Jazz and Twelve O'Clock Tales: New Stories

For some reason, when I read this book, a thought kept running through my head about the attempts to revive the old Twilight Zone magic on television. These attempts never worked for me because the scripts were too easy, the storylines silly. Yet, reading this book gave me hope. Many of the stories are little brain twisters where the end surprises you. And all of them deal with issues in our culture that blend murkiness and clarity in such a way where we sure know something intense is going down, even if we can't put a finger on it. In these stories, death is a matter-of-fact part of life. It may be horrible, but horror is upstaged by bewilderment. And sometimes, when you least expect, it isn't death knocking on your door, but an unexpected gift from heaven, be it a random act of kindness or being understood, seemingly for the first time in one's life. In these times where the questions of life change faster than they can be answered, touching base with these short stories reminds us that in the midst of confusion, there is still hope.