Probably So

PROBABLY SO is the literary equivalent of a shoebox full of photos. From the mind of B. Mitchell Cator comes a collection of short stories that are quirky, off-beat, and seemingly random. But look again. Each story delicately paints a picture where the details come alive, leap from the page, and grab you.

Cator is a fun and masterful writer, adept at lingering over a meaningful detail or capturing a complex emotion in a simple phrase. In No One Stands Still, for example, he writes: "When his mother died Alex saw his father stare into the distance until the ash hanging from his cigarette became a fragile gray arc as long as his pinky finger." There's also charming satire, as when he describes trying to bury a deceased cat. The mix of voices and perspectives, all from one man at different ages and states of maturity, gives this collection a kaleidoscopic quality, and a multifarious vision emerges that's simultaneously fractured and whole.