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    Second Thoughts: More Queer and Weird Stories
    Second Thoughts: More Queer and Weird Stories
    Second Thoughts: More Queer and Weird Stories
    Ebook220 pages5 hours

    Second Thoughts: More Queer and Weird Stories

    By Steve Berman

    4/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    In his second collection of stories and essays, author Steve Berman once more guides readers through the dark paths of his imagination with such tales as a nursery rhyme tempting a young lover, the ghost of the corpse in the trunk of the car demands the hustler behind the wheel finds a proper burial spot, the scent of loneliness enticing children to eat away a caretaker’s historic house, and a pair of Victorian-era burglars seeking their fortune in a fey-filled London.

    "Each of the stories that make up this book is accompanied by such an Author’s Note in which Berman discusses the background and purpose of the piece. The tone is informal and the device effective, giving the reader a greater insight to the writer while enhancing the impact of the tale. Though Berman’s style varies greatly throughout the 200 plus pages of this selection of stories, it is consistent in its quick pace, punchy dialogue and confident originality. No two stories are the same, but are linked in their fine marriage of reality and surrealism. This collection is excellent for readers of the lesser-found gay supernatural fiction, or anyone appreciative of twisted tales in their many forms." - Chroma

    "The stories are without exception well-wrought, fluent gems that reveal Berman's gift for taking absolutely unremarkable situations, little fragments of everyday life, or sometimes bits of popular apocrypha, and twisting them off their path into bizarre and surprising places." - Rambles.net

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLethe Press
    Release dateNov 28, 2010
    ISBN9781452444642
    Second Thoughts: More Queer and Weird Stories
    Author

    Steve Berman

    Author of over a hundred short stories, editor of numerous queer and weird anthologies, and small press publisher living in western Massachusetts.

    Read more from Steve Berman

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    Reviews for Second Thoughts

