Minor Sketches & Reveries (Book Info)

Brief Book Description: These introspective tales feature animals, allegories and melodramas of everyday life. At the center of the stories are tiny creatures (a sparrow, earthworm or paperclip) struggling to make sense of larger mysterious forces. Human protagonists are equally perplexed by ordinary events – like searching for a lost key, watching late night TV, or eating a taco.
Genre: Short Stories/Fantasy
Publication Date: November 1, 2020
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Copyright: 2020. Cover art & Illustrations by Bethany Bethurem
Word Count: 54,000 words
Book Details
Read one of the stories || Read an Interview with the Author || Screenshot
These introspective tales (described by one critic as “the perfect panacea for minds stressed by life’s challenges“) feature animals, allegories and melodramas of everyday life. At the center of the stories are tiny creatures (a sparrow, earthworm or paperclip) struggling to make sense of larger mysterious forces. Human protagonists are equally perplexed by ordinary events – like searching for a lost key, watching late night TV, or eating a taco.
As the author admits in the afterward, these pieces feel more like “sketches” than stories with conventional plot and character. Many end at odd places or don’t end at all. Scattered through the stories are moments of isolation, confusion and foreboding. Some pieces (like the essayistic “Indolence: Notebooks”) investigate a philosophical idea to such absurd lengths that one is almost tempted to take a nap.
In one of the lighter pieces (“3 Fake Recommendation Letters,”) Balengo submits fake recommendation letters (by Rabelais, Kafka and Hans Christian Anderson) to an MFA program. In a more somber story (“The Deletionist”) a disgruntled system administrator tries to delete as much of his digital footprint as he can – with mixed results.
Written in plain, careful language, this debut collection by Alberto Balengo depicts people (and creatures) trying valiantly to investigate a world that seems neither rational nor reassuring.
Reviews and Feedback
LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE (9/2020)This entertaining work can be enjoyed by fans of literary and experimental fiction as well as by others who remain open to surprises or do not demand traditional story structures. Alberto Balengo’s Minor Sketches and Reveries offers 14 refreshingly unusual tales. Some involve “allegories and melodramas of everyday life,” such as a man’s panicked search for a lost apartment key or a fired computer programmer’s efforts to completely erase a digital footprint, while he proclaims: “The past is unnecessary, the future is unknowable; the present requires only nimbleness.”
Other narratives are written from surprising perspectives such as the mind of a dog, the mind of a sparrow trapped inside a supermarket, or even the “mind” of an inanimate object, in particular one paperclip among many in a box, pondering a normal day of existence: “Life was less of a struggle than a dumb lottery about who would be grabbed next. Everyone joked about it, but only because it was too terrifying to contemplate what it would be like to be plucked away.”
Most of the tales in this book do not offer fiction’s traditional beginnings, middles, and endings. Indeed, some of Balengo’s sketches and reveries create intriguing flows of mental images and then suddenly cease, leaving their stories suspended mentally in midair. Yet these fragments work as experimental fiction pieces and can leave lingering thoughts and images in readers’ minds.
Balengo’s writing style sometimes offers moments of sharp tension for his characters, yet more often flows toward clear, calm descriptions, philosophical contemplation, and efforts to accept or make sense of both human and nonhuman realities.
SAN FRANCISCO BOOK REVIEW (11/2020) Balengo’s tales bring a sense of dark humor and unconventional whimsicality to our daily interactions. These works will encourage readers to stop and reconsider their everyday activities and interactions in a new, more satirical light….His words, honest and poignant, capture the magnitude of emotions and words left unsaid. Between these pages, readers will explore loss, frustration, and unconventional closure. Many of Balengo’s chapters, or “sketches,” leave the reader roughly where the story started–in the middle of an object’s journey, without conclusion or sense of resolution. The book simply continues on to the next concept or theme, much like life… Given the tone and syntax of the work, this book requires a mature audience capable of appreciating and comprehending Balengo’s intention and meaning. Balengo’s book earns four stars for its originality and perspectives on the ins and outs of life….Minor Sketches and Reveries is an exceptional work that will entrance and challenge readers to rethink the ordinary and perceive the bizarre and outlandish in their everyday lives. (Reviewed by Jessica Tingling)
MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW (10/2020.)Don’t expect the usual trappings of the short story… As the title says, these works eschew the usual focus on progressive plot or character development in favor of more of a sketchbook method of capturing slices of life. This lends particularly well to writers and readers who want their descriptions succinct, and their images and progressions as free-flowing as an internet search engine. … Minor Sketches and Reveries is a diverse collection that holds no unified theme other than its excellence and element of surprise. Take the opening piece, ‘Dog Orientation’, for example: a primer for the canine on the ironies and incongruities of living in a human world. … The sense of whimsy and fun about the dog’s-eye view of human affairs and the role of the ‘human caretakers of their estates’ is a fine introduction to other pieces which are, at points, more reflective and serious in nature, but often embedded with this same sense of ironic observation.
‘3 Fake Recommendation Letters’, which Alberto Balengo wrote himself and included in an application to a school creative writing program, are also whimsical in nature, reminiscent of Australian humorist David Thorne. The gorgeous, fun illustrations by Brittany Bethurem represent the icing on the cake of a wonderful production. Whimsical and artistic, these color and black and white drawings are the perfect adjunct to bring the literary aspect to life. Minor Sketches and Reveries is the perfect panacea for minds stressed by life’s challenges….{D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer)
About the Author
Alberto Balengo (a pseudonym) was born in New Mexico and has lived most of his life in Texas. He works in health care and received his bachelor’s degree from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. He loves dogs but hates football.
