Reviewed by Sheri Harper

The Origin of Stars and Other Stories
Edited by Katherine Haake
What Books
ISBN: 978-0-9823542-2-3

Katherine Haake writes odd stories and her collection The Origin of Stars and Other Stories all have an element where there’s some disconnection with reality. It makes the reader think about her intent for writing the piece. The emotionality conveyed in the latter stories in the collection is very apparent and those are the ones I enjoyed best, let me explain a bit more about each.

The collection consists of eight short stories. The only one I didn’t quite like was “The Place that was Nowhere”, a tale of a woman struggling to keep up with life as a single mother whose husband died and how everything fell to pieces. The tone was breathless, like the narrator couldn’t quite catch up and fit well with the piece. The intent seems to be that when someone tries to keep up with details and overcome with grief that they lose what’s most important to them. The woman makes a choice and then suffers the consequences in a way, when the family disappears to Nowhere, but it’s a little bit like life defeated her and she really had no choice after all. It’s very sad story written well with many viewpoints told but at the end the woman still doesn’t seem to have got the point that she’s taken on more than she can handle.

The one I liked best was “The Deaf Musician” even if it reads somewhat like a revenge story. The characterization of the young musician who could make music but not speak is wonderful, and put in contrast with the caring mentor who enabled his life until he lost it to skin cancer, it becomes a tale of how one must choose to follow personal talents.

The “Origin of Stars” feels like an Australian dream walker story and doesn’t really deal with stars in a scientific sense, but seems more of a tale about how talent needs nurturing and probably parallels “The Deaf Musician” more than others.

The “Blue-Sailed Boat” is an odd tale about the breakup of a family when the parents don’t have enough honest to tell each other what they really want out of life and when their disjoint plans for life involve an illicit affair the marriage ends, but their child is lost as a result.

The others are in similar vein with excellent characterization leading to a dilemma in life where a choice by a character leads to a believable resolution. As a set, the tales add up to a showcase of the disassociation of people from the traditional roles in life and often tragedy.



About the reviewer: Sheri Fresonke Harper is a poet and writer. She's been published in many small journals and is working on her second science fiction novel. See www.sfharper.com

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