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Publication Date: July 10, 2023
Publisher: Atmosphere Press
Genre: Fiction / Stories
ISBN: 978-1-63988-884-9
List Price: $15.99 Paperback
Page Count: 154
Striking characters drive this solid batch of memorable, haunting stories in Scharine’s latest collection. A young boy growing on a Wisconsin farm in the late 1940s forms an unlikely friendship with a wandering farm hand in the title story, “Harvest.” An aging baseball player suddenly finds himself facing an uncertain future in “A Change of Pace.” Scharine builds a solid base for these stories, from the mood-setting backgrounds to the memorable, well-drawn casts. The characters include a free-spirited young man who picks up odd jobs as a farm hand; a struggling actress who refuses to give up, a modern-day outcast who contemplates his fate in front of Topez, the World War II Japanese internment camp; a dancer who gets trapped in a supernatural quandary among others. The characters’ personalities and backstories are fully drawn and set against vividly detailed physical and social surroundings. The Wisconsin farm where 9-year-old Rik grows up comes alive on the pages, and so do the other places in the rest of the stories. Scharine’s prose is expert as he delivers shocking turns, whether in the form of a surprise ending or a character’s unexpected revelation, and his understanding of the human psyche is extensive, making each story feel as satisfying as a full-length novella. A solid, dense literary collection that leaves a mark.
***
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