A Fish Full of River

by Janet L. Bland

Alternating between the realms of the quirky and the poignant, A Fish Full of River brings its colorful ensemble of characters to life through ironic twists and resounding profundity. A young girl's... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0977803422
• ISBN13: 9780977803422
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Ghost Road Press
• Length: 183 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Amazing stories

This collection of short stories is superior in every way. Each is told from the first person point of view, both male and female, and take place in different eras, yet this gifted author transports you to a time and place experienced through a unique perspective. Most stories have a quirk or twist, like those sidebars you see in the newspaper about oddities such as quintriplets, but the tales show the complexities behind the unusual. This would be a wonderful gift for anyone who enjoys good writing and thoughtful stories.

Over the falls

This collection opens with an anecdote about a woman who goes over Niagara Falls in a barrel--and survives. Throughout these stories, many other characters struggle to keep their heads above water while flailing about for a lifeline, and their struggles for survival provide the impetus for the stories. Especially engaging are the children, who act with tremendous grace in the face of cataclysmic events--the death of a father, a flu epidemic--and find, almost by accident, a way to survive. Janet Bland's creativity is on display in these elegant and original stories, which move gently toward endings that seem oddly inevitable. I look forward to more work from her pen.

Enjoyable and observant

Janet Bland's A Fish Full of River is filled with the sort of stories that draw readers in with smooth dialogue before beckoning them back for a second reading to probe the symbolism and subjective narration. It is amazing that a single author can adopt the perspectives of so many vastly different protagonists and still tell each story as if it was her own life she is describing--not just laying out a plot but bringing to life the world of the protagonist through their own eyes. She describes the idiosyncrasies of those around the protagonist with a skill that comes from sharp observation and a mixture of empathy and honesty. The characters have unusual qualities--one is nearly mute, another beset by seizures--but their strangeness is treated as a window into universal human feelings. Bland effortlessly brings the reader into the world of the protagonist, but rather than emphasizing the sensational side of their abnormal world she makes the oddness mingle with the ordinary: instead of being a spectator at a show the reader becomes an explorer of the human condition. The book highlights the characters' aspirations, some born of drug addiction or traumatic experiences and others from the characters' peculiar ways of viewing the world. Bland presents her characters' assumptions in a way that reveals their absurdity and makes the reader question their own assumptions. She takes the idea of assumptions further and looks at how people's mental habits affect their lives just as much as strongly held ideas. All in all, A Fish Full of River is an enjoyable and though-provoking collection of stories that can be read as a vacation book but rewards close reading and re-reading.