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Hazy Rhythms : 17 Short Stories
Hazy Rhythms is a collection of 17 pieces of literary short fiction. The characters in these tales experience pivotal life episodes and existential phenomena such as first love, complications in friendships, sexual awakenings, ups and downs of engaging in creative endeavors, geographical displacement, obsessions, addictions, grief, mental illness in a family, desperate attempts to communicate with others, divorce, parenthood, romantic relationships, etc. The stories are personal yet universal.
203 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 28, 2025
2 people are currently reading
About the author
Brian Greene
10 books18 followersI write short stories, personal essays, and feature articles and reviews on/of books, music, film, and visual art. My work has appeared in more than 35 publications since 2008. Use the link to my blog to see updates about my writing activities. I’m on Twitter/X @greenes_circles.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 28, 2025
The opening cut of Hazy Rhythms (Brian Greene's greatest short-fiction hits) is one its crown jewels, setting the tone for a collection that often revolves around connections, missed connections, lost connections, and things left unsaid. This first piece is called "The Notes." It follows the narrator, who works at a newsstand, as he secretly leaves intensely personal messages where others can't help but find them. All over town, this handwriting is discovered by strangers on bus seats, inside newspapers, and somebody’s jacket pocket, for instance.
The unnamed narrator continues the practice when he falls for a woman who works at a local coffee shop, leaving notes to her in the usual places. At some point, he decides to share these writings with her directly, so does he or doesn't he? I won't play spoiler, but the ensuing decision creates a thread that keeps on giving throughout these seventeen cerebral works teetering between tragic melancholy and mischievous private glee.
While I'm not going to say Hazy Rhythms is like a box of chocolates, it is true that you never know what you're going to get with Greene, even as he keeps these threads intact throughout a collection that reads like something of a novel strung together with loosely collected stories.
In "Sphinx," the narrator ends up with a woman more than twice his age who inspires him before she is gone. "White Summer" follows a youthful summer dalliance with cocaine, which is fun until it isn't. "Try Again" presents another short-term love solution when our narrator is fixed up with an over-aged indie girl who's missing tooth is seemingly a metaphor for the holes in the narrator's life.
Like his friends and those he encounters during various city and county scrapes, the efforts to try to fill those holes are incredible, even if the results leave us with bigger gaps than we started with. But the perseverance of these characters is incredible.
In "Weekend," the narrator experiences anxiety over his mice-infested apartment before turning to Buddhism, yet not, searching for something as he goes from woman to woman, hoping that maybe, just maybe, the next one will cure what ails him. That search eventually brings us to "Claire," a wealthy young woman who doesn’t share the same concerns about the business of living as the rest of us. So sure, she'll play with this eighties retail worker until she gets bored.
For Greene's narrator, it's often about cherishing the depth of his human experiences over the extent of them, whether these experiences and the people he shares them with are romantic in nature or platonic. More often than not, these experiences are fleeting, as is the case of "The Song that Never Died" which follows a drugged-out musician who manages to leave behind one great song. As tragic as his misspent potential is, the tune is something local musicologists continue to consider and so his time spent on this mortal coil still amounts to more than the accomplishments of most. Likewise, in "The Sticks," when musical differences result in an indie band’s "paralysis of indecisiveness," it's not for nothing, because there’s uncommon civilian valor in the pursuit itself.
Whatever the narrator's "Choices," another of the many top tracks, a writer can't possibly manage the needs of his day job, his former live-in girlfriend who he's still seeing for the odd afternoon delight, and meeting a new editor. Still, he likes the looks of a singer he's set to interview, and thinks maybe, just maybe, something will come of that.
"Awakening," meanwhile, takes both glum and humorous looks at adultery. While some aspects are obviously base, given the activity, they are still human. Moreover, the important scenes touch on the urgent need for physical, spiritual, and emotional human contact as much as the lengths people go to find each other, whether it be for a night, a few weeks, a few years, or maybe, just maybe, forever.
Even for the sixth grader in "Lifted," it's not so much about shoplifting LPs as it is about where you shoplifted those LPs from, why you did it, and how the records stood the test of time. Looking back, was the record good enough to steal in the first place? What was it about those who aided and abetted that makes the time and place so vivid some forty years later? Likewise, the child in "Look for Me" goes missing just to see if someone will notice, and obviously, that is the person she hopes on some level to connect with, the person who cared enough to realize she was gone. Perhaps that person is the one to save her.
