Royce Leville

By the logic of the second story in this book ("Ronald"), I need to give this book a bad review. It came without swag. It came without first class comped orgies. It came without packages, boxes or bags. It did come from Germany, so I got to put my basic German to good use reading the envelope's customs declaration form (although I could have probably guessed what buch meant even without a German 101 course). But I've got to channel Ronald here -- pull out an awful passage and compare the book to Kafka. Except there aren't really any truly awful passages in this book, and I've never read Kafka, so I suppose I should just review The Book of Names properly.

The Book of Names is a collection of stories about horrible people doing horrible things to each other in absurdest fashions. Right up my alley. It was an amusing read, sometimes a bit spooky, sometimes a bit mirthful. We jump around, from Germany to the UK to Australia to Canada. Completely readable and the technique is more than fine. I would say the performance is wound very tightly. It's a compelling group of stories and there's the fun, at least in my copy, of matching up the people in the stories with the diagrams on the front and the alternative titles for the short stories on the back. And the stories aren't all about men. There are stories about women, a little more than a third with female protagonists. But therein lies what about this collection makes me uncomfortable.

Now, it's hardly as if the men here are pinnacles of virtuousness, but the woman all seem to be variations of bitches be crazy. Catfighting ("Sandra"). Promiscuity ("Barbara"). Delusional ("Emily"). Vindictive ("Shannon"). Man-hating career woman ("Marty"). They seem so much more one-note than those stories with male protagonists. Is it the stories? Or are my ovaries just more attuned to lousy feminine characterizations? I mean, realistically, does Marty, an educated, well-placed career woman really think that enslaving men forever and having women run everything is really a solution? And what's wrong with Barbara, a senior, enjoying sex? I don't see why I should be disgusted by that, like the man through whose eyes Barbara's story is told.

So I can't embrace The Book of Names completely. But I had an enjoyable two evenings reading it. Now off to sell my copy on ebay (the last Ronald reference since it's the end of the review). (

The Book of Names by Royce Leville went on sale January 13, 2015.

I received a copy free from Librarything in exchange for an honest review.… (más)

I found myself laughing quite a few times while reading Royce Leville’s peculiar story collection, The Book of Names. Mostly, it was the sort of nervous titter elicited from seeing someone else squirm.

The “names” of the title are the protagonists of each story – a rogue’s gallery of oddballs that includes a locksmith who has secretly obtained the keys to every residence in his town, a vengeful gravedigger for a small town parish wrongfully accused of a terrible crime, an underappreciated marketing executive, a motley crew of illegal immigrants trapped in a shipping container, a flirty, murderous septuagenarian and an out of work Olympic racewalker.

The majority of these people feel misunderstood and employ fanciful, and sometimes downright creepy, ways to gain control over the world and people around them. Whether it’s something relatively normal, such as the man who creates an elaborate adulterous fantasy about a lady contortionist or as unsettling as the locksmith’s investigations into the homes of all the town’s occupants in his role as self-appointed protector and moral arbiter. The marketing exec even goes so far as to invent an entire world, Herth, ostensibly as a bedtime story to amuse her daughters, which ultimately plays out like a wish fulfillment fantasy of female empowerment.

Most of the stories are fairly short and are written in a crisp, compulsively readable style. Though not quite as whimsical, I think Leville’s work would appeal to fans of Kelly Link for its off-kilter characters and skewed take on the world. They are sometimes funny, sometimes a bit chilling, very sinister and vastly entertaining.

Also, I should mention that I received my reviewer’s copy directly from the publisher, Rippple Books (located in Germany). They sent it gift-wrapped (!) and signed by the author. The book itself has a “Travel Page” on which all the book’s readers are asked to write their name, date and location so that the book contains a records of its travels, which I thought was neat. And the short story titles are written on the back of the book (out of order) while the index page shows only the protagonist’s first names (thus the title) so it was kind of a fun challenge to match the actual titles with the stories once I was finished. Really cool, fun packaging.… (más)