Acid

by Edward Falco

In this award-winning collection of short stories Edward Falco narrates the lives and times of our contemporaries, characters off the dizzying streets of end-of-the-century America. Within these pages we meet such characters as Matt, the Midwestern boy who turns his back on an apple-pie lifestyle for the dubious pleasures of life as a drug-smuggler and guitarist for the Flesh Puppets; and Jim Renkowski, drug dealer turned family man whose run-in with the past is only as bad as his worst nightmare. Through characters like these, Falco unmasks the difficult truths that engage us at the deepest levels of our being. The stories in Acid entertain and engage us and, in the end, make new again some of the oldest and most intractable human struggles.

202 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1995

Reviews

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

While Falco's writing style didn't necessarily blow me away, this collection of short stories is commendable for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Falco is able to take on the perspectives of so many different people in a way that didn't feel forced. We hear stories from men and women, teenagers, older adults, all facing different societal and relationship struggles.

However, what I found most interesting about Acid is that the anxieties and paranoia of the late 80's and early 90's (the book was published in 1996) are not dissimilar to the issues that we're facing today. As the title of the collection suggests, several of the short stories deal with the issue of drug abuse and drug addiction and the difficulty of pulling oneself away from the culture, which has parallel's to today's opioid epidemic. (The theme of drugs, however, is most prominent in the first several stories of the collection). There are stories dealing with leery men and faux scientific conspiracies (a father's preoccupation with radon made me think of anti-vax debates) and frustration towards politicians.

While there were stories in the collection I really enjoyed, in general, I thought that the overall plot structures were somewhat predictable. Most stories (with the exception of one) ended with a pessimistic lilt that refused to state any concrete conclusion, instead just open and elusively symbolic in a stereotypical short story way.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this collection some years ago...but remember admiring Falco's stories a great deal. I should like to look at it again to cite specifics, as I know there were a couple of very impressive ones. I know I liked the intensity & voice of the stories.