Not Waving

Kat Meads uses dark yet alluring prose to pull the reader in profoundly personal and often times uncomfortable places as we invade the personal spaces of her characters. From the minds of monsters such as the pedophilic coach in "Coaching" to the oblivious and possibly tortured protagonist in "Gene and Nikki, Nikki and Gene," Meads hurtles the reader into the psychological framework of her characters whereby we are encouraged to have a different way of understanding realty (that is, reality as the characters see it). Meads successfully makes the reader feel conflicted as a result of feeling empathy for those who may or may not deserve it. In other words, Meads very skillfully creates stories and characters that one can easily care about by allowing us to get so close to them so quickly. As a young writer, this book inspires me to venture outside of my comfort zone, and explore topics that may be considered strange or taboo. Meads has also encouraged me to use more bold descriptions and rich insight to build more depth and dimensionality into the characters I am creating. This is a great book for someone who is looking to try something new with their writing especially character development.

In Kat Meads' Not Waving, the reader is taken through a dizzying array of worlds, from the trial of a child molester to a witch's laboratory. The depth and breadth of Meads' subject matter can sometimes stagger the reader, though, and the occasional treatment of the unusual, such as the unsympathetic ear of the narrator in "How Olive Plans to Die" stretches her credibility. All in all, Not Waving explores supposedly "ordinary" characters, revealing the bizarre thoughts and behaviors that swirl just below the surface, and exposing the consequences of allowing one's complexities to run wild.Not Waving could easily stand as separate stories, since most of the elements of each story are somewhat independent, and many of the stories differ greatly in structure. For example, "This, After a Hard Night in Blister" consists entirely of a series of monologues, much like a police investigation. "The Pursuit of Happiness" is structured with the characters' inner thoughts in the margin and their actions and words described in the text. "Aunt Sister Loses It" relates the same scene in ten different ways, weaving bits and pieces of information through dialogue, description, and background. Meads' willingness to experiment with form shines in this collection, allowing the narratives to develop into surprising tales. Combine the author's inventiveness in structure with her taste for the offbeat and the grotesque, and the results are the astonishing and evocative stories in Not Waving.Even though each story can stand on its own merit, the thematic elements of death and decay woven throughout each story unifies Not Waving as a collection and gives the collection more solidity than a mere anthology of a writer's work. Suicide and murder, sex and the dissolution of relationships run rampant in Meads' fiction, and she continually examines entropy and chaos in each of her stories. Meads has written an excellent body of work, and they function in harmony with one another.

REVIEW BY LILY POSTURE The narrator in Not Waving creates her stories as if she was telling you (the reader) important gossip. You experience through a magnifying glass that the narrator gives you the lives of present day American characters. The narrator seems to be very reliable because she shows you the good and the bad in each of the characters. The yingyangs we live in and even those that we meet as we live our lives. Some readers may ask "how-dare-you-tell wailing's" but I tell to the narrator how dare you not tell it like it is, say it all or say nothing (Quoted from one of the short stories, Aunt Sister Loses It). The narrator has stayed true to her gossip, not leaving behind the embarrassments and things people hide such as the "families who cheat on taxes and dislike their children." The language is finesse when she speaks of sex. Not the typical dirty sex but a sex that only a woman can explain. Though the narrator has strong opinions I do not think she should try to persuade, as often as she does, to make the reader understand what certain characters, readers, or people in general deserve. The story will make that clear. Sometimes it is necessary as in her story The End Of Something (Maybe Love) but in other stories it is not necessary. Nonetheless such issues do not get in the way. The reader dives into her words awaiting to be taken by yet another important life issue. And YES she delivers another after another exciting sure to happen waves in her short stories. The inescapableness of death and even life after death in How Olive Plans To Die is taken upon in a couple of her stories. The narrator always captures the reader within the first paragraph which is at times the narrator speaking to the reader directly. What better way to begin a story/gossip than to connect with the reader one on one, right? Right!

The narrator in Not Waving creates her stories as if she was telling you (the reader) important gossip. You experience through a magnifying glass that the narrator gives you the lives of present day American characters. The narrator seems to be very reliable because she shows you the good and the bad in each of the characters. The yingyangs we live in and even those that we meet as we live our lives. Some readers may ask "how-dare-you-tell wailing's" but I tell to the narrator how dare you not tell it like it is, say it all or say nothing (Quoted from one of the short stories, Aunt Sister Loses It). The narrator has stayed true to her gossip, not leaving behind the embarrassments and things people hide such as the "families who cheat on taxes and dislike their children." The language is finesse when she speaks of sex. Not the typical dirty sex but a sex that only a woman can explain. Though the narrator has strong opinions I do not think she should try to persuade, as often as she does, to make the reader understand what certain characters, readers, or people in general deserve. The story will make that clear. Sometimes it is necessary as in her story The End Of Something (Maybe Love) but in other stories it is not necessary. Nonetheless such issues do not get in the way. The reader dives into her words awaiting to be taken by yet another important life issue. And YES she delivers another after another exciting sure to happen waves in her short stories. The inescapableness of death and even life after death in How Olive Plans To Die is taken upon in a couple of her stories. The narrator always captures the reader within the first paragraph which is at times the narrator speaking to the reader directly. What better way to begin a story/gossip than to connect with the reader one on one, right? Right!