What do you think?
Rate this book
Monochromes: And Other Stories
Some people just see the world differently.The author of this collection has, at times, argued that The Terminator is a love story, that Bob Dylan’s “Don't Think Twice, It’s All Right” is joyful rather than bitter, and that the characters of Everybody Loves Raymond are more monstrous than the Bates Family. In his first collection of original fiction, he turns his wry, satiric eye upon landscapes of his own creation — including the early days of skydiving, the terror of collecting unemployment, the extreme sport of competitive standing, a circus performer succumbing to zombie-ism, and the most anticipated day never circled on any calendar — to find horror hidden within humor, hope persisting amidst anguish, and absurdity pretty much everywhere. The views from his pen are equal parts hysterical, unsettling, and thought provoking.Some people just see the world differently. Matt Bechtel is one of those people."There is a vulnerability in the stories collected in Monochromes and Other Stories that is as surprising as it is wonderful." James A. Moore - Author of the Seven Forges series.“If emotional sincerity was a superpower, Matt Bechtel would be the hero we’d look up to see soaring overhead. The stories in MONOCHROMES, whether winkingly subversive, angry, absurd, or sad, all reveal something poignant about the dark truths underpinning these characters and their circumstances. Despite the title, there’s nothing monochromatic about the rich vibrancy of Bechtel’s prose. His stories are as colorful as the tights I imagine him wearing.” Bracken MacLeod, Bram Stoker Award nominated author of STRANDED and 13 VIEWS OF THE SUICIDE WOODS
156 pages, Paperback
First published April 12, 2017
1 person is currently reading
9 people want to read
About the author
Matt Bechtel
15 books12 followersMatt Bechtel was born just south of Detroit, Michigan (cursing him a Lions fan), into a mostly-Irish family of dreamers and writers as opposed to the pharmaceutical or construction giants that share his surname. As such, he has spent most of his years making questionable life decisions and enjoying the results. Mentored by their late-founder Bob Booth, he serves on both the Executive Committee of the Northeastern Writers’ Convention (a.k.a. Camp Necon) and as a partner in the Necon E-Books digital publishing company. His writing tends towards dark humor / satire and has been compared to Ray Bradbury and Cormac McCarthy. He currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island (and if you look closely at his author’s picture you can see that he follows Irish tradition and signs his initials into the head of his Guinness).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 19, 2017
Review copy
Some people just see the world differently. Matt Bechtel is one of those people - James A. Moore.
After reading this collection I'd have to agree with that assessment. Matt has an eye for detail and is masterful at shedding a unique light on the otherwise mundane.
This sixteen story collection begins with the title tale Monochromes the story of individuals who see the world in different colors, or in this singular case, in black and white or better yet, in shades of grey.
"A man in a tweed jacket walked out of the men’s room shaking his hands dry; clearly, they were out of paper towels. Half way across the restaurant, he succumbed and dried them on his pants. The waitress counted down her cash drawer in preparation of shift break, muttering numbers to herself as she tapped away at an old adding machine with a roll of printing paper. Two teenage girls gossiped over root beer floats at the counter, giggling madly as they sucked ice cream through straws into their braces-filled mouths."
Such attention to detail.
I'm not going to comment on every story within this debut from Matt, but for me, some of the highlights include...
Tele-Serve
You know, it's only a matter of time until this is the reality for every company you call.
"Welcome to Tele-Serve, the state’s Unemployment Benefits payment by telephone service! To use this system in English, please press one.” *BOOP*
One of my favorites in this all too brief collection is the NECON inspired story After Hours...
"...three bestselling authors charged by us, knocking me back and into Anna, who was perched on the top rail. One was female. All three were naked."
Of course the names have been changed to protect the guilty. Then there's the brilliantly disgusting The Beginning of the End and the wonderfully imaginative Before Parachutes.
“Someday,” he promised the boy, “when I shuffle off this earth, I’m leaving you the ol’ bag o’ bolts.” Then he kissed the plane’s propeller. He always kissed his plane after he insulted it in public, like most men do their wives.
Another of my favorites is Last Man Standing. To the best of my knowledge competitive standing is not a thing. Only from the mind of Matt Bechtel. There's a good deal of heart to be found in Tears of a Clown and the charming A Man Walks Into a Bar. As I read this collection, I found Matt to the a master of the "What if?"story. In this instance, "What if" every joke about walking into a bar all showed up in the same establishment. Why didn't I think of that.
In Night of the Living Dead a man, once dead, has a night to live...
