The Angel of Rome: And Other Stories

by Jess Walter

From the number-one 'New York Times' best-selling author of 'Beautiful Ruins' and 'The Cold Millions' comes a stunning collection about those moments when everything changes - for the better, for the worse, for the outrageous - as a diverse cast of characters bounces form Italy to Idaho, questioning their roles in life and finding inspiration in the unlikeliest places.

We all live like we're famous now, curating our social media presences, performing out identities, withholding those parts of ourselves we don't want others to see. In this riveting collection of stories from acclaimed author Jess Walter, a teenage girl tries to live up to the image her beautiful, missing mother. An elderly couple confronts the fiction writer eavesdropping on their conversation. A son must repeatedly come out to his senile father while looking for a place to care for the old man. A famous actor in recovery has a one-night stand with the world's most surprising film critic. And in the romantic title story, a shy 21-year-old studying Latin in Rome during "the year of my reinvention" finds himself face-to-face with the Italian actress of his adolescent dreams.

Funny, poignant, and redemptive, this collection of short fiction offers a dazzling range of voices, backdrops, and situations. With his signature wit and bighearted approach to the darkest parts of humanity, Walter tackles the modern condition with a timeless touch.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Audiobook, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Romance, Humor

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 28, 2022

About the author

Jess Walter is the author of eight novels and one nonfiction book. His work has been translated into more than 20 languages and his essays, short fiction, criticism and journalism have been widely published, in Details, Playboy, Newsweek, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe among many others.

Walter also writes screenplays and was the co-author of Christopher Darden’s 1996 bestseller In Contempt. He lives with his wife Anne and children, Brooklyn, Ava and Alec in his childhood home of Spokane, Washington.

Reviews

[Will Byrnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I suppose every person, at some point, tries to break free from the identity you are assigned as a kid, from the person your parents and friends see, from your own limitations and insecurities. To create your own story. - Angel of Rome

--------------------------------------

First sex is like being in a stranger’s kitchen, trying all the drawers, looking for a spoon. - Famous Actor

You know that guy in the second Indiana Jones movie, The Temple of Doom, the Thuggee priest Mola Ram? Questionable taste in haberdashery, but possessed of a special power. He could reach his hand directly into a person’s torso, secure a grip on the heart, and rip it directly out of the body, not a procedure certified by the AMA. While I expect Jess Walter has better taste in hats, he is possessed of a similar power. Of course, when he rips out your heart, you won’t, unlike Mola Ram’s victims, actually die. You will get your heart back. But you will feel deeply, sometimes painfully, and the experience will stay with you.


The author? No. Heartbreaker Mola Ram doing his thing in The Temple of Doom – but clearly a relation - image from Swarajya

It has been nine years since Jess Walter’s last short story collection, We Live in Water, but he has continued to write them, publishing in a variety of journals and other outlets. When it was time, he looked through the fifty or so he had written since his last collection and managed to cull that down to a dozen, well, fourteen, but his editor made him cut two more. (Boooo! So mean of her!)

like many novelists, Walter got his start in fiction writing by crafting short stories and selling them wherever he could – Harper’s, Esquire, McSweeney’s, ESPN the Magazine. Despite his success as a novelist, he still loves writing short stories. After all, he said, they’re no more difficult to write than novels, “they’re just shorter,” he said. - from the Spokesman Review print interview

Jess Walter - benign twin of Mola Ram? - image from The Spokesman-Review – shot by Colin Mulvany

Just for the record, Jess Walter is one of the best writers working today, and this collection is a fine representation of a master at the pinnacle of his power. His work is engaging, powerful, moving, literary, and often LOL-funny.

There are several motifs that repeat through multiple stories but the overall theme here is hope. While there are no overt feathers floating about in the stories, still, there is a comforter’s worth of downy literary substance in the air. Faced with challenging circumstances, many of the lead characters find a way to a hopeful place.

