Muscle Cars by Stephen G Eoannou

Griff stood in the bedroom doorway and watched his wife count the money a third time. Val’s hands trembled as she piled the fifty dollar bills on the bed in stacks of ten. When she was finished, there were ten neat stacks on the bedspread.
Val looked up at Griff. “Five thousand ,” she said.
Griff nodded. He had counted it twice before she got home.
“Tell me again how you found it.”
“There’s not much to tell,” Griff said, leaning against the doorjamb, his hands stuffed in his pockets. “My shift ended and I found it when I was cleaning the back of the cab.”
“So it belongs to your last fare.”
Griff shrugged. “The envelope was under the backseat, like it had been dropped and accidently kicked when the person was getting out. I don’t know who it belongs to."
“You must have an idea. A suspicion.”

~~Auld Lang Syne, Muscle Cars...

Title: Muscle Cars
Author: Stephen G Eoannou
ISBN: 9781939650221
Publisher: Santa Fe Writers Project/2015
Pages: 250

Short story collections are hard to review. The same goes for this collection too. I loved the stories but do not quite know how to explain those. One thing I discovered reading the stories is that, most have endings which are open-ended. It is for the reader to decide how he or she wants to explain it.

The stories depict the male point of view and cars are important part of the stories. The stories are about males and for males. Yet I loved the book. The title story sets the mood. The narrator goes to his neighbour's place to complain about noise and all but ends up bonding with the young boy and his friend by revealing about his brother.

The narrators of each story end up knowing something other than what they expected. Sometimes the consequences are not so good. Many a times, things are not what we think or expect. Life will always throw a curve when we least expect it.

I loved the build up of each of the stories, be it tragic or otherwise. If you want to read something that exercises your mind, makes you think, I recommend this book. The author knows his job and knows how to play into the readers mind.

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