Briefly Knocked Unconscious by a Low-Flying Duck: Stories from 2nd Story
Storytelling, one of humankind’s oldest art forms, has found renewed relevance in our popular culture, thanks to the popularity of such true-story venues as This American Life and The Moth. The Chicago-based collective 2nd Story operates in much the same vein, and this collection gathers some of the group’s best-told, completely true tales. In print, these stories resemble personal essays, yet they have a far looser, more conversational flow, thanks to their oral roots. How the story sounds is as important as, if not more important than, how it reads. Though too many offerings rely on the theme of “there was this crazy thing that happened to me once”—getting high in Amsterdam, interviewing the porn star of one’s adolescent dreams—most illuminate a critical juncture in the storyteller’s life, including “Counting Days,” in which Bobby Biedrzycki shares his path to sobriety. And then there are the accounts like “Push Kick Coast,” Ric Walker’s narrative of a night at the skating rink gone tragically wrong, which serves as a haunting reminder that many of our stories end far too soon. --Patty Wetli