That Constant Coyote: California Stories
Haslam's ( Okies: Selected Stories ) mostly lightweight collection of 25 stories offers some amusing tales, but the repeated use of shrewish female characters to create conflict wears thin long before the book ends. Typical are "Dancing," where a man is caught between his aging parents: a father losing his ability to drive a car and a mother who would enjoy depriving him of it; and "Joaquin," in which a petulant star given to sexual innuendo dismisses her leading men as California fakes, dubbing them "Hebrew Spaniards." "Tower Power" shows two New Age charlatans, the Divine Len Schwartz and Love Sister Sunshine, as they compete for an upscale market of "churchless-but-yearning commuters." "Someone Else's Life" recounts the lessons a boy learns from his father's foreman: on fishing and to "remember what's real, and keep a tight hold on it." In "Missing in Action," one of the few stories with a more serious theme, a son discovers how his father, caught up in anti-Japanese hysteria during World War II, was an accessory to burning the home of an innocent family sent away for internment.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.