I've read some of these stories before, which is what inspired me to seek out Hazy Rhythms. The thing I most admire most about Greene’s narrator and the characters he comes into contact with is that they continue looking to find meaningful connections in world that is less inclined, or so it often seems. If simply trying is enough it’s because it has to be. Fiction or not, that is what is real. And that is why I highly recommend this new read.
The unnamed narrator continues the practice when he falls for a woman who works at a local coffee shop, leaving notes to her in the usual places. At some point, he decides to share these writings with her directly, so does he or doesn't he? I won't play spoiler, but the ensuing decision creates a thread that keeps on giving throughout these seventeen cerebral works teetering between tragic melancholy and mischievous private glee.
While I'm not going to say Hazy Rhythms is like a box of chocolates, it is true that you never know what you're going to get with Greene, even as he keeps these threads intact throughout a collection that reads like something of a novel strung together with loosely collected stories.
In "Sphinx," the narrator ends up with a woman more than twice his age who inspires him before she is gone. "White Summer" follows a youthful summer dalliance with cocaine, which is fun until it isn't. "Try Again" presents another short-term love solution when our narrator is fixed up with an over-aged indie girl who's missing tooth is seemingly a metaphor for the holes in the narrator's life.
Like his friends and those he encounters during various city and county scrapes, the efforts to try to fill those holes are incredible, even if the results leave us with bigger gaps than we started with. But the perseverance of these characters is incredible.
In "Weekend," the narrator experiences anxiety over his mice-infested apartment before turning to Buddhism, yet not, searching for something as he goes from woman to woman, hoping that maybe, just maybe, the next one will cure what ails him. That search eventually brings us to "Claire," a wealthy young woman who doesn’t share the same concerns about the business of living as the rest of us. So sure, she'll play with this eighties retail worker until she gets bored.
For Greene's narrator, it's often about cherishing the depth of his human experiences over the extent of them, whether these experiences and the people he shares them with are romantic in nature or platonic. More often than not, these experiences are fleeting, as is the case of "The Song that Never Died" which follows a drugged-out musician who manages to leave behind one great song. As tragic as his misspent potential is, the tune is something local musicologists continue to consider and so his time spent on this mortal coil still amounts to more than the accomplishments of most. Likewise, in "The Sticks," when musical differences result in an indie band’s "paralysis of indecisiveness," it's not for nothing, because there’s uncommon civilian valor in the pursuit itself.
Whatever the narrator's "Choices," another of the many top tracks, a writer can't possibly manage the needs of his day job, his former live-in girlfriend who he's still seeing for the odd afternoon delight, and meeting a new editor. Still, he likes the looks of a singer he's set to interview, and thinks maybe, just maybe, something will come of that.
"Awakening," meanwhile, takes both glum and humorous looks at adultery. While some aspects are obviously base, given the activity, they are still human. Moreover, the important scenes touch on the urgent need for physical, spiritual, and emotional human contact as much as the lengths people go to find each other, whether it be for a night, a few weeks, a few years, or maybe, just maybe, forever.
Even for the sixth grader in "Lifted," it's not so much about shoplifting LPs as it is about where you shoplifted those LPs from, why you did it, and how the records stood the test of time. Looking back, was the record good enough to steal in the first place? What was it about those who aided and abetted that makes the time and place so vivid some forty years later? Likewise, the child in "Look for Me" goes missing just to see if someone will notice, and obviously, that is the person she hopes on some level to connect with, the person who cared enough to realize she was gone. Perhaps that person is the one to save her.
I've read some of these stories before, which is what inspired me to seek out Hazy Rhythms. The thing I most admire most about Greene’s narrator and the characters he comes into contact with is that they continue looking to find meaningful connections in world that is less inclined, or so it often seems. If simply trying is enough it’s because it has to be. Fiction or not, that is what is real. And that is why I highly recommend this new read.
August 11, 2025
This is an amazing collection of short story author Brian Greene's "greatest hits," and ulike so many others, it more than lives up to that characterization. Beginning with his most lauded story, "The Notes" Hazy Rhythms flows from story to story linked by the author's distinctive voice and a vague theme of love lost and found. Stories like "Firstborn," "Try Again," and "The Hard Summer Laura Made Harder" shimmer like light on the water. Greene's intimate style draws the reader in, his confidences seem meant for you and only you. His knowing self awareness infuses each story with a realism and credibility rare in writing these days. Brian Greene is one of those rare writers; The Real Thing and "Hazy Rhythms" proves it.
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