Review: Bang Crunch

TITLE: Bang Crunch
AUTHOR: Neil Smith
DATE: January 2008

This is a collection of 9 short stories, which by the way is Neil Smith’s debut novel. He is a Canadian author living in Montreal, QC. The characters in all the short stories are all average people who end up in unexpected situations. The stories all vary in plot but the settings are all the same. The stories are all based around Montreal locations. (Its always nice to read books that take place in your city.)

The first story called Isolettes opens like this “Blue tube, green tube, clear tube, fat tube” The story is about An who has just had a premature baby with her gay friend Jacob. The details of the premature baby are so exact that you feel as though you are in the Nick U with the baby.

The story of Green Florescent protein is about a 17 year old boy, Max who is struggling to admit his attraction to his friend. There is also another story about Max’s mother Funny Weird or Funny Ha Ha. Where she talks about growing up watching reruns of I Love Lucy. She talks about her husband and how he died. She put his ashes in a curling stone.

The B9ers is about the struggle of a group of people trying to return to normal life after finding out they all have benign tumors. They don’t get the support they need since their tumors aren’t malignant.

The Bang Crunch is about Eepie a girl with Fred Hoyle’s Syndrome, which ages her a year a day until she reaches 80 and then she goes back in time.

Those are just a few examples of the stories that are in the book. I really enjoyed reading them. Its been awhile since I have read short stories. Looking forward to reading some more.

I got to see and listen to Neil speak tonight and what a pleasure it was. He talked about his book and that its being published in different languages. He doesn’t write full time yet just part time. He is in the process of working on his novel called Heaven Is a Place Where Nothing Ever Happens. That sounds really good. Looking forward to reading it when it comes out. To read the first five chapters click here.

Neil is actually quite tall. Okay I am just short I admit it LOL.

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