teapot.”
- “A man and a woman fall in love and are married, and are happy in every single way.”
Beneath the book’s masterfully designed cover, which sports a long tentacle caressing the title and a vintage looking UFO hovering in the background, readers will be met with octopi that roam cities, pestering hats that follow men, trees that wander the earth, and televisions that talk, as found in “The T.V.,” which appeared in The New Yorker. Though the scenes are often fantastic and it is required that any disbelief be suspended, each story is written with clean, unpolluted prose, which thrives with a sense of practiced restraint and obligates readers to occupy any empty spaces with our own dark delusions.
Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day is a worthwhile journey into worlds filled with the type of curiosity that most would call magical; and if you read carefully enough, you may just spot Loory, lounging between the lines, quietly reminding us that behind all imagination there is rationality, and behind all rationality there is imagination.
More Ben Loory HERE
Purchase the book HERE
Review by Greg Dybec
Publisher: Penguin Books
210 pages, Paperback
Reading Ben Loory’s Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day is like being thrust into the protagonist role of somebody else’s dream. You will move, feel, and breathe in a world that is certainly not your own, but one you will be more than happy to explore.
Loory’s debut collection of laconic tales follows its own obscure logic in creating imaginative scenes that play out like dreams but end with the testimony of factual documents. The stories themselves have been labeled everything from fables to flash fiction to post -modern fairy tales, and though each tale differs in structure and content, each one promises to leave readers with a sense of puzzlement that will wrap them like a blanket that is a bit too itchy to be called comfortable.
What may be most fascinating about Loory’s writing is his tenacity to present such imaginative stories with mastered simplicity. It would be easy for Loory to map out winding circuits of obscurity for readers to navigate through before arriving at the stories heart; but instead he presents us with the heart and remains there throughout. Each story's opening line is a testament to the certainty with which Loory writes. Here are a few:
- “A man comes home from work one day to discover his daughter had found God.”
- “The octopus is spooning sugar into his tea when there is a knock on the door.”
- “A Man finds a fish in his teapot.”
- “A man and a woman fall in love and are married, and are happy in every single way.”
Beneath the book’s masterfully designed cover, which sports a long tentacle caressing the title and a vintage looking UFO hovering in the background, readers will be met with octopi that roam cities, pestering hats that follow men, trees that wander the earth, and televisions that talk, as found in “The T.V.,” which appeared in The New Yorker. Though the scenes are often fantastic and it is required that any disbelief be suspended, each story is written with clean, unpolluted prose, which thrives with a sense of practiced restraint and obligates readers to occupy any empty spaces with our own dark delusions.
Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day is a worthwhile journey into worlds filled with the type of curiosity that most would call magical; and if you read carefully enough, you may just spot Loory, lounging between the lines, quietly reminding us that behind all imagination there is rationality, and behind all rationality there is imagination.
More Ben Loory HERE
Purchase the book HERE
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