Little kids at a fishing hole standing up to punks. Dealing with cancer and HMOs. This is the crap Dan O'Shea writes about. But, and here's the clincher, he writes about this stuff like he's gone to war and he's gotta unload every bullet and every bomb at you.
He Writes about the suburban housewife who had the attitude that "if her brother told her not to stick silverware in her eye, first thing she'd do is reach for a salad fork."
He writes about a guy who tried to off himself with his Corolla in his garage: "Burned a whole tank of gas, CO2 levels only got to where he wiped out his frontal lobe. Now the guy was at that long-term care dump out on 81, staring at the ceiling, drooling on himself, waiting for the clock to run out." Now, that's not exactly a pretty picture.

How about a story that talks about this: "Before crank, I was every thirty-something white guy you've ever seen following his wife around Target." There's a whole biography of a character there in that one sentence. And that's before you realize he's really out robbing grandmas and Girl Scouts. Who the hell makes this stuff up?

These are good hard-edged nasty tales. Stories about drug addicts and gigolos.

These are not tales for children or for people who want to pretend they are still playing with flying ponies and rolly-polly bears. There's a grittiness and a realism to them that makes you want to read them very carefully - if you like this kind of stuff. ( )