The characters in Christopher Chambers’ short story and flash fiction collection, Kind of Blue, wield hammers and crawl under cars, and at the end of a long shift they punch time clocks. They curse and quarrel and fall in and out of love and, more often than not, stomp in steel toe boots from one dilemma to the next. They’re someone you may have seen buying a round at the dive bar just north of town, or who may have given you hell when you showed up late for your first shift at the factory. In other words, Christopher Chambers’ characters, for anyone who has spent any time living in the rural Midwest, are real.
This makes for compelling reading. In the best stories, like “Carl, Under His Car,” in which the title character gets pinned underneath the transmission of a 1972 Buick Gran Sport, you can’t help but root for the guy because you probably know a guy just like him; someone who keeps a leery eye on his daughter’s boyfriend, loves listening to Harry Carey on the radio, and considers a couple of cold ones at the corner bar the perfect end cap to a day.
And while the characters may feel familiar, Chambers always throws enough curve balls to keep the reader guessing. There are surreal, calendar girl saviors, drownings, car crashes, and, often with plenty of booze and drugs thrown into the mix, the threat that things could at any moment descend into chaos. Even “My Sylvie, Her Paradise,” a fairly typical “the one that got away” tale in which an aging rock star contemplates his past, is deftly handled and will compel you to read to the end.
It may not surprise you that Christopher Chambers has spent time working at a slaughterhouse, tending bar, and swinging a hammer as a carpenter. And if you’ve read his stories, you wouldn’t be surprised that he is the former editor of the Black Warrior Review, New Orleans Review, and founding editor of Midwest Review. His sentences, especially in the flash fiction pieces, are written with a keen understanding of how to make words sing. Take for example this line, “We linger and then fall into the stomach-dropping chunk of the time clock, shuffle to the locker room into the reek of sweat and smoke and meat.” The words create a beat, a factory floor thump—stomach, chunk, reek, meat—that keeps the sentence moving along.
You could read Kind of Blue, cuddled up with a comforter and a mug of your favorite herbal tea. But I’d argue it’s the kind of book best read out there in the world, amongst the commotion of life. Bring it along to the corner pub, and, with the din of inebriated conversation providing a soundtrack, ponder a couple of the flash pieces while you savor a beer. Or take it to a ball game. Knock out a story during the seventh inning stretch. Then, with Chamber’s spectacular lines still echoing in your head, stand and cheer as the home team batter rounds third and heads for home.
