In the title story of Jeffrey Ford’s new collection
Big Dark Hole, a young boy crawls into a sewer pipe and never emerges. The narrator, who witnessed David Gorman’s fateful act, reflects forty years on: “In another five years or so, what’s left of the story will have completely decomposed, fizzed away, fallen back into a big dark hole.” Perhaps that oblivion is the fate of all stories, tales, and memories, but Ford’s stories will linger longer than most. They may not scare or shock, but they rarely fail to disquiet.
Roughly half the stories in
Laos
Ohio
United-states
New-jersey
Greece
Lao
American
Greek
Kelly-link
Matt-keeley
David-gorman
Sandy-duncan