Raymond, the protagonist of "Birdland," knows how to capitalize on the African parrots that migrant every fall to his tiny town of Elbow, Alabama. The parrots have brought Ludmilla Haggarsdottir (aka The Blond), an ornithologist from New Hampshire. Having nowhere to stay, The Blond rents a room with Raymond and becomes his girlfriend. His second source of income is wood carvings of the parrots for all the tourists who "flock" to Elbow (pun totally intended). Elbow in and of itself is an interesting little community of less than 12 souls, all fixated on the game of college football. I fell in love with Raymond and his band of misfit neighbors. They live the simple life without telephones or tvs. The Blond is the most colorful thing he's seen since the arrival of the parrots. ( )

I came to know Michael Knight through his novels, Divining Rod: A Novel and the more recent The Typist: A Novel, which I very much enjoyed. This short story collection I found equally entertaining and it's just more evidence of his considerable talent. There are stories here that give a richly evocative sense of place ("Birdland"); one that shows he can experiment with technique (the narrator of "The End of Everything" gives an ongoing commentary on the genre of story he's telling, even though the story breaks from that genre); a quick and fun short-short ("The Mesmerist"); and then a piece that is as richly comic and offbeat as Martin Scorcese's After Hours ("The Blackout"). Most of the stories feature young adult males who are not that successful or ambitious and who are struggling to get what they want from the women in their lives.

The characters are all well-developed, the writing is clean and clear and evocative. Definitely the kind of collection you can kick back in a comfortable chair with and simply enjoy. The nine pieces in the collection are:


1. Birdland (17 pp) - A rich man in Pawtucket, RI, at the turn of the century releases African parrots into the wild, where they begin an annual migration between Pawtucket and Elbow, Arizona. Their migration brings a beautiful, female ornithologist - "the Blond" - to Alabama, where she enters a relationship with her landlord, who inherited a house from his grandmother and who subsists on the small amounts he earns selling driftwood sculptures of parrots to the tourists. The town of Elbow, with its population of just 12, is as much a character in story as the people - and they're colorful: the 80-something mayor who still uses the "N" word when cussing out the fullback for the University of Alabama football team during the games everyone in town gathers at his store to watch. Oddly, the old man's best friend - and sometimes adversary - is the 70-year-old man who sweeps his store and who starred for Alabama in the early sixties when Bear Bryant reluctantly began integrating his team. Admit that backdrop, the ornithologist reluctantly forms an abiding connection to her landlord/lover.

2. Feeling Lucky (12 pp) - A man kidnaps his daughter from his ex-wife. With little money (and before the age of cell phones), he spends the night holed up in a hotel with his feverish daughter and gets into a battle with the hotel clerk over making change for the pay phone he needs to use to contact his new girlfriend, who has had a change of heart about getting involved with raising a kid. With another unwise choice, this sad sack who's never had anything go his way suddenly feels he might get lucky.

3. Killing Stonewall Jackson (12 pp) - A foot soldiers' view of life in the army of the highly eccentric, lemon-chopping, deserter-killing Stonewall Jackson. The soldiers are no less quirky than their leader - one heavily battle-scarred soldier, "Ghost Story," is best friends with a midget with a beard that falls to his feet. To make sure he doesn't run off at night, Ghost Story ties the beard to a post. Another soldier is so ugly that the rest of his troop refuses to believe the love letters he shares with them are actually from a girlfriend and not his sister.

4. The End of Everything (14 pp) - A story that comments on itself as it begins in the style of an urban legend - a woman comes home to find her dog choking on something it's swallowed. She brings the dog to the vet then goes home and gets an alarming call from the vet warning her that they discovered the dog swallowed a finger and that there's an intruder in her house and she needs to leave her apartment. She discovers the intruder is her philandering ex-husband who is desperate to win her back. This "technique-y" story actually becomes a powerful tale on the mistakes we make with the people we care about.

5. The Mesmerist (3 pp) - A hypnotist finds a mate by hypnotizing her into being his lover - a technique that works for him even when there's a chance his ruse might be uncovered.

6. Keeper of Secrets, Teller of Lies (14 pp) - A man in a hospital emergency waiting room with a suspected concussion befriends a young boy by telling him - and every medical person he subsequently has to interact with - tall tales about how he got the bump on his head.

7. Mitchell's Girl's (16 pp) - Mitchell - a stay-at-home dad with a Ph.D. - spends a painful day sprawled on the floor of his house after throwing out his back. With his wife not expected home from work until early evening, he can't get any help from his 3-year-old daughter or his rebellious 16-year-old step-daughter, who refuses to come to his rescue because their relationship has been so tense.

8. Ellen's Book (27 pp) - A struggling writer loses his wife when she returns home to her parents after delivering a stillborn baby. The writer begins spying on her during her lunches out and shopping trips with her mother. He decides the best way to win her back is to write a book about her and his love, and he gets humorous, but not very helpful, advice, from the members of his writing group. Oddly, his only real ally in the fight to win her back is his good ole boy father-in-law.

9. Blackout (24 pp) - Craziness ensues when a neighborhood loses its power. A young couple burnt out from their unsuccessful attempts to have a baby get caught up in hijinks with their crazy neighbors - a wife who wants her husband to believe she's having an affair, even though she's not, so he'll move her back to her beloved Texas, and her husband, a muscle-bound dimwit who causes all kinds of havoc - and inflicts all kinds of misery - as he prowls the darkened neighborhood in his night vision goggles because "Flashlights are for chumps."

( )