House of Java Volume 2

by Marcus Murphy

The newest collection of warm slice of life stories without the cynicism. Some melancholic, some hopeful, some humorous, all keenly and quietly observant. Main stories include Steven exploring the blurry line between friendship and love between 2 comics fans, Tide Pools where a visiting student encounters a girl with an itch to move on and out of her small town life but no gumption to go through with it, the particularly remarkable May 27th which brings a student social worker face to face with delinquency brought on by lower class despair, and The Burial, with its aura of mystery, in which a terrible secret is literally unearthed leading to an insightful revelation. Collected from the comic book issues 1 through 4.

96 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2001

Reviews

[Ranga · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection of short stories. I felt I was in good hands reading this book.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shares many of the problems as the first volume, but the stories are somewhat more substantial. While a few of the tales at the beginning of this book are like the ones in the first book - enjoyable, but without much point and largely unimportant in the lives of the characters - the final two stories in this collection, "Steven" and "The Burial", are affecting, interesting, and have both interesting details and something to say. Definitely a glimpse of a writer/artist at the beginning stages of learning his crafts, but with enough potential that I'd still be interested in picking up a more recent work.

[David Horton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than Volume 1 but still has the appearance of a portfolio of work rather than a well-crafted book of short stories. The author Mark Murphy seems to be putting all his talents on display. He can dabble with ease in many genres both in storytelling and artistic style. Many of his stories start out strong and promising but always end up loose and unsatisfying as if the writer had been called away by something more important. Because of it's brevity, it can easily be reread in a single sitting and maybe there is something there on a second pass that isn't accessible on the first. I still recommend it because I think the author shows promise.

[Thongglomeration]

Captured something authentic about American country life