Davies, P.F. – Because I Am: Stories 2004-2009

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Because I Am: Stories 2004-2009

I’d love to put an actual website up there for contact information, but there’s nothing on Google for P.F. and the only thing listed on the back of the book is a Twitter account, and fuck Twitter.  Ahem.  Not that I have a strong opinion about it or anything.  And that awful cover doesn’t get the book off to the most promising of starts, as it’s almost always a bad idea to put a story on the cover, even if it is a good story.  You’re trying to draw people in who might see this at a store or a convention, and that national attention span is too damned short to read a story on the cover these days (see: Twitter). Luckily things take a decided turn for the better once we get to the actual stories.  Actually, it’s damned near flawless once you get that far, almost enough to get me over my annoyance that a graphic novel can be put out in this day and age without any proper contact information for the author.  Stories include an old man and his granddaughter and his quest over the years to nail down the specifics about a comet he’s discovered, meeting a nice girl while out on the town but missing the planned date due to being too responsible, a kid biting off more than he can chew in trying to pull off a bike trick, a silent (and brilliant) piece about the body fighting off indigestion, playing in a construction zone against the rules and having something go horribly wrong, a man taking a brief break from war by staying with a shepherd, the mystery uncovered by a metal detector, an old timey-tale about sniffing out the guy who’s sneaking in to sleep with another man’s daughter, and a silent bathtub dream about a pearl.  It covers a wide range of age groups and types of people and every bit of it is expertly handled.  There’s genuine emotion over here, a real laugh or two over there, and all the messy bits in between that make up life.  This book is well worth a look, my minor quibbles aside.  And Lulu is selling it for $7.54 at the moment, which is a steal for a book that’s this hefty.

Posted on December 6, 2010, in Reviews and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink. Comments Off on Davies, P.F. – Because I Am: Stories 2004-2009.

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