    4/5

    6 ratings2 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Steve Berman is an author I discovered through his short stories in multi-author anthologies, such as Arose from Poetry in the post-apocaylptic romance anthology Brave New Love, and through his work as an editor on gay anthologies. I sought out more of his work, but had a very lukewarm reaction to his first short-story collection, Trysts (published in 2001.) Second Thoughts (published seven years later) is MUCH more impressive in both style and content. An engrossing and entertaining collection, one with more heart and more depth than Trysts, and written with a more mature style. It starts off slowly, with a handful of unimpressive too-short and unstructured tales, but the stories grow more thorough and complex as you read, and an intriguing overall structure is gradually revealed.Bittersweet - Dault's boyfriend, Jerrod, a diabetic, might lose his foot in an upcoming operation. Dault struggles with whether or not he could continue to date an amputee (and yes, he realizes that makes him a terrible person). When Jerrod leaves for his surgery, Dault cheats on him.Secrets of the Gwangi - a very short story scattered among multiple characters and time periods. Gay cowboys in the old west, a movie director in the days of cheesy drive-in horror, modern day stunt-men and kids watching the movie version of the cowboy's adventures. I felt it was too short and scattered to be effective, an idea that demanded more than the few pages Berman gave it. Kiss - another I felt was too short and didn't develop the idea clearly enough. Two boys, college roommates, are out to buy drugs for a party. Then there's something to do with the legend of the chupacabra. Always Listen to a Good Pair of Underwear - again, very short, pretty pointless, except for the way it ties into the overarching story (more on that later). You'll think I don't like this collection, but really the stories get much better. The High Cost for Tamarind - an alternate history tale (I think?) a German adolescent, Ivan, and his parents have moved to Mexico where he falls in love with Sandro. Sandro has cancer and dreams of running away to the "clean, white" hospitals of America. It doesn't end well for either of them, presumably. Would have been better if fleshed out more. The Price of Galmour - the first story in the collection that really made me sit up and pay attention. This one is longer, with more time invested in description and world-building and it pays off. A Victorian setting, faerie creatures inhabit London. They can blend in thanks to a glamour made of pixie dust that they buy from a dealer named Bluebottle. Our hero, Tupp Smatterpit, is indentured to work as Bluebottle's bagman, collection his debts from the fae all over London. He's been skimming off the top for years to buy his freedom, only to have his secret hoard stolen from him by a human thief! Enjoyable story, and I would love to read more by Berman set in this world. A novel-length adventure starring Tupp would suit me fine. Tearjerker - a story set in Berman's world of the Fallen, a post-apocaylptic New Weird setting where reality has fallen away. There are more stories set in this world in his first collection, Trysts, but this story is where the setting really came alive for me. The description and the atmosphere is great, with the right amount of creepy and weird. Gail is a young lady working as a maid in an old hotel run by two old sisters who sell child's tears to addicts. She discovers a hairless boy tied to a bed in a forbidden room, his tongue cut out, who tells stories with red words that appear on his skin, but being his friend comes at a terrible cost. Loved it. Well Wishing - a traveling salesman's car breaks down, and he asks for help at a nearby farmhouse. The farmer's daughter is into him, but he has no interest in her. The farmer also has a son, and while the narrative is interspersed with a story about the farm boy's collection of his lover's heads in the bottom of the old well, there is a twist in this story that is dark but satisfying. Caught By Skin is a science fiction story set in a future where everyone gets plastic surgery, but groups all go in for the same face - whatever face is popular that season. The main character is surprised to meet a "natural" at the club, especially a seemingly-crazy one who claims to be a time-traveller, but he finds himself attracted despite himself. A very interesting idea. A Rotten Obligation a hustler is driving across the country to bury the body of a dead friend, when he falls in love with a busboy at a diner. The only problem is, his dead friend won't leave him alone. Hidden in Central Asia - a gay student on a field trip to China and Mongolia fools around with a straight girl and has a bit of an identity-crisis. Didn't really work for me and felt overlong. Kinder - the caretaker of an historical old house falls prey to a bizarre infestation of monsters known as "kinder" who have the appearance of German children and the personalities of wild dogs or rats. The "Kinder" prey on the lonely, and the caretaker has been lonely since the Trustees fired the guide he had a relationship with. Also, there's a living oven. Nicely bizarre. A Troll on a Mountain with a Girl - Owen, a forty-year old accountant obsessed with doing things in alphabetical order (such a bizarre quirk I found charming) has cashed out his 401K early, and is traveling the world searching for a monster to kill him. A depressed man who has been gay but closeted his entire life with no real connections with anyone besides his mother, whom he spent a lot of time watching monster movies with. Owen is a character I felt real empathy for, and I teared up at points of his story. And then there are the author's notes. After each story is an author's note, some spanning several pages. At first it seems like Berman is relating little autobiographical anecdotes about his life, but they grow longer, more complex and begin to take on a surreal weird/horror element of their own. By the time you come across talking dogs, ghosts and animate ovens everyone should realize the "author's notes" are really another story, very beautifully interspersed among the others. I thought that was a really neat and original idea and well executed. You also begin to see the short stories tie in to the overarching story of the "authors notes," which relate Berman's experiences (real or fictional) with a roommate named Mike Carte whom he was deeply in love with, though it was one-sided. All in all, Second Thoughts is a beautiful collection. There are some very weak stories, but then there are exceptionally strong ones and the whole "Author's Notes" story-line turned out to be a very cool idea.
    • 4/5