It sorta surprised me because I think of myself as someone who likes to plumb darkness, but I kept coming across dark situations that led to moments of hope, and moments of connection between characters that I found surprising. I look back on those years, from 2013 to now [2022], losing a close friend, having my father suffer from dementia, and I can see different themes. A mother passing away from cancer and cancer always works its way…and I can see these themes that in almost all the stories that I ended up choosing, there was a surprising figure. Like Mr. Voice in the first story. And I think I was finding that I was finding such connection in my family and in my friends, even during a hard several years, personally and politically for a lot of people, I think I was looking for those places where you felt some refuge. - from the Spokesman Review print interview

A subset of this is characters, particularly young ones, coming to define themselves, to mold themselves into the people they want to be, rather than simply accepting the pre-fab path that has been laid out for them.

I suppose every person, at some point, tries to break free from the identity you are assigned as a kid, from the person your parents and friends see, from your own limitations and insecurities. To create your own story. - The Angel of Rome

In To the Corner, one youngster seems to find a way forward, out of the despair that permeates the place where he has been growing up. Before You Blow centers on a young woman who finds an unexpected career option in her future, In Fran’s Friend Has Cancer, a character wonders just how much of their life it is possible to control.

Place is important to Walter

Growing up, the geography of New York was imprinted on me in the literature that I read, especially “Catcher in the Rye.” I’ve always wanted to do that for the city I live in. I think as writers, we mythologize these places where we don’t live. And I love creating a kind of mythology of Eastern Washington. It’s one of my favorite things when people from other cities come to Spokane because they want to visit places from the books. I also just love it there. It’s an incredibly rich place to write and set literature. I can still see Holden Caulfield’s Times Square, and I want readers to be able to see my Spokane that way. - from the Seattle Times interview

More than half the stories are set in Spokane, with one in Boise and another in Bend, Oregon. Three travel farther afield, with one each in Manhattan, Rome, and Mississippi.

Fame
There are several famous characters in the collection. Mr Voice is a household name in Spokane for his voice-over work there. The Famous Actor is both impressed by his own fame, and massively insecure. One of the characters in Before You Blow is destined for fame, of a sort. The Angel of Rome features two stars, an Italian actress and an American TV actor. Walter manages to give them all personalities, for good or ill (mostly good).

Angels
Maybe not the magical sort, but no less benevolent. Mr Voice turns out to be so much more than meets the eye. An American actor in Rome takes a shaky American scholar under his wing. An old friend comes to the rescue of a woman in great need. An old man turns his despair into a pointed generosity.

Teens
Most of the stories focus on characters in their teens and twenties, some adding a POV from the character looking back decades later. A couple focus on older people

Thematic threads, and literary gifts are of no matter if the characters do not gain and hold our interest. Thankfully writing characters you can relate to is yet another tool in his shed. Jess Walter can be counted on to write tales that are both image-rich and accessible. But he also gives us relatable characters, heart-rending tales, great twists, and a comedy-club-night-out worth of raucous laughter. You will be charmed, moved, and very satisfied. A triumph of a collection, The Angel of Rome, I am sure even Kali would agree, is simply heaven-sent.

“I guess it seems to me”—Jeremiah pauses, choosing his words carefully—“that you shouldn’t give up hope until you’ve done everything you can.”

Review posted – July 15, 2022

Publication dates
----------Hardcover - June 28, 2022
----------Trade paperback - June 2. 2023



This review has been cross-posted on my site, Coot’s Reviews. Stop by and say Hi!

==========In the summer of 2019 GR reduced the allowable review size by 25%, from 20,000 to 15,000 characters. In order to accommodate the text beyond that I have moved the STORIES segment to the Comments section directly below.



=============================EXTRA STUFF

Links to the author’s personal, Twitter, GR and FB pages

My reviews of earlier work by Jess Walter
-----2020 - The Cold Millions
-----2013 - We Live in Water

Interviews
-----Seattle Times - Spokane author Jess Walter on writing short stories, his working-class roots and his hometown by Emma Levy
-----The Spokesman Review - Northwest Passages: Jess Walter and 'Angel of Rome' - with Shawn Vestal - video
-----The Spokesman-Review - Finding truth and keeping it real: In Jess Walter’s new collection ‘The Angel of Rome,’ the Spokane author lets character shine through by Carolyn Lamberson

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Jess Walter and Edoardo Ballerini for writing such an amusing romp of a story! “The Angel of Rome” is 2 hours of chuckles and laughs.

