Sometimes you have to stare at something for a long time for it to become real. A copy of Caleb J Ross’s Charactered Pieces was sitting on the table in front of the television for almost two years. Someone brought it home, said I might like it, and so I left it lying about, good intentions surrounding it, along with junk mail, the TV remote, empty bottles, and sweating tumblers. It became the smallest coffee table book I’d ever propped my feet on watching the tube.

Then, the unthinkable happens. My morning newspapers don’t show up at the appointed time. I go fog. Man, I can’t start the day without my New York Times and Wall Street Journal. I’ll even settle for a USA Today, even though that’s like ingesting bootleg rather than store-bought. Then I start to shut down. I search desperately for something to read, something that might fill the same time slot. I pick up Caleb J Ross’ slim 65-page volume with its yellow orange cover and an artistic rendering of a tiny foot pushing through, what, a pillow, or something? (When you read the story that image refers to, better have a prayer book by your side). Oh, and the cover really is yellow, it didn’t age waiting for someone to pick it up.

Perhaps I read under extreme duress, as a prisoner of my morning routine. Perhaps.

For several years, I reviewed short story collections at the The Short Review. For most collections I read, the common shortcoming I identified was that, while one or two stories ranged from “worth reading” to “gems,” the rest of the collection I found lacking.

Charactered Pieces is NOT like that. Each story has momentum. Characters take what society gives them and deconstruct under their own illusions or delusions. Ross’s language is crisp, even as the sentences accelerate you effortlessly into the story, the unimaginable becoming all too real, then gently guide you into a deep pool of reflection and contemplation at story’s end. His themes offer about as much uplift as the Wright Brothers first experimental airplane, but they make you think at exit velocity. Regardless of how you feel after you read these stories, you can’t help BUT feel, with empathy and tolerance for the lives portrayed, and respect for the author.

Thank you, newspaper delivery guy. When Ross’s next volume arrives, believe me, I won’t be staring at it.