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Stray Son
Stray Son is an adult novel telling the story of a haunted Vietnam vet in the year 2000, reduced to working for a Santa Barbara mortuary, picking up dead bodies. One day he picks up a live one—his elderly father’s young ghost, a WWII Marine who starts following him around town. Then son receives a phone call that his old father just died. At that moment the young Marine knocks on the son’s trailer door. The grieving, confused son can no longer keep this apparition from his wife and kids—and opens the door. The Marine finally declares why he is there: to straighten out his stray son—and bum a ride to see his dying mother in a 1942 Sioux City, Iowa hospital. The son needs to take his family to Sioux City in the year 2000 to attend his father’s funeral. So the young father and the old son take their battles back to World War II on a trip across a wartime America towards death and an elusive reconciliation.
273 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 5, 2017
Don’t stray away: a review of Stray Son
By Mike Zone
Richard Slota manages to pile drive fist through the chest via a brutal trip through time to face what you should have feared long ago but never could as you never knew what was really there when it haunted you in unforeseen ways, your entire existence and all of a sudden the story of a man collecting bodies for the mortuary and speaking to ghosts friendly and unfriendly is parallel to you or I all of a sudden getting contemplative with the self in an uninhibited in the confines work-life in which concentration of the job focused sort is aimed at reflection in revelation. A hell of a large sentence for a hell of a large scale novel told on the most minor of scales which in turn is the grandest of them all between father and son unable to connect through life but to ultimately intersect amid death and perhaps it’s not too late after all to comprehend one another and none us are ultimately straying it’s just a kind of mindset.
Patrick’s a Vietnam vet married with a wife and two kids who long ago adjusted to the workaday routine of life, picking up dead bodies for a mortuary, even though he could be losing his mind haunted by a strange marine from the World War II ( I won’t even let you guess who it may be) appearing almost here, there and everywhere in-between and new millennium (a bit of millennium fever anyone?) brings forth the funeral of someone quite paramount to the protagonist who road trips with his family back home in which the cosmic roadway (yes I liberally apply the term “cosmic”) gives us glimpse into the time-stream of the enigmatic figures of fathers and sons and maybe all that discovered leads to the most essential recovery of all and absolutes are not what we actually desire for the very nature is the direct opposite.
Contemporary fiction should force us to hide in a candy-coated poptopian wonderland but Stray Son basically says “To hell with all that” give us Kurt’s mindscape set to the tune of The Doors and directed by Martin Scorsese. It’s not the horror you expect or the family story you desire but the horror of family the stories of ordinary carry around. So , hop on in the car and take a drive down the road along with your own ghosts; past, present or probably soon to be which if you believe are not exactly here, you’ll find out have always been in the most endearing savage manner.
By Mike Zone
Richard Slota manages to pile drive fist through the chest via a brutal trip through time to face what you should have feared long ago but never could as you never knew what was really there when it haunted you in unforeseen ways, your entire existence and all of a sudden the story of a man collecting bodies for the mortuary and speaking to ghosts friendly and unfriendly is parallel to you or I all of a sudden getting contemplative with the self in an uninhibited in the confines work-life in which concentration of the job focused sort is aimed at reflection in revelation. A hell of a large sentence for a hell of a large scale novel told on the most minor of scales which in turn is the grandest of them all between father and son unable to connect through life but to ultimately intersect amid death and perhaps it’s not too late after all to comprehend one another and none us are ultimately straying it’s just a kind of mindset.
Patrick’s a Vietnam vet married with a wife and two kids who long ago adjusted to the workaday routine of life, picking up dead bodies for a mortuary, even though he could be losing his mind haunted by a strange marine from the World War II ( I won’t even let you guess who it may be) appearing almost here, there and everywhere in-between and new millennium (a bit of millennium fever anyone?) brings forth the funeral of someone quite paramount to the protagonist who road trips with his family back home in which the cosmic roadway (yes I liberally apply the term “cosmic”) gives us glimpse into the time-stream of the enigmatic figures of fathers and sons and maybe all that discovered leads to the most essential recovery of all and absolutes are not what we actually desire for the very nature is the direct opposite.
Contemporary fiction should force us to hide in a candy-coated poptopian wonderland but Stray Son basically says “To hell with all that” give us Kurt’s mindscape set to the tune of The Doors and directed by Martin Scorsese. It’s not the horror you expect or the family story you desire but the horror of family the stories of ordinary carry around. So , hop on in the car and take a drive down the road along with your own ghosts; past, present or probably soon to be which if you believe are not exactly here, you’ll find out have always been in the most endearing savage manner.
March 7, 2017
Richard Slota's "Stray Son" is a time-traveling trip through the past of a mortician and his family. Slota's brilliant work as a story teller is evident from the get-go. His blend of modern-day and the past is seamless, though sometimes I found myself confused as to what time I was in as I was distracted by the inner dialogue from the main character.