"I'm going to drink concoctions that not even a mad scientist would whip up at his home bar. I'll mix whiskey with milk and toothpaste, vodka and Goldschläger with grape Shasta, luke-warm, day-old coffee with a shot of Everclear. I’ll rate them by how foul they taste when I puke them back up. The one that makes me vomit through my eye sockets wins."
Love that description.
Take the truism that a body will completely replace all cells every seven years, add a man with an obsessive-compulsive disorder into the mix and follow to its logical conclusion and you'll have A New Man.
And then there's the final tale or should that be tail? Cozzy's Question about an alley cat faced with the most important question.
"You’ve been asked a very important question, Cozzy — THE question, the most important question ever asked. And the voice won’t stop until you give it an answer.” Oh really? And what question is that? “Do you want the world to end?”
“And that’s it,” he finished for her. “The end of everything, all of it, in the blink of an eye. The Apocalypse, Armageddon, Ragnarok, or whatever you want to call it — the end of all life on earth. Because you say so.”
By far, my favorite tale is this “Twilight Zone”-esque story which actually made me tear up for a moment.
Monochromes and Other Stories is a richly diverse debut collection from an author to watch. My highest recommendation.
Monochromes and Other Stories is available in both paperback and e-book formats from Haverhill House Publishing Company. If you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited you can read it at no additional charge. Also, if you are an Amazon Prime member you can read it for FREE using the Kindle Owners Lending Library.
From the author's bio - Matt Bechtel was born just south of Detroit, Michigan (cursing him as a Lions fan), into a mostly-Irish family of dreamers and writers as opposed to the pharmaceutical or construction giants that share his surname. As such, he has spent most of his years making questionable life decisions and enjoying the results. Mentored by their late founder Bob Booth, he serves on both the Executive Committee of the Northeastern Writers’ Convention (a.k.a. Camp Necon) and as a partner in the Necon E-Books digital publishing company. His writing tends towards dark humor/satire and has been compared to Ray Bradbury and Cormac McCarthy. Matt currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
Some people just see the world differently. Matt Bechtel is one of those people - James A. Moore.
After reading this collection I'd have to agree with that assessment. Matt has an eye for detail and is masterful at shedding a unique light on the otherwise mundane.
This sixteen story collection begins with the title tale Monochromes the story of individuals who see the world in different colors, or in this singular case, in black and white or better yet, in shades of grey.
"A man in a tweed jacket walked out of the men’s room shaking his hands dry; clearly, they were out of paper towels. Half way across the restaurant, he succumbed and dried them on his pants. The waitress counted down her cash drawer in preparation of shift break, muttering numbers to herself as she tapped away at an old adding machine with a roll of printing paper. Two teenage girls gossiped over root beer floats at the counter, giggling madly as they sucked ice cream through straws into their braces-filled mouths."
Such attention to detail.
I'm not going to comment on every story within this debut from Matt, but for me, some of the highlights include...
Tele-Serve
You know, it's only a matter of time until this is the reality for every company you call.
"Welcome to Tele-Serve, the state’s Unemployment Benefits payment by telephone service! To use this system in English, please press one.” *BOOP*
One of my favorites in this all too brief collection is the NECON inspired story After Hours...
"...three bestselling authors charged by us, knocking me back and into Anna, who was perched on the top rail. One was female. All three were naked."
Of course the names have been changed to protect the guilty. Then there's the brilliantly disgusting The Beginning of the End and the wonderfully imaginative Before Parachutes.
“Someday,” he promised the boy, “when I shuffle off this earth, I’m leaving you the ol’ bag o’ bolts.” Then he kissed the plane’s propeller. He always kissed his plane after he insulted it in public, like most men do their wives.
Another of my favorites is Last Man Standing. To the best of my knowledge competitive standing is not a thing. Only from the mind of Matt Bechtel. There's a good deal of heart to be found in Tears of a Clown and the charming A Man Walks Into a Bar. As I read this collection, I found Matt to the a master of the "What if?"story. In this instance, "What if" every joke about walking into a bar all showed up in the same establishment. Why didn't I think of that.
In Night of the Living Dead a man, once dead, has a night to live...
"I'm going to drink concoctions that not even a mad scientist would whip up at his home bar. I'll mix whiskey with milk and toothpaste, vodka and Goldschläger with grape Shasta, luke-warm, day-old coffee with a shot of Everclear. I’ll rate them by how foul they taste when I puke them back up. The one that makes me vomit through my eye sockets wins."
Love that description.
Take the truism that a body will completely replace all cells every seven years, add a man with an obsessive-compulsive disorder into the mix and follow to its logical conclusion and you'll have A New Man.
