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WHO DIED IN HERE?
by Pat Dennis, editor
Penury Press, January 2004
192 pages
$12.95
ISBN: 0967634423


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

WHO DIED IN HERE? is a fun little anthology featuring what is probably the smallest real room in one's house: the bathroom. Conveniently enough, most of the stories are short enough to make this a perfect book to have in that little room.

As one might expect from an anthology of short stories, setting and plot take pride of place over character development. For whatever reason, revenge seems to be a strong motivator in quite a few of the stories, with spousal extinction running a close second. One or two are quietly terrible.

Some of the set-ups are pretty funny. Lance Zarimba with Problem Plumbing is, I think, my favorite: the woman in Pete's Plumbing Palace, is trying to pick out fixtures when her small son decides not to wait for her to find him a potty. Anyone who has ever been around a toddler who has to go "NOW!" can imagine the probably immediate outcome; what is not predictable is what happens after he makes his choice.

One for the Road by Pat Dennis was another enjoyable story. While the ending probably won't come as a surprise to very many people, this is one story where the characters ARE the story.

One or two submissions are extremely short -- fewer than two or three pages. What struck me about these particular entries was the emotional depth they contained. Lori G Armstrong's Praying to the Porcelain God and Stephen D Rogers' The Big League are prime examples of this, although they are very different in tone. Both these writers can pack an awful lot of punch in very few words; both stories remind me of poetry in that respect.

I have only one minor complaint, which shouldn't deter anyone from reading WHO DIED IN HERE? There are a few typos, mostly spelling errors, which jerked me out of the story I was reading. I know this isn't a problem unique to small presses; I just have high expectations.

Given the subject matter, there was actually very little graphic discussion of what takes place in a bathroom, which was a pleasant surprise. WHO DIED IN HERE? has a great selection of stories, with something for just about everyone.

Reviewed by P. J. Coldren, February 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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