In the story, the main character (a mortician) is visited by the ghost of his soon-to-be dead father. Though we are never really sure if it's a ghost or a time-traveling younger version of his father in order to get the main character to reconnect with his past/family. His relationship to his family has been rocky because he accused his mother of sexual abuse, no one in the family believed him so he stayed away. His wife, and children, can also see this 'ghost'. Ghost dad convinces the main character and his family to road trip to the funeral, during this trip they time-travel back to when his father was young. This interaction gives the family a better chance to get to know his dad for real and see what a good person he was/is.
I gave this book 4 stars just from the minor confusion / uncertainty about what was going on due to the inner dialogue moments. However, it is a very good, funny, quirky book.
In the story, the main character (a mortician) is visited by the ghost of his soon-to-be dead father. Though we are never really sure if it's a ghost or a time-traveling younger version of his father in order to get the main character to reconnect with his past/family. His relationship to his family has been rocky because he accused his mother of sexual abuse, no one in the family believed him so he stayed away. His wife, and children, can also see this 'ghost'. Ghost dad convinces the main character and his family to road trip to the funeral, during this trip they time-travel back to when his father was young. This interaction gives the family a better chance to get to know his dad for real and see what a good person he was/is.
I gave this book 4 stars just from the minor confusion / uncertainty about what was going on due to the inner dialogue moments. However, it is a very good, funny, quirky book.
August 12, 2016
I'd like to start off with a content warning: childhood sexual abuse and its associated mental trauma is at the core of this novel.
Richard Slota's Stray Son is a tale of incest and familial betrayal. It is an exploration of how unresolved issues can inform one's life and family relationships, and of the way the past has of refusing to let go until all of its unseemly contents are dragged into the sunlight to be dealt with.
In the year 2000, Patrick Jaworsky is a post-middle-aged, remarried Vietnam vet eking out a living by schlepping corpses for a funeral home. He's only marginally happy in his life, but he is comforted somewhat by his wife Lynn, his daughter Helen, and his adopted son Mike. Patrick is seeing a therapist to learn how to handle the incest his mother inflicted upon when he was a child; his coming to terms with that abuse is at the crux of this story.
Though the subject matter is quite serious and ventures into territory that makes the novel unsuitable for younger audiences, I found it to be a thrilling, enjoyable read. It veers from being a typical "mommy issues" tale in that Patrick's compulsion to deal with the damage done to him is initiated by the arrival of a shade bearing his father's youth--and that this spectre is no figment of the protagonist's guilt-ridden imagination but an actual time traveler from an earlier period in history.
On an otherwise unremarkable day Patrick Jaworsky begins to be followed by this young version of his father; the young man is somehow a ghost from the past even though the elderly version of the Sr. Jaworsky still lives. Thus begins a deeply intriguing tale featuring time travel, misplaced affection, dread, and finally, redemption.
I love that not only can his family see and interact with the "ghost" (though others often can't), Patrick also doesn't try very hard to hide the situation from them to begin with. Too many novels have the main character keeping strange happenings a secret for no good reason--something which I find baffling and irritating as a reader.
Make no mistake, this is no science fiction or fantasy novel. The method of time travel is neither displayed in any technical way nor really explained; regardless, I found the incidents where time is transversed to be believable. There were also a couple of odd occurrences which will leave the reader guessing about whether they were real or simply products of Patrick's tortured psyche. I usually like things a little more cut-and-dried than that, but in this case the elements integrated well with the story line and so were, in their own ways, appropriate. One such thing is the appearance of 1940's starlet Rita Hayworth. Galvanized by her close relationship to the Sr. Jaworsky, she makes a few appearances as a sort of mentor to Patrick and his father. Her presence adds an extra layer of mystery to this already slightly surreal tale.
Strangely, the Sr. Jaworsky in his younger guise was the character I ended up feeling the most affection for. Not that Patrick himself was in any way unlikable, but his father appealed to me in that he was a person of strong ethical character who was nobly struggling against all predictions to keep his dignity alive. As we know from Patrick's flashbacks of childhood, the guy was a right prick while raising his son, but when the father was a young bachelor--and before the destroying influence of Patrick's mother--the man was good-hearted and reliable (if a bit gruff). It is this version of him we are treated to in Stray Son.
A thing I found refreshing about Stray Son is that aside from the scenes recounting the actual acts of abuse, the author doesn't implement cut-away shots to avoid fully depicting the disturbing nature of some of the most frightening scenes. Slota trusts the reader to be able to handle this raw tableau of a family embroiled in moral and psychic disarray, and I'm impressed whenever I find a book where that sort of consideration for the fortitude of the audience has been made by the author.
Richard Slota's Stray Son is available at Amazon.com .
And check out an interview with Richard Slota on Authors Interviews here.
