2 out of 4 stars
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Joan Slowey's Mousetrap & Other Stories is exactly what it sounds like - a short story collection that includes a total of 19 short stories. The review copy I had was a dense 72 page PDF; Amazon lists the Kindle edition at 148. The stories are all pretty laser-focused on relationships, either familial or romantic (although "romantic" is used loosely here).
I'm not new to Joan Slowey's work. I previously reviewed a poetry collection of hers - The Red Petticoat - and I enjoyed it as a whole, finding some pieces particularly wonderful. The Red Petticoat ended up mixing things up quite a bit throughout, both the styles and topics, which was entirely lacking here. Although stories focus on both men and women and point of view varies from first to third person, the voice in each seems rather similar. Each story also lives up to the term short story, often ending on a note that isn't even an ending at all and sometimes perhaps only a few pages away from an actual ending.
One of the things a lot of stories have in common is that the men are pretty deplorable human beings, so much so that they felt like they were set decades or even centuries ago. The men often didn't hesitate to hit their women and were astonished if they fought back in any way, and there are even what many would consider (thankfully not explicit) rapes of wives by their husbands a couple times. Some of the stories give hints about the time frame - mentioning television, a Walkman, cars, a doorbell - but those clues often came halfway into an individual story.
None of this is to say that Joan isn't a good writer, however. The stories have a lovely flow and she masterfully chooses her vocabulary; the writing reminds me at times of the most elegant period pieces and at other times can really inspire fear or curiosity. The brevity of each piece is just a shame, it means we don't get to spend as much time with these characters as we really should. There's also one story that really stuck out to me, one that I thoroughly enjoyed up until the end (although the ending was incredibly similar to the story that preceded it). It follows a woman, a rather shy, introverted woman who's getting a cat soon. One day a salesman comes to her door and she's blown away that he'd want to speak with her, she even gets flabbergasted that she's made a friend in her mind! The scene where she's trying to look good for his following visit, wetting the red cover of a book to use as makeup and then being disappointed that she can't drink tea while she wears it is amazing. If more stories had such brilliant humor, I have no doubt I'd be singing a very different song about the book.
I rated each story individually - I gave seven of them a 1 out of 4, 11 of them a 2 out of 4 and the story mentioned above a 3 out of 4. There were a couple I almost really enjoyed but then they either ended too soon or in a way that really disagreed with me. Overall, I give the book 2 out of 4 stars. I can still suggest the collection to women, particularly ones who have been in a rough relationship or who have oppressive or annoying parents/families, it just wasn't for me.
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Mousetrap &Other Stories
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