The Old Man and the Bird and Other Fictions

Six dark fictions with a cosmic scope and a delirious immediacy these shorter pieces (2 novellas and 4 one-acts) are an aspect of Swartz's gift many will find welcome others hugely unsettling. </P><P><I>The Old Man and the Bird </I> the concluding sequence of a befuddled Harry Ricci could be taken as a neo-conservatively-grotesque parable. From there it is a short stroll to Burt Spew in Snappers a madcap Armageddon of its own and parody of Jaws. </P><P>We have as well such oddities as The Damnation of Winston Pollock the saga of a disgruntled software wizard; The Gift Horse and the Gift the comic swan song of a disaffected shooter; Off the Record the threnody of a pedophilic trans-racial hip hop composer; and Clippers the outcry of a small-town American sub-literate a latter-day testosterone-laden barber waiting for [his] Godot. </P><P>All told these tales are abundant reminder that it was possible to laugh before 9/11 and to chuckle even roar long after en route to our current Abu Ghraibs or Guantanamos. </P>