Tunneling to the Center of the Earth Review

Kevin Wilson's characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. "Grand Stand-In" is narrated by an employee of a Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider—a company that supplies "stand-ins" for families with deceased, ill, or just plain mean grandparents. And in "Blowing Up On the Spot," a young woman works sorting tiles at a Scrabble factory after her parents have spontaneously combusted.

Southern gothic at its best, laced with humor and pathos, these wonderfully inventive stories explore the relationship between loss and death and the many ways we try to cope with both.

General Impressions

I read 'Tunneling to the Center of the Earth' because I was in the mood for a collection of good short stories and that was exactly what I got.

From a tale about three friends digging tunnels all across their town, to an employee in a Scrabble factory whose brother is suicidal to a man that works for a company that calculates the worst scenarios possible, this is a book filled with the slightly odd, but told in such a way that no matter how outlandish, every story makes absolute sense. I never had to suspend my disbelief, because at its core these stories are about problems and people that we all have and know.

More than the stories and writing themselves, what I truly enjoyed about this book was that it presented the reader with a diverse cast of characters and situations that no matter who the reader is, they could find a connection to the story.

Conclusions

This book easily found its way to my favourite short stories collections list, with stories that mix humour and tragedy in a seamless way. I finished this book before I was prepared to and know I will reread it in the future.

Ps: Love the new cover.

Thank you to Text for sending me a copy.

Rating: 5/5