The narrator, Jack Rigel (voiced perfectly by Edoardo Ballerini), finds a Latin studies program, well his mother did, at the Vatican. He himself declares that he speaks Latin like a 6 year-old, yet his mother tells him that he is a Latin Scholar and their Omaha Nebraska diocese will pave the way for him. Remarkably, he gets the scholarship. He lands in Italy and it’s one crazy situation after another.

I highly recommend this short story when you need a chuckle. It’s good clean fun!

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook…. Read by Edoardo Ballerini, Julia Whelan > fantastic voice narrations.
….8 hours and 9 minutes

MAGNIFICENT!!!! -
Wonderful stories!!!
Sooooo sooooo satisfying from start-to-finish….
EVERY story was terrific!!!

…..strong constant joyful experiences with relatable characters —
…..I laughed! I was sad!
I cried! I was entertained! I was moved! I was INTERESTED…..
Great emotional and cerebral balance!!!

[Angela M · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up.


The twelve short stories in this collection have an intimate feel, with relatable relationships, circumstances and emotions. Some are sad and some are hopeful covering recurring themes about the relationships of children and their mothers and fathers, couples, friendships. The fear and loneliness of aging, the awfulness of cancer and Alzheimer’s, traumas of childhood and more are depicted.

My very favorite is “Angel of Rome”, about life changing events in a young man’s life, from a year spent in Rome. 5 stars ! After I read it, I listened to the Audible Original version, and it was wonderful, but I have to admit that I enjoyed the reading of it more. Another 5 star is “ Mr. Voice”, narrated by a woman looking back on her childhood, a touching story of discovering who your family is. “Town & County” garnered 4 stars depicting the tough reality of caring for a parent with Alzheimer’s when you are the only care giver. It’s funny and sad.

The rest of the stories were mostly 3 stars. I was either unable to connect with the characters or in the end I needed more to “get” the story. I still would recommend this to fans of Jess Walter because some of the stories are just as good as I expected.

I received an advanced copy of this book from HarperCollins through Edelweiss.

[Cheri · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Jack Rigel makes the decision to study abroad in Rome, with plans to learn Latin, he has no idea what he is in for when he happens to see an actress sitting in a restaurant. An actress that he not only recognizes, but one he has had a crush on for years, having seen her in one iconic movie - at least for him. Angelina Amadio smiles at him, and he is swept away for a moment, until he is made aware that he’s just walked on set and they are attempting to film a scene.

While they are trying to get him out of the way, one of the actors intervenes, and then hires him to translate for him, to convince the woman he wants to pursue to at least give him a chance, with unexpected results.

Beautifully narrated by Edoardo Ballerini, this is a sweet, occasionally comical story of the occasionally misunderstood language of love.

[Betsy Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of stories is perfect. Every single story made me feel good or better, and there is not one saccharine or manipulative molecule of writing to be found. The stories are poignant, funny, building perfectly to the epic, hilarious tour de force “The Way the World Ends,” while simultaneously conveying our common human mess and giving readers hope to forge on.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is a solid 4 Star read. I like all of the stories, and love most of them. I really appreciate the thread of light that runs through them all. I loved Walter's historical novel The Cold Millions, and I find his writing even more assured here. Walter's wit and humor combine with serious themes to produce satisfying short stories.

"Mr. Voice" - A look at the price of beauty and what it means to be a family.

"Fran's Friend has Cancer" - A touch of levity and the downside of aging.

"Magnificent Desolation" - The joys and challenges of teaching seventh grade science.

"Drafting" - Asks what part of your life sparks you, makes you feel alive.

"The Angel of Rome" - Co-written with Edoardo Ballerini. Explores what it is to live an authentic life--whether we give the power of choosing our "roles" to others or claim it ourselves.

"Before you Blow" - "You become an adult the first time you see through love." or what you think is love at the time.

"Town and Country" - Finding your place whether as a gay 40-something in Boise or a 73 year-old with dementia and a love of cocktails.

"Cross the Woods" - Change is possible for people and relationships.

"To the Corner" - Do you look below the surface of those teens hanging out on the street corner? How can they bring one old man back to his life?

"Famous Actor" - Alternates between character interactions and movie summaries/mini-reviews. Asks what is real? and how much honesty is appropriate?

"Balloons" - College sophomore Ellis does weekly check ins with Mrs. Ahearn-across-the-street and learns something about life along the way.

