Stories for the Nighttime and Some for the Day

The blurb on the back of Ben Loory's "Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day" compares Loory's style to that of the love child of Mother Goose and Philip K. Dick. While that reviewer has the correct idea, I would instead compare Loory's stories to a combination of a Twilight Zone episode and a Budhhist koan. Loory's stories are flash fiction, only about five pages each. His slim book of 208 pages contains forty stories.

Practically none of his characters have names. The stories are always about "the woman," "the neighbor," "the husband," "the teacher," etc. He also writes about anthromorphic animals. One story begins: "A duck fell in love with a rock. It was a large rock—about the size of a duck, actually—that was situated off the bank of the river a little past the old elm." In another story, Loory writes about an octopus who leaves the sea to live in the city with people. As you can see, each story begins with an odd premise, which Loory generally concludes in a satisfying way. One of my favorite stories is about the sea falling in love with a house on a cliff. In another story, a man takes a moose sky-diving. I've never read any stories like these. They are intriguing, unexpected and so very crisply written.