I received an e-copy of the "Second Death of E. A. Poe and Other Stories" by Jack Matthews as part of the Early Reviewers offerings. Matthews has a clever way of writing each of these short stories and pulling the reader into them. Each story stands on its own; therefore the reader can enjoy these adventures in any order desired. ( )

Honestly I really couldn't get into this collection. I only read the first few stories and it was hard to get through them. There really wasn't any plot to the stories I read. They read like someone telling a story to their friends; it was a basic retelling of events with no depth to it. The title and description also implied that the stories would be inspired by Poe's style of writing, with gothic elements, but they weren't at all. It was disappointing, and in my opinion not worth the time to finish it.

I thoroughly enjoyed these stories! Several were striking and thought provoking. I found the title story to live up to the promise and I'm still wondering "what if..". A fun read. Give it a try.

Matthews was a prolific writer with a somewhat skewed and whimsical bent.

The included photo shows him with the endearing smile of someone both amused and bemused by the twists and turns of life, and one senses he must have had some personal experience of those as well.

The works included here are very mixed in character and quality, from little domestic pieces to war yarns. The title story is the most striking and the best worked-out, though as the editor himself notes, the ending is a bit disappointing. Another humorous piece reflects Matthews' apparent sideline as a collector of rare books.

There is a sweet sympathetic quality overall, though many of the stories have not aged well at all, and about a couple of them, the less said the better. Matthews has a peculiar over-the-top style which sometimes works, but at other times falls flat. He indulges in the striking metaphor and oblique turns of phrase, and again, he sometimes overindulges.

The editor and publisher both seem to have a fan's devotion to making his works available, an admirable quality. Unfortunately a few of the stories need to be read with mental auto-correct engaged due to some bad automated conversion minus proofreading -- e.g. "devotional writhing" in place of "devotional writing".

At best, the stories are slight but entertaining. One imagines Matthews would be a good companion for exchanging shaggy dog stories at a bar. But again, too long in his company and one might begin to look for an escape. He is always inventive and the range of materials is in fact refreshing, given how constricted in their range of subjects many more recent authors feel they need to be. Matthews is inventive and surprising; he doesn't hesitate to plunge in, and plunge ahead.


Postscript: I received the following in a note from the published (Robert Nagle), regarding my review, and thought it worthwhile to add this here:


"I wouldn't be surprised if there's a random typo or two in the text, but let me assure you 'devotional writhing' was probably intentional. (Can't say with 100% certainty). Matthews liked to mix up words on purpose throughout his books and sometimes misspell them. I remember spotting that phrase as a typo and then realizing it was probably exactly what he wanted. (I would have confirmed it with him if I could, but he passed away in 2013). Of course, the hard part of editing the prose of Mr. Matthews is trying to figure out which mistakes were deliberate and which were just the result of bad typing. Regardless of whether it was intentional, "devotional writhing" is (I think) a very funny phrase."

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[Disclaimer: I got this book via LibraryThing's Early Reviewer program]

I find it funny that some reviewers say that the title of this book is a bit of a fraud because its ten short stories are not in the style of Poe. After all, it should be about his (second) death... Actually, this collection contains works in different styles: the story which gives the title to the book is actually Poe-like, but for example the first two (Trophy for an Earnest Boy and Stop Killing the Innocence remind me more of Roald Dahl. What I however found is that most of the stories end in an anticlimax. Matthews was really good in setting up an environment which carries the reader on... until there is an end which comes not with a bang but a whimper. The Waitress and the Relic is probably the best example of this, while A Story Not About Richardson just wanders nowhere. I confess that I did not understand the ending of Delusional Gymnosis, but this could be due to my imperfect command of English. Indispensable Ghosts also ends in a minor tone, but this time it's rather ok, while The Kiss made me think of a kiss of death.
The best story is certainly the longest one, Dark Machinery, even if I would have excised the first part which does not have any relation with the second one, besides both being placed in IIWW. ( )