4.5★
“By the age of forty-eight, Aunt Jill—perpetually single, beak-nosed, squat as a parlor stove—had foretold the arrival of an entire fleet of would-be husbands who had never managed to reach port.”

Niece Laurie Jean is co-opted to apply for a summer job with her aunt's current target of her affection (who doesn't know her) and has just enough money to rent a car for a month to drive Laurie Jean back and forth to work so she can flirt with the owner who makes fake foliage for displays. It is absurd and funny and a bit sad, of course, because Aunt Jill really hasn’t got a clue. Getting ready for the drive to work:

“‘Does your old aunt look presentable?’ she asked. She looked like a middle-aged prostitute on a television western. Straight off the X-rated version of Gunsmoke. ‘You look fine, I said.”

The niece makes friends with the other assistant who likes to sabotage the products by . . . well, I won’t tell. I will say that there’s a big order for a religious project and this girl has fun with it.

I love a good short story, and I thoroughly enjoyed this book. There’s one about a proposed murder that can make you a squirm a bit, and another about an 18-year-old girl trying to handle philosophical arguments while flirting with a graduate student in his 20s. In yet another, a favourite teacher comes to a sticky end and former students make some discoveries.

The stories are quite different from each other, although there is another about a seemingly unmarriageable woman finding love in an unusual place. A 78-year old and her 46-year-old boyfriend are planning a wedding in his pet shop in the mall, much to the distress of her daughter. Somehow, the happy couple seem more realistic to me than the worried daughter.

Then there’s a story with some magic rain storms where the main character and his wife are trying to have a baby. He’s really not that keen, but she’s obsessed now.

“—she’d acquired a ‘sperm catalogue’ from a local clinic and devoted her afternoons to rating photographs and biographies of prospective fathers. She’d already crossed me off the list. ‘For thirty grand,’ she’d insisted, without a hint of apology, ‘we deserve perfection.”

The nature of the magic rain could have some dire consequences for them (as well as for his attraction to a colleague at the hospital). Oh, what a tangle web . . .

Someone said they make a point of keeping a Jacob M. Appel book on the nightstand so they know there is always something good to read. I’d never heard of him, but he seems to be a multi-talented, 'multi-degreed' NY psychiatrist. Well, I've certainly heard of him now, and I’m delighted to find he’s written heaps of things, so my virtual nightstand will be waiting for some of them too.

Thanks to NetGalley and Black Lawrence Press and the author for the preview copy from which I’ve quoted (so quotes may change before publication).

I have been interested in this author's work, but this is my first reading of him. These short stories were well-written, unique, thought-provoking and darkly witty. Looking forward to reading more.