Signed Confessions: Stories

by Tom Walker

Guilt and a desperate need to repent drive the antiheroes in Tom Walker’s dark (and often darkly funny) •A gullible journalist falls for the 40-year-old stripper he profiles in a magazine.•A faithless husband abandons his family and joins a support group for lost souls.•A merciless prosecuting attorney grapples with the suicide of his gay son.•An aging misanthrope must make amends to five former victims.•An egoistic naval hero is haunted by apparitions of his dead wife and a mysterious little girl.The seven tales in Signed Confessions measure how far guilty men will go to obtain a forgiveness no one can grant but themselves.

312 pages, Paperback

First published February 18, 2013

About the author

San Antonio native Tom Walker attended Central Catholic High School, San Antonio College, and the University of Texas at Austin. In the sixties he moved to Manhattan and worked as an editor for Prentice Hall Publishers in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. In the seventies he edited and regularly contributed to SA: The Magazine of San Antonio before becoming editor of Southwest Airlines Magazine.
During the nineteen-eighties, three of Walker’s magazine features – on the San Antonio Spurs, Alamo Heights, and the King Antonio/Rey Feo Fiesta traditions – appeared in Texas Monthly. Another feature, “Gripes of a Texas Greenhorn,” sold to Esquire. He also wrote for Third Coast magazine in Austin, the San Antonio Light, and the San Antonio Current. His best known pieces for SA Magazine dealt with legal abortion in San Antonio, the late sports columnist Dan Cook, and the early struggles of the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) to become a university of the first class.
In 2000 Walker published his first book, Banking on Tradition, a 130-year history of the Frost National Bank. His fiction has appeared in the Jewish literary magazine Kerem and in The Texas Review. His collection Signed Confessions contains short stories written over the twenty-year period from 1993 to 2012; as influences, Walker cites Truman Capote, J. D. Salinger, Philip Roth, and Norman Mailer.
Walker lives in San Antonio with his artist wife Lila (formerly a teacher at Alamo Heights Junior School) and their Alaskan Malamute rescue dog Gypsy, formerly a resident of the downtown San Antonio streets.

Reviews

[John G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I met the author at a book reading club I'm part of and listened to him speak about this book and how it came to be, both in his mind and on the page and finally getting it published. I bought the book and absolutely loved it! I don't normally read fiction and hardly ever short stories, but these hit the mark. The unifying theme was guilt and shame and absolution, either achieved or not. The stories are all told from a male character's perspective and they are carrying some heavy, heavy burdens with them. This book is dark and gritty but I think also real and wise. This book and characters speak to the human condition and the struggle to live in depth and humor, I found myself laughing out loud at certain points, probably where I shouldn't have. Interesting too is the publisher, out of Vermont, they had a lot of interesting titles that I'll have to explore. This book reminded me of what a great pleasure it is to read and immerse yourself in different, but yet the same, world.

I copied this blurb from the Fomite website about this book:



Guilt and the need to repent drive the antiheroes in Tom Walker’s dark (and often darkly funny) stories:

•A gullible journalist falls for the 40-year-old stripper he profiles in a magazine.

•A faithless husband abandons his family and joins a support group for lost souls.

•A tough prosecuting attorney grapples with the suicide of his gay son.

•An aging misanthrope must make amends to five former victims.

•An egoistic naval hero is haunted by apparitions of his dead wife and a mysterious little girl.

The seven tales in Signed Confessions measure how far guilt-ridden men will go to obtain a forgiveness no one can grant but themselves.


I'll have to read some more of the author's works for certain!

[Charline Ratcliff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t normally give five star ratings to books that are a compilation of short stories, but in the case of “Signed Confessions” by Tom Walker, those five stars are definitely merited. In my reading of “Signed Confessions,” I found this book to be both surprising, and highly intriguing. Each story was well-written, believable, and humorous in an often sardonic, and cynical, manner.

The book’s author, Tom Walker, is no newcomer to the world of writing and in “Signed Confessions” his writing skills shine through in much the same way that the sun finally cuts through the clouds on a dreary, foggy day. In “Signed Confessions,” Walker takes the reader on a journey through the dark labyrinths and innermost secrets of several men’s souls. With each story, Walker provides the reader a unique look at the complexities of various human emotions: anger and guilt, and love and lust, just to name a few.

Each character/every tale is totally believable, and thankfully, the individual stories are long enough for the reader to be able to become completely engrossed by the character’s “confession.”

With that said, there are only seven stories found within “Signed Confessions,” but every one of them is worth the read. While each tale is long enough to hold the reader’s attention, they are too short for me to provide much of an explanation about them for fear of ruining the endings. To highlight a few:

• A journalist who falls for the stripper…
• The husband who abandons his family…
• A fervent, law abiding attorney trying to process his gay son’s suicide…
• A naval hero who is haunted by his dead wife and a mysterious young girl…

In closing, “Signed Confessions” is well worth acquiring and then enjoying at your leisure. And…while most “short” story books are relegated to the powder room, this is one that should probably stay on the living room/library bookshelf. Unless you don’t mind continuously losing your guests for an hour or so…

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a compilation of short stories based on the guilt different people feel as a result of their actions (or lack thereof). Each story is remarkably different and I enjoyed some of them more than others. I really enjoyed the last two stories, "Carpooling with Strangers" and "Going Down with the Ship". "Carpooling" had me laughing out loud; I think everyone can relate to the know-it-all blowhard neighbor with the wet-blanket "Stepford" wife whether we've ever met them or not. I also really felt for Paddy in the final story of the book. His story was so vividly told I could see and actually feel his pain and loss. I'm not a huge fan of the ending of the story (I would have preferred a nice tidy resolution of some sort) but I can also appreciate the fact that I can end Paddy's story in a way I see fit. I think I'll revisit the earlier stories in the book at a later date; I didn't enjoy them as much as the later stories and I'm wondering if it was because I wasn't able to read them in a single sitting like I was some of the later stories. Thanks to the author for entering this book in a Goodreads giveaway so I could have the opportunity to meet his vivid characters.

[Kay Robart · Rating 2 out of 5]

See my review here:
http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2014/...