"The Way the World Ends" - Two environmentalists interview for a faculty position at Mississippi State University and have an unusual evening which results in life changes for them and those around them that evening. "You've got to give them hope!"

K, thanks for gifting me with this one!

Publication 2022

[Mallory · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book of short stories. I hadn’t read anything by this author before but I like his style a lot and I think I will be looking into reading more of his books. I think my favorite story was Fran’s Friend has Cancer which was unique and definitely had me laugh. In general I found the characters well written and the stories well developed. As a personal bonus for me several of the stories took place in the Pacific Northwest where I currently live so it was fun got see some familiar names of places.

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Could not wait to listen to the full recording of Jess Walter's latest collection of short stories. Many of these were pulled together from previous prints in magazines. It was great to have the narration of Edoardo Ballerini and Julia Whelan to read to me on my walks. They alternated stories.

These are just down to earth, good stories about mostly normal people going about their lives trying to cope with problems that come their way or the ones they manufacture on their own. There is much humor here and commentary of current concerns. I could go through them one by one but instead I just recommend them all. The Angel of Rome was a repeat listen for me and I loved it even more on the second listen. None of the group disappointed. I think the one thing that stood out for me, that I appreciated much were the number of good men found here. Like many of the men I've been lucky enough to have in my own life, they were mostly good guys looking to find their way in the world, protecting the ones they loved and finding a path through the problems of their past to a way to the future.

A great collection. My fourth Walter and he has never disappointed. Five stars for enjoyment

This was the review from the Audible teaser that I lead me to the collection:
Jess Walter and Edoardo Ballerini and Italy. How could I not love this audio book. Some shades of Beautiful Ruins by Walter. Young man goes to Rome to study Latin and gets caught up in a movie production. A short novella that was great fun to enjoy on a walk. 5 stars for enjoyment

[Sam Quixote · Rating 4 out of 5]

Washed-up actors, a writing student who is more sinister than he first appears, a smitten high school science teacher, a cancer patient looking to escape the confines of her parents’ house, and a pair of climate scientists stranded by freak weather - all this and more in Jess Walter’s latest short story collection, The Angel of Rome and Other Stories!

I really enjoyed this one, as I suspected I would - Jess Walter is a fantastic short story writer and there are some wonderful gems to be found in this book.

It’s not hard to see why the book is named The Angel of Rome as the story - the longest one here at 65 pages - is easily the best. It’s about a kid, dreaming of leaving Omaha, Nebraska to reinvent himself somewhere romantic, who gets a scholarship to study Latin at the Vatican. One day he stumbles into a movie shoot and befriends the American lead and meets the Angel of Rome, Angelina Amadio, an Italian actress famous in America for a cult ‘80s slasher flick.

It’s a really entertaining story with comedic overtones that sees the main character go from one absurd situation to another until the surprisingly emotional finale. The three main characters - Jack, our narrator, Ronnie Tower, the American actor, and Angelina Amadio - are vividly written and are such pleasant, amusing company. Walter also captures that feeling of being in your early 20s where your everyday experience is a balance between excitement and optimism for the future and having no money and living a desperately meagre existence in the present.

Mr. Voice is a fine story about a woman reflecting on her youth where her beautiful mother married a famous voiceover artist, and what happened to them all. Fran’s Friend Has Cancer is the most memorable because of its eerie, Twilight Zone-esque twist at the end, and I’m a sucker for those kinds of stories.

Speaking of Twilight and suckers, Magnificent Desolation - about a high school science teacher who falls for the recently divorced mother of his worst student - has a lot of bizarre references to Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight books. The student’s name is Jacob Cullen, the teacher’s name is Edward, and the setting is a high school in the pacific north-west. It’s a sweet, funny story but I don’t know why Walter included those Twilight references - I thought maybe the story had originally appeared in a satirical horror anthology but, looking at the acknowledgements at the back, it didn’t. Maybe he lost a bet? Maybe… he’s a fan… ?

What impresses me about the collection is how charming nearly all of the stories are. While the above are the ones that stood out the most to me, I still got something out of nearly all of the others. Before You Blow, about a woman recalling one summer where she worked in a restaurant and dated a much older man, has this bittersweetness to it as she finds out what happened to the guy who seemed so exciting and dashing to her decades later.

