Thirty Short Stories By Gary Alexander Azerier

In Thirty Short Stories, author Gary Alexander Azerier has shed light on a period that comprises the greater half of the 20th Century. His detailed acknowledgement of the many incidental differences that separate the contemporary world is the true spice of Nostalgia as it is intended to be.

Only experience can lend the flavor Gary Alexander Azerier brings to his marvelous, and well written storytelling adventures. Yet the prevailing similarity of things commonly human become the stuff of the work making it enjoyable fare for any reader of any age.

Not unlike the historical fiction writers of old, who had to apprise us of the details of the world in which their characters acted out their adventures, Gary Alexander Azerier creates character after character that he may, or may not have shared experience with, but those characters are fully developed and real entities.

His first story in this collection Auld Acquaintance is an honest evaluation of retired life, away from the glitter of modernity, surrounded by others in the retirement community, who have shared life with one another in period, if not in place. We are introduced to the idea of finding people who were in your milieu, suddenly gone to some ‘greater reward’, a detail of elder lives rare in those of the young.

That story also shows how even an oncoming senility can save a grief that their mate had, that brings a glint of humor to what may have been angst.

In Chock Full we meet one by name of, simply, Jack. His lifetime of work for a New York Ad agency behind him, retired now, he gets a call for a new Voice Over, his specialty in the day, and the money is attractive enough that Jack agrees to make the recording. Thinking on it he realized his unique ability to imitate famous, recognizable voices of his day, would be somewhat out of place in the world now, who barely remembered, if at all, the so-called famous voices he was handy at duplicating. But that was up to the agency and he is on his way.

His trip into what had once been his playground New York City was disappointing in that all the landmarks he knew and loved were gone. He was irked by the people on cell phones, walking around, insulated against one another. He especially missed the familiarity of a favorite Coffee Shop now gone, replaced by a skyscraper. Jack is more interested in the environment’s change than getting to the appointment on time. And that is where we leave him, in an almost existential, Camus like existence, not unhappy, just aware.

What I got from this wonderful book by Gary Alexander Azerier was a warm feeling, a sense of wonder, and a great sentiment for the people of this Earth and the feelings that seemed to be generated merely, and extraordinarily by our own sojourns through life.

I heartily recommend it for people anxious to read a testimonial to Humanity at its best.

Review by Mary Barnet
Founder and Editor In Chief of PoetryMagazine.com
Critique:
Haiku for the 21st Century : The Haiku of Sayumi Kamakura (Cyberwit. 2018),
At the Top : The Haiku and Poetry of Ban’ya Natsuishi (Cyberwit, 2019)
Poetry: The Train I Rode (Gilford Press, 2018),