Stranger, Stranger

How often, upon hearing about people who have had regrettable experiences or have lost their lives, we wish they had followed advice received early in life about not talking to strangers. But there are strangers we would be better off knowing, and it is hard to imagine a functioning society comprised of elementary particles (to allude to the title of one of French author Michel Houllebecq’s great novels) existing in perfect isolation and never interacting at all. The interplay of strangers has inspired storytellers of all epochs in every corner of the planet.

The encounters in the short stories in Michael Washburn’s latest collection take place at the fault lines of a violent and unstable society. In these tales, fugitives, drifters, misfits, and outcasts meet in locales as varied as hotels, bars, galleries, lecture halls, parks, pastures, beaches, and battlefields, but tension arises almost invariably from the interplay of sinister intelligences that rightly distrust one another. Marking all the stories in this collection are the suspense, originality, vividness, wit, and dark humor for which the author is known.