Cross the Woods is one of the shortest stories here but has an unexpectedly touching ending - it’s about a single mother whose flighty Romeo makes a decision she’s secretly hoping he would make. Even To The Corner, about an old man scowling about some kids hanging around on the street near his house, has a surprisingly heartwarming finale.

Walter uses the time jump device in a number of his stories - one minute the narrators are kids, the next they’re years older and looking back on their lives - and it’s really effective in adding another dimension to the stories, making them more interesting but also making the reader think about the broader picture of how seemingly small events have major repercussions in our lives overall.

I also wonder if that’s a reflection of where the author is in life. How he’s now in his late ‘50s but, like most of us I’m sure, doesn’t feel his age mentally and is looking back thinking about where the time has gone.

The only story I can’t say I liked all that well is the final one, The Way The World Ends, which is also unfortunately the second longest here. It’s about two climate scientists interviewing for a teaching position at Mississippi State University and get stranded on campus due to freak weather. The story wears its liberal politics quite brazenly on its sleeve which adds to its unlikeability, particularly as it characterises all Southern people as conservative rednecks who love Trump and don’t believe in science. Sure, the South has its share of those but to pretend it’s all of them? Come on. The story itself did little to engage either. It’s a lot of silly scenes that don’t really come together in a satisfying or meaningful way.

Still, I had a great time with this book for the most part and it’s rare for a collection to feature just one weak story rather than a more equal mix of good and bad. If you enjoy contemporary short fiction, you can’t go wrong with Jess Walter’s The Angel of Rome and Other Stories or his other collection We Live in Water. Walter shows once again why he’s one of the best short story writers working today.

[Antoinette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes short stories leave me hanging- they feel too unfulfilled. These stories did not. There was a beginning, a middle and an end. I appreciated them for being full and complete. Some were funny, some poignant and all excellently written. The narrators were perfect as well- Edoardo Ballerini and Julia Whelan.

The stories focus on relationships, coming of age, fear of aging, loneliness, and death. Not one of them left me wanting. I have never read any of Jess Walter’s novels, but I definitely will after reading these stories.

Published: 2022

[Lesley R M · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a superb and masterful storyteller! Each well written story is complete (beginning, center and ending) and a pleasure to read. An enjoyable collection. Great character building! Town and Country had me laughing and crying. A son trying to find his horny and dementia ridden father a home for him. Wonderful right right there. There was not one story that I did not love ❤️!
“ tender and brilliant stories about the moments when life changes you - for the better, for the worse, for the outrageous.”

If you are into short stories try this one. It won’t disappoint 👍🏻

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I mean, guys like you and me, Nebraska, what choice do we have except to invent ourselves? Over and over if we have to, until we get it right.”

In The Angel of Rome, Jess Walter’s characters all go through a process of self-discovery and reinvention and surprisingly, most of them end up embracing hope. Individually, these are sparkling little gems that are, in turns, poignant, heartwarming, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny.

The two longest stories – the eponymous Angel of Rome and the last story, The Way the World Ends, are perfectly wonderful. In Angel, a rootless Nebraska boy named Jack Rigel exaggerates his accomplishments and ends up “earning” a church-sponsored year in Rome to refine his Latin. Problem is, his Latin is so bad that there’s little to refine. Then fate intercedes and he meets another American, a character actor whose trademark line is, “here’s trouble”. As his interpreter and eventual script doctor, he intercedes in the actor’s favor with a beautiful Italian actress who once starred in a campy movie that fueled his adolescent fantasies. During his time, he learns an important lesson: who are you if you can’t make it up?

In The Way the World Ends is so darn good that as soon as I finished it, I read it again. It’s about two stranded climate scientists who, unbeknownst to either of them, are competing for the same professorship job in a Mississippi town. As the only two guests in the Butler Guest House, they meet a young man who is manning the desk, who just days ago, came out as gay. Their nihilism about the fate of humankind just as he’s embracing his authentic self, forces him to ask them a question: “So, I guess that’s what I wanted to ask you…if you think we’ve done everything we can?” They recognize that maybe, just maybe, they haven’t.

The rest of the stories are also magnificent. A young woman, who has been dealt a horrible blow with a cancer diagnosis, wants to see her one-time lover. She recalls the time when she texted to tell him she’d gotten into law school, and he texted back with a blurry picture of his dick. Sensitive he isn’t but maybe, just maybe, he has a certain life force she needs.