      Steve Berman is an author I discovered through his short stories in multi-author anthologies, such as Arose from Poetry in the post-apocaylptic romance anthology Brave New Love, and through his work as an editor on gay anthologies. I sought out more of his work, but had a very lukewarm reaction to his first short-story collection, Trysts (published in 2001.) Second Thoughts (published seven years later) is MUCH more impressive in both style and content. An engrossing and entertaining collection, one with more heart and more depth than Trysts, and written with a more mature style. It starts off slowly, with a handful of unimpressive too-short and unstructured tales, but the stories grow more thorough and complex as you read, and an intriguing overall structure is gradually revealed.Bittersweet - Dault's boyfriend, Jerrod, a diabetic, might lose his foot in an upcoming operation. Dault struggles with whether or not he could continue to date an amputee (and yes, he realizes that makes him a terrible person). When Jerrod leaves for his surgery, Dault cheats on him.Secrets of the Gwangi - a very short story scattered among multiple characters and time periods. Gay cowboys in the old west, a movie director in the days of cheesy drive-in horror, modern day stunt-men and kids watching the movie version of the cowboy's adventures. I felt it was too short and scattered to be effective, an idea that demanded more than the few pages Berman gave it. Kiss - another I felt was too short and didn't develop the idea clearly enough. Two boys, college roommates, are out to buy drugs for a party. Then there's something to do with the legend of the chupacabra. Always Listen to a Good Pair of Underwear - again, very short, pretty pointless, except for the way it ties into the overarching story (more on that later). You'll think I don't like this collection, but really the stories get much better. The High Cost for Tamarind - an alternate history tale (I think?) a German adolescent, Ivan, and his parents have moved to Mexico where he falls in love with Sandro. Sandro has cancer and dreams of running away to the "clean, white" hospitals of America. It doesn't end well for either of them, presumably. Would have been better if fleshed out more. The Price of Galmour - the first story in the collection that really made me sit up and pay attention. This one is longer, with more time invested in description and world-building and it pays off. A Victorian setting, faerie creatures inhabit London. They can blend in thanks to a glamour made of pixie dust that they buy from a dealer named Bluebottle. Our hero, Tupp Smatterpit, is indentured to work as Bluebottle's bagman, collection his debts from the fae all over London. He's been skimming off the top for years to buy his freedom, only to have his secret hoard stolen from him by a human thief! Enjoyable story, and I would love to read more by Berman set in this world. A novel-length adventure starring Tupp would suit me fine. Tearjerker - a story set in Berman's world of the Fallen, a post-apocaylptic New Weird setting where reality has fallen away. There are more stories set in this world in his first collection, Trysts, but this story is where the setting really came alive for me. The description and the atmosphere is great, with the right amount of creepy and weird. Gail is a young lady working as a maid in an old hotel run by two old sisters who sell child's tears to addicts. She discovers a hairless boy tied to a bed in a forbidden room, his tongue cut out, who tells stories with red words that appear on his skin, but being his friend comes at a terrible cost. Loved it. Well Wishing - a traveling salesman's car breaks down, and he asks for help at a nearby farmhouse. The farmer's daughter is into him, but he has no interest in her. The farmer also has a son, and while the narrative is interspersed with a story about the farm boy's collection of his lover's heads in the bottom of the old well, there is a twist in this story that is dark but satisfying. Caught By Skin is a science fiction story set in a future where everyone gets plastic surgery, but groups all go in for the same face - whatever face is popular that season. The main character is surprised to meet a "natural" at the club, especially a seemingly-crazy one who claims to be a time-traveller, but he finds himself attracted despite himself. A very interesting idea. A Rotten Obligation a hustler is driving across the country to bury the body of a dead friend, when he falls in love with a busboy at a diner. The only problem is, his dead friend won't leave him alone. Hidden in Central Asia - a gay student on a field trip to China and Mongolia fools around with a straight girl and has a bit of an identity-crisis. Didn't really work for me and felt overlong. Kinder - the caretaker of an historical old house falls prey to a bizarre infestation of monsters known as "kinder" who have the appearance of German children and the personalities of wild dogs or rats. The "Kinder" prey on the lonely, and the caretaker has been lonely since the Trustees fired the guide he had a relationship with. Also, there's a living oven. Nicely bizarre. A Troll on a Mountain with a Girl - Owen, a forty-year old accountant obsessed with doing things in alphabetical order (such a bizarre quirk I found charming) has cashed out his 401K early, and is traveling the world searching for a monster to kill him. A depressed man who has been gay but closeted his entire life with no real connections with anyone besides his mother, whom he spent a lot of time watching monster movies with. Owen is a character I felt real empathy for, and I teared up at points of his story. And then there are the author's notes. After each story is an author's note, some spanning several pages. At first it seems like Berman is relating little autobiographical anecdotes about his life, but they grow longer, more complex and begin to take on a surreal weird/horror element of their own. By the time you come across talking dogs, ghosts and animate ovens everyone should realize the "author's notes" are really another story, very beautifully interspersed among the others. I thought that was a really neat and original idea and well executed. You also begin to see the short stories tie in to the overarching story of the "authors notes," which relate Berman's experiences (real or fictional) with a roommate named Mike Carte whom he was deeply in love with, though it was one-sided. All in all, Second Thoughts is a beautiful collection. There are some very weak stories, but then there are exceptionally strong ones and the whole "Author's Notes" story-line turned out to be a very cool idea.

    Book preview

    Second Thoughts - Steve Berman

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