And then there's the final tale or should that be tail? Cozzy's Question about an alley cat faced with the most important question.
"You’ve been asked a very important question, Cozzy — THE question, the most important question ever asked. And the voice won’t stop until you give it an answer.” Oh really? And what question is that? “Do you want the world to end?”
“And that’s it,” he finished for her. “The end of everything, all of it, in the blink of an eye. The Apocalypse, Armageddon, Ragnarok, or whatever you want to call it — the end of all life on earth. Because you say so.”
By far, my favorite tale is this “Twilight Zone”-esque story which actually made me tear up for a moment.
Monochromes and Other Stories is a richly diverse debut collection from an author to watch. My highest recommendation.
Monochromes and Other Stories is available in both paperback and e-book formats from Haverhill House Publishing Company. If you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited you can read it at no additional charge. Also, if you are an Amazon Prime member you can read it for FREE using the Kindle Owners Lending Library.
From the author's bio - Matt Bechtel was born just south of Detroit, Michigan (cursing him as a Lions fan), into a mostly-Irish family of dreamers and writers as opposed to the pharmaceutical or construction giants that share his surname. As such, he has spent most of his years making questionable life decisions and enjoying the results. Mentored by their late founder Bob Booth, he serves on both the Executive Committee of the Northeastern Writers’ Convention (a.k.a. Camp Necon) and as a partner in the Necon E-Books digital publishing company. His writing tends towards dark humor/satire and has been compared to Ray Bradbury and Cormac McCarthy. Matt currently lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
August 23, 2017
Stellar.
Matt's stories are incisive, and they cut all the way to the heart. What start as "just stories" dig deeply into the way we think, the way we feel, and evoke powerful responses. I'm not embarrassed to say that two of the stories brought me to tears.
These stories are funny, some of them are achingly sad, and amazingly he can make them both at the same time. "Tele-Serve" shouldn't be as funny or dark as it is, but it's a magnificent achievement. "A New Man" is a Robert Bloch-style that goes down the path of obsession and horror, and ends with a turn that kicks the reader in the teeth. And the clean-up story, "Cozzy's Question" is one of the two stories that made me tear up. Because it has heart.
Wonderful stories, each and every one.
Matt's stories are incisive, and they cut all the way to the heart. What start as "just stories" dig deeply into the way we think, the way we feel, and evoke powerful responses. I'm not embarrassed to say that two of the stories brought me to tears.
These stories are funny, some of them are achingly sad, and amazingly he can make them both at the same time. "Tele-Serve" shouldn't be as funny or dark as it is, but it's a magnificent achievement. "A New Man" is a Robert Bloch-style that goes down the path of obsession and horror, and ends with a turn that kicks the reader in the teeth. And the clean-up story, "Cozzy's Question" is one of the two stories that made me tear up. Because it has heart.
Wonderful stories, each and every one.
August 18, 2017
Matt Bechtel’s collection, Monochromes and Other Stories, is full of weird, touching surprises. One story after the other amazed and impressed, reminding me again how much I’ve always enjoyed short story collections, to be able to dip in and out of a book, after finishing a full story. The feeling of satisfaction is complete whether the story is half a page or pages long. If you want to know how to write multifaceted short fiction that captures the reader, study Bechtel’s book.
October 30, 2017
Review: MONOCHROMES AND OTHER STORIES by Matt Bechtel
I found Matt Bechtel through his story in the New England Horror Writers anthology WICKED HAUNTS. Right then I knew I was on to something. His story collection, MONOCHROMES AND OTHER STORIES, transported me to I can't count how many dimensions and probabilities. In company with authors Paul F. Olson and Tim Meyer (also New England scribes), Matt Bechtel takes my imagination by its clammy little hand and takes it on vacation to exotic possibilities. Each story is an adventure, into the characters but also inside us. When each story is excellent, it's not easy to pick "favorites," but there were several which especially impacted me:
"The Beginning of the End" turned me inside out and upside down and round about. It's about the length of a flash piece, with atomic impact.
"Last Man Standing": a longer story, with an emotional denouement and an ending I never expected. This one woke me during the night for further pondering.
"A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings,"
"Restore Factory Settings,"
"Cozzy's Question."
Each of these three stories made me proud, inspired, and hopeful, touching my heart in positive ways.
Mr. Bechtel is also gifted at delivering the-ending-you-never-saw-coming. Note "Last Man Standing," "This Story Approved by the American Dental Association," "A Man Walks Into A Bar." But don't rely on my opinions; go read this collection for yourself.
