Little Raw Souls: Stories
*Starred Review* Schwartz appreciates that a compelling plotline can contribute intensity to the brief life of a short story. All of these 11 stories arrest the reader from their opening paragraphs; their fully engaging plots include a western farmer allowing a hippie-dippie couple the temporary use of a cabin on his property but finding peace and love quickly turning to violence; a young person’s crush on a cousin turns very provocative when the cousin, years later, shows up for a reunion no longer her original gender; a high-school teacher holds a gun to his head in front of his class with the full intention of using it; and a married man faces, under stressful circumstances, his own competitiveness with both his former girlfriend and his wife. But Schwartz is careful to use his strong, even page-turning plots to service the short story form’s primary responsibility: to capture a character’s most salient traits. His easy, unpretentious writing style not only adds to the stories’ accessibility and resonance but also supplies the solid amalgam between plot and character, resulting in a collection to be held up as evidence that the short story not only endures but also flourishes. --Brad Hooper