This collection of short stories and the novella, Mr. Tall, was my first exposure to Tony Earley. It won’t be the last. In the first story in the collection “Haunted Castles of the Barrier Islands” a couple drive up to the University to visit their daughter who they dropped off two months ago as a scared and homesick eighteen year old.

From the first page:

“They found her locked in her room – dressed, but flushed and disheveled – with a scrawny wannabe surfer named Kyle. Kyle wore temporarily indecent board shorts and a T-shirt with F**K**U printed across the front. By the time he took hold of Darryl’s thumb and said, “Sup, dude” Darryl hated him thoroughly.”

It takes a certain brilliance to come up with the term “temporarily indecent” to perfectly capture the awkwardness of that scene.

In the novella, Mr. Tall, his main character is a young woman name Plutina, who sets up a household with her new husband in an isolated patch of Appalachia where her only neighbor is the mysterious Mr. Tall. Plutina (love that name) is a great character – honest and funny and innocent and tougher than she realizes. I could have easily read a hundred more pages with her as the narrator.

Earley’s stories are heartfelt, but unsentimental. Unpredictable, but with endings that feel natural and inevitable. Highly recommended.
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This was a very enjoyable collection of short stories. I actually found this book by chance in a Little Free Library. I'd never heard of the author before, but I just started glancing at the title story out of curiosity. Before I knew it, I'd finished reading the whole book.

The real hook for me was that the first story, "Haunted Castles of the Barrier Islands", was set in familiar places along the shore of North Carolina. I related easily to the couple traveling from the southern shores of that state to the Outer Banks. I also remember quite a drive through heavy fog on the ocean-side highway. The memories this story brought me carried me through this story ..and then the entire book.

Every story was completely different, each with its own quirky characters. One character, Fieldin Kohler, in the story "The Cryptozoologist" was described like this..."an emaciated praying mantis of a man who stuffed the legs of his paint-spattered chinos into knee-high fringed moccasins." You want to learn more about this character, right? He was a music teacher.

There are lines throughout that will make you laugh out loud. The last story, sort of a fantasy novella was called "Jack and the Mad Dog". One of its characters was Tom Dooley. A line from this story was..."Tom Dooley hung down his head." Yeah. Right. Haha!

Another few lines that cracked me up were these..."The next morning, she took to town the credit card that her father had given her to use in case of emergency and purchased a chain saw (Later when her father received the bill, he canceled the card.)"

Descriptions of everything from the changing settings to the personalities of the characters were very detailed and colorful. This was quite a delightful reading experience. The stories were intertwined, sometimes with just the name of a place; at other times, with some of the same characters! It was interesting to me as well to to find Jewish characters popping up out of nowhere. This was rural North Carolina!

Oh, my! Do give me more books by this author to read! ( )

The highest compliment I can pay Tony Earley is this: now I will go out and get all the other things you have written and read them soon. What a great writer! I wasn't in love with the last story in this collection, the fantasy entitled "Jack and the Mad Dog". I had the feeling it may have been purposefully somewhat confusing and so highly nuanced that I need to read it again. Still, I won't love this story. The others I do love.

Mr. Earley has a gift for detail and human psyche that places the reader so squarely in reality, it's more real than living every day may be. It's unvarnished. And yet it's somehow elegant even if the stories wouldn't be labeled as such in the ordinary way.

If short stories aren't your favorite, Mr. Earley has written a couple of novels, and everyone should be exposed to his writing.

I received this book from Goodreads Giveways. ( )

First night empty nesters, the misunderstood Mr. Tall, the widow of her misunderstood artist husband, Jack of th beanstalk and what happens when we close a book. Are you interested yet? I absolutely loved "Jim The Boy", and Tony Earley once again demonstrates his wonderful storytelling skill in this wonderful collection. Each story is a metaphor about life. Sounds trite, I know, but in this case not so!! ( )

A grouping of stories that I found amazing. In the first story a couple, long married with one child, finds after she foes to college that they are no longer the focus of her life. Empty nest and how do they and their marriage move forward? So realistic as I am sure many of us empty nesters can agree.

In another story a couple of high school sweethearts, separated by the war reconnect 45 yrs. later after the death of both of their spouses. My favorite though was the title story. A young girl of 16 marries and lives in a lonely secluded farm, her nearest neighbor is Mr. Tall a man with a tragedy of his own. We meet this young couple again as old people in another story.

All in all I loved the writing, the stories were fully developed. The last story is about Jack the giant killer. Does anyone wonder what happened to Jack after he kills the giant? Well we find out this author's version along with a talking dog. One my favorite book of short stories this year. ( )