I found Matt Bechtel through his story in the New England Horror Writers anthology WICKED HAUNTS. Right then I knew I was on to something. His story collection, MONOCHROMES AND OTHER STORIES, transported me to I can't count how many dimensions and probabilities. In company with authors Paul F. Olson and Tim Meyer (also New England scribes), Matt Bechtel takes my imagination by its clammy little hand and takes it on vacation to exotic possibilities. Each story is an adventure, into the characters but also inside us. When each story is excellent, it's not easy to pick "favorites," but there were several which especially impacted me:
"The Beginning of the End" turned me inside out and upside down and round about. It's about the length of a flash piece, with atomic impact.
"Last Man Standing": a longer story, with an emotional denouement and an ending I never expected. This one woke me during the night for further pondering.
"A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings,"
"Restore Factory Settings,"
"Cozzy's Question."
Each of these three stories made me proud, inspired, and hopeful, touching my heart in positive ways.
Mr. Bechtel is also gifted at delivering the-ending-you-never-saw-coming. Note "Last Man Standing," "This Story Approved by the American Dental Association," "A Man Walks Into A Bar." But don't rely on my opinions; go read this collection for yourself.
October 13, 2019
Monochromes and Other Stories is a series of short stories with each story's ending leaving an impression on you that will take a minute or two to digest (one with some discomfort if you have too many Halloween cookies).
The horror/thriller fan will absolutely love this read.
Don't let the title fool you, every story is filled with color. The prose is humorous satire having quite pleasingly dark hue lighting your read. A plethora of 19 cognitive shades of insight is what is in store for you one weekend. Matt Bechtel took his pen, his ingenuous abnormal? mind, and crafted you a story after story of thought-provoking tales. Read my complete review at https://buttonholed.blogspot.com/2017...
The horror/thriller fan will absolutely love this read.
Don't let the title fool you, every story is filled with color. The prose is humorous satire having quite pleasingly dark hue lighting your read. A plethora of 19 cognitive shades of insight is what is in store for you one weekend. Matt Bechtel took his pen, his ingenuous abnormal? mind, and crafted you a story after story of thought-provoking tales. Read my complete review at https://buttonholed.blogspot.com/2017...
August 10, 2020
A short read, but one that you will not wish to end. Each story is unique and engaging, running the range from the poignant to sorrowful and back to fun. The prose is crisp and you will fly through each story and be left satisfied and wanting many more. Highly recommended.
October 25, 2024
This one got better as it went. The horror of every day life is fascinating, and Matt Bechtel tells it in a way both wrenching and emotional.
May 25, 2018
Monochromes is an impressive collection of heart felt satire, imagination and speculative fiction. It’s a quick read, but some of the shortest stories will make the biggest impression. Bechtel has a talent for telling modern fables that linger.
“Tele-Serve” authentically captures the anxiety of being unemployed through a series of yes/no questions asked by an automated phone system. Humorous and deeply human.
“After Hours” will resonate with anyone reflecting on happy memories during hard times. The last line is powerfully simple and full of the kind of sympathy that helps you not give up. Anyone who has attended the Northeastern Writers Conference will be in tears.
“Last Man Standing” is the longest piece and tells the story of a rookie in an endurance contest. What motivates him will surprise you.
“A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings” is the story of a company and what happens to it when one person quits. It reads like a well told fable, with the company becoming a microcosm for our real economy and its motivations. The satire of this story reveals the reality of what’s wrong with our world and the satisfaction of escaping it.
“Restore Factory Settings” deals with an automaton choosing to face its own mortality–touching and full of dignity.
“Someday” brings us through a single day where everything supposed to happen someday happens.
“Tele-Serve” authentically captures the anxiety of being unemployed through a series of yes/no questions asked by an automated phone system. Humorous and deeply human.
“After Hours” will resonate with anyone reflecting on happy memories during hard times. The last line is powerfully simple and full of the kind of sympathy that helps you not give up. Anyone who has attended the Northeastern Writers Conference will be in tears.
“Last Man Standing” is the longest piece and tells the story of a rookie in an endurance contest. What motivates him will surprise you.
“A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings” is the story of a company and what happens to it when one person quits. It reads like a well told fable, with the company becoming a microcosm for our real economy and its motivations. The satire of this story reveals the reality of what’s wrong with our world and the satisfaction of escaping it.
“Restore Factory Settings” deals with an automaton choosing to face its own mortality–touching and full of dignity.
“Someday” brings us through a single day where everything supposed to happen someday happens.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews