She Treads Softly: We Regret to Inform You

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

We Regret to Inform You

We Regret to Inform You by Tim Fredrick

Tim Fredrick Publication: 3/31/2015
eBook Review Copy, 138 pages
ISBN-13: 9780692371558

A boy strives to become a world record holder.
A man wakes from cryosleep to learn he has months to live.
A catnip toy seeks affection from a cat.
A father turns to stone.

Writing in varied voices and pulling from different genres, from science fiction to fantasy to absurdism, Tim Fredrick explores male relationships with insight and humor. The characters in these fourteen stories-parents, siblings, lovers, and friends-struggle to find connection with those around them and contend with the inevitable fallout that accompanies love, heartbreak, fear, neglect, dysfunction, and fulfillment.

We Regret to Inform You challenges our conceptions of what men want out of relationships and examines moments that transcend our expectations and bring us closer together.

My Thoughts:

We Regret to Inform You by Tim Fredrick is a highly recommended collection of 14 short stories. There were times, while reading this short collection, that I felt a real personal connection with the author. Not that we even remotely run in the same circles, but the connection was that of one human to another. I wanted to be able to talk to him and just say, "Yes, I understand that feeling. I've been there." or "That is simple hilarious and can I send a copy to someone (or two)?" (Title story) I also felt that the order in which the stories are presented is well chosen.

I enjoyed almost all of the stories with just a few exceptions, but that perhaps had more to do with my inability to relate to the story the content (i.e. not male, not gay). I do have a good friend, a first best friend, to whom I would especially like to recommend this collection. Or I might just have to send him a copy.

Table of Contents - asterisks denote the stories I enjoyed the most

*By the Stream on Moving Day - A story of a first best friend
This One Night in the Bar Where I Work - a story of spittle
*Plaything - Stream of consciousness from a catnip mouse
*Egg-and-Spoon - a boy seeks to break the Guinness world record
A Tale of Five Thousand Erections - self-explanatory
*Thawed - cryogenically preserved man is brought back
*The Drawer - packing at the end of a relationship
My Right Armpit Sweats More Than My Left One - a man seeks answers
*We Regret to Inform You - a letter informing the recipient that he has been proven to be a "Total Dick"
*Driving Lessons - a younger brother gets driving lessons from his older brother
*The Kind of Person Who - She/He was the kind of person who....
*The Cat, on Snow - reflections on
*Dusting - cleaning day
*My Father the Statue - a family deals with a medical condition

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Tim Fredrick for review purposes.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.