Pictures of the shark Stories

The linked stories that form McNeely's powerful family portrait depict the emotional devastation visited upon the child of a marriage fractured by infidelities. Buddy Turner is just a small boy when he first suspects there are fissures in his parents' relationship that lie beyond his understanding. Overheard whispers, subtle clues, mistruths, and simmering jealousies haunt his young subconscious. The discontinuous stories follow Buddy, from his first snowfall in early 1970's Houston to his quasi-religious experience at an Elvis concert, from his first obsessive love to his stint in rehab while still a teenager. His youthful fascination with the blockbuster movie Jaws and the animatronic shark at Universal Studios leads to a realization that penetrates the delicate façade protecting his psyche. As an aspiring writer in college, Buddy maintains strict adherence to the creative process, finding art preferable to reality, though it delays the sobering recognition of his own cruelty and failures. McNeely wrote, polished, and published these stories over a 20-year period, honing each with laser-like precision to achieve a heartbreaking authenticity.

McNeely's collection abounds with flawed relationships and fraught situations. There's a moment early in "Snow, Houston, 1974," the first story in the book, in which Buddy, a young child, watches his father put out a fire in their home. His father makes an offhand joke to him that his mother doesn't understand: "She hadn't caught the joke in his father's voice," McNeely writes, and it leads to heightened tension between mother and father. The subtle complexities of that encounter act as a summary of what's to come next: stories that follow Buddy as he grows up and his parents divorce as well as a few that trace the life of Turner, a would-be writer who develops a drinking problem at a young age. In returning to these characters several times and showing them from different angles, McNeely achieves an often heartbreaking level of detail. Later, in "No One's Trash," Buddy's mother, Margot, gets her turn in the spotlight. Her frustrations over her marriage--and the fact that her pregnancy derailed her medical career--make for a slow-burning thread throughout the book, and it also illustrates McNeely's commitment not to reduce any of his characters to types. The Turner we encounter first, given to comments like "I would be redeemed, I thought, by poetry and love," eventually grows into a terrible, abusive boyfriend--though even that isn't the end of his story. At one point, Buddy's cousin tells him, "We don't play those kind of games anymore." This book abounds with moments like those, in which characters' youthful illusions fall away even though they'd seemed all too comfortable. An emotionally taut and often haunting collection. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

from  Pictures of the Shark If he said yes, Buddy knew, he would have to keep his father's secret. "Yes, sir," he said. "I'd like that." When they walked up the broken cement path to their house, his mother watched them, her face blurred and ghostly behind a porch screen. As always when his father appeared, she stood very still, as if afraid to startle him. His father stopped, one foot on the bottom step. His mother asked if he could come in. Just for a minute.   Excerpted from Pictures of the Shark: Stories by Thomas H. McNeely All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.