This review also appears on The Dog-Eared Dragon blog and The Dog-Eared Dragon Facebook Page.
Richard Slota's Stray Son is a tale of incest and familial betrayal. It is an exploration of how unresolved issues can inform one's life and family relationships, and of the way the past has of refusing to let go until all of its unseemly contents are dragged into the sunlight to be dealt with.
In the year 2000, Patrick Jaworsky is a post-middle-aged, remarried Vietnam vet eking out a living by schlepping corpses for a funeral home. He's only marginally happy in his life, but he is comforted somewhat by his wife Lynn, his daughter Helen, and his adopted son Mike. Patrick is seeing a therapist to learn how to handle the incest his mother inflicted upon when he was a child; his coming to terms with that abuse is at the crux of this story.
Though the subject matter is quite serious and ventures into territory that makes the novel unsuitable for younger audiences, I found it to be a thrilling, enjoyable read. It veers from being a typical "mommy issues" tale in that Patrick's compulsion to deal with the damage done to him is initiated by the arrival of a shade bearing his father's youth--and that this spectre is no figment of the protagonist's guilt-ridden imagination but an actual time traveler from an earlier period in history.
On an otherwise unremarkable day Patrick Jaworsky begins to be followed by this young version of his father; the young man is somehow a ghost from the past even though the elderly version of the Sr. Jaworsky still lives. Thus begins a deeply intriguing tale featuring time travel, misplaced affection, dread, and finally, redemption.
I love that not only can his family see and interact with the "ghost" (though others often can't), Patrick also doesn't try very hard to hide the situation from them to begin with. Too many novels have the main character keeping strange happenings a secret for no good reason--something which I find baffling and irritating as a reader.
Make no mistake, this is no science fiction or fantasy novel. The method of time travel is neither displayed in any technical way nor really explained; regardless, I found the incidents where time is transversed to be believable. There were also a couple of odd occurrences which will leave the reader guessing about whether they were real or simply products of Patrick's tortured psyche. I usually like things a little more cut-and-dried than that, but in this case the elements integrated well with the story line and so were, in their own ways, appropriate. One such thing is the appearance of 1940's starlet Rita Hayworth. Galvanized by her close relationship to the Sr. Jaworsky, she makes a few appearances as a sort of mentor to Patrick and his father. Her presence adds an extra layer of mystery to this already slightly surreal tale.
Strangely, the Sr. Jaworsky in his younger guise was the character I ended up feeling the most affection for. Not that Patrick himself was in any way unlikable, but his father appealed to me in that he was a person of strong ethical character who was nobly struggling against all predictions to keep his dignity alive. As we know from Patrick's flashbacks of childhood, the guy was a right prick while raising his son, but when the father was a young bachelor--and before the destroying influence of Patrick's mother--the man was good-hearted and reliable (if a bit gruff). It is this version of him we are treated to in Stray Son.
A thing I found refreshing about Stray Son is that aside from the scenes recounting the actual acts of abuse, the author doesn't implement cut-away shots to avoid fully depicting the disturbing nature of some of the most frightening scenes. Slota trusts the reader to be able to handle this raw tableau of a family embroiled in moral and psychic disarray, and I'm impressed whenever I find a book where that sort of consideration for the fortitude of the audience has been made by the author.
Richard Slota's Stray Son is available at Amazon.com .
And check out an interview with Richard Slota on Authors Interviews here.
This review also appears on The Dog-Eared Dragon blog and The Dog-Eared Dragon Facebook Page.
October 25, 2016
Stray Son by Richard Slota is an interesting piece of literature. Here, readers go one a ride of a lifetime. Traveling between the character's past and present. Themes like family, love, and redemption are woven into the tale. Stray Son is a novel that leaves readers following Patrick. Patrick defys the norm when it comes to fictional characters in a way. He's day job is peculiar yet he pays the bills. Bills like the months of rent. His job is to pick up dead bodies. Bodies of people that just died. Then, there's his life background that made me feel sympathy for him. Soon, he sees a ghost and thinks he's losing it. Only he can see a Marine. A Marine ghost that doesn't stop following everywhere. Until, he introduces the ghost to his family once he found out that his father died. Sort of. Now, as a ghost and staying near the son he kicked out...is a lot to swallow. I found this tale stunning, heartbreaking, and realistic. The emotional journey of father and son is one that readers won't be forgetting. It will stay with me forever. The sadness became my own. The life that the older son, Patrick had to live through because of his mother and father...was crazy. Yet in the end, it was good. Saddening in a good way. Then, somehow, when readers will least expect it, Richard Slota, surprises readers once more. Stray Son, is a great story. So much was packed into it. I felt like I was swallowed into one of those movies that make the watcher cry endlessly. Sad but good tears. Overall, I loved this powerful yet gritty novel. I recommend it to readers everywhere.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews