Reviews - Short Story Collections

I experienced moments of true delight while reading this collection -- Lock is gifted with words and the images they summon; with subtle, ironic humor; with creating surreal but inviting alternate worlds; and with using story as a vehicle for exploring complex ideas and philosophies. I especially enjoyed the disorienting setting of "The Captain is Sleeping" (a boat that seems to defy the laws of space, time, and physics); the genuine pathos and engaging narrative voice in "The Mummy's Bitter and Melancholic Exile"; and the questions raised in "Ideas of Space."

However, while Lock reveals himself as a master of language, story, and concept, he unfortunately rarely masters all three in the course of a single story. For example, in the collection's first story, "The Monster in Winter," Lock's prose is engaging -- every word seems to have found its perfect placement, and his narrative voice is so fresh: witty, ironic, and coolly detached. But the characters -- especially the narrator -- were flat and predictable, and the major theme -- the monsters within all of us -- feels tired. In many other stories in the collection, the characters and their adventures seem to take a backseat to Lock's forays into philosophy ("Ideas of Space" and "To Each According to His Sentence" are particularly guilty). Additional issues with this volume include Lock's navel gazing tendencies ("Norman Lock" shows up as a character in several stories, and a few pieces seem to be little more than metaphors for the writing life) and the inescapable irony of his tone. I began to feel as though Lock did not take his own stories seriously -- as though, afraid of being labelled as a genre fiction hack, he felt the need to coat his stories with an ironic, literary veneer. As I am someone who is willing and able to accept tales of wonder and weirdness on their own terms, this grew tiresome.

All in all, although some of Lock's artistic decisions and idiosyncrasies were exasperating, Love Among the Particles is worth a read, and will be a delight for those who love to watch words play.