My One and Only Bomb Shelter
There’s danger — sometimes palpable, sometimes faint or comic, but nonetheless real — behind each of these beautifully crafted stories in John Smolens’ collection. The sense of danger is what helps make these stories beautiful and compelling. Danger becomes a context for these stories and raises their stakes so that it seems that if no life is safe then no life is ordinary. Read the story “Cold”, and you’ll see the method at work; read “Cold”, and you won’t close this book again until you’ve read them all.