A gay adult son is forced to repeatedly come out to his demented and macho father and discovers the perfect place for him: Town & Country, a senior place that’s off the grid in Idaho where residents get to relive their "golden years" when meat loaf was $2 and a beer was 75 cents, when there were four channels and rotary telephones and no blacks or gays. And a curmudgeon and his wife, during a lunch out, encounter a student writer who is stealing bits and pieces of their conversation – and in ways, their life.

As always, Jess Walter kept me under his spell in each and every one of these stories. My profound thanks to Harper for enabling me to be an early reader in exchange for an honest review.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jess Walter is one of the finest contemporary writers at work today; hands down if we're talking North America. I'm pretty sure I say the same thing each time I read and review one of his books. It's his range: contemporary, historical, satire, surreal, whimsical, resonant, short, long — he can do it all, with warmth, bullseye heartbreak, and deep humanity.

This collection of twelve stories is lighter and more hopeful than 2009's collection, We Live in Water, published as the world was emerging from a crushing recession. The Angel of Rome comes at a similar emergence from a worst hard time, and we're in an even more dire state as a planet of selfish, wasteful humans. Walter takes this on with the final story, The Way the World Ends, which ended up being my least favorite in the collection, if only because it was the softest and least surprising. But my least favorite of Jess Walter is to say I didn't love it as much as the others. Two candidates for a professorship in the Geosciences department at Mississippi State are thrown together during a freak snowstorm. Jess Walter works in serious conversations about climate change while these two create a name-that-tune strip game with environmentally-themed oldies. As only Jess Walter can.

The title story is the longest and sweetest, reminiscent of the novel that brought Walter bestseller fame, Beautiful Ruins. This light comedy caper, with its soft-focus Italian setting and endearingly nutty characters, is a charming homage to cinema. It returned me straight to my own study abroad bewilderment and joy and made me long for those salad days.

What wowed me, what made me sit back and shake my head in wonder were the heart-twisting Mr. Voice, Magnificent Desolation, Drafting, To the Corner, Cross the Woods, the gut-punches and whiplash of Fran's Friend Has Cancer, Before You Blow, Balloons. Many offer soul-shaking humanity, others an awakening. The reader is left breathless, wondering what just happened? Even the sad and bitter Town and Country, about a gay man dealing with his dementia-inflicted dad whose inappropriate behavior is hilariously appalling and Famous Actor about a depressed barista in Bend who sleeps with a celebrity have laugh out loud moments mixed with poignancy. This is what Walter does best. He makes us feel. Nod our heads in recognition. He brings us home.

Highly recommended.

[Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this must be the year of the short story collection. A form I hardly tolerate and here I am giving 4 or 5 stars in 2022 for that exact animal. Again.

Walter is a newer author for me except for a try at Beautiful Ruins. What a smartass! He's Eddie Haskell (for all you Leave It to Beaver generations) but not as obvious disingenuous in mouthing overtly. Almost as duplicitous, but not quite. "How ARE you, Mrs. Cleaver!"

Each story is basically core different. That I truly appreciate. I wouldn't put them all in the same genre. Fiction with a rather big F. Don't take that the wrong way, but he's often colloquial. Yet his know better is just more sublimely layered into human nature and universal male style probabilities than Eddie. Although he is still playing upon those very odds. Stronger common sense in Jess Walter characters though.

The Angel of Rome was a 5 star tale and one of the longer word count copy of this collection. It's filled with humor and "fellows well met" and stars Rome itself as a marvelous frame placement. EXCELLENT all around. I could picture that actress and the glass window hands. And the Monsignor.

And the other tales were at least 4 stars. No losers. One I didn't care for opinions within in but it was still a 4 star tale. The attitude in several of these reminded me of end stage bitter George Carlin. Do not forget that he is NOT 21 years old writing these. He's born within a year of my oldest son. I know his generation VERY well. They are 50 to 55 right now. Fewer of them and individually quite coddled in general because the birth control pill became common in 1966-68 and after that the classrooms fell from 40 kids to 25 in one year. Even IN the Catholic neighborhoods. His Spokane one sounds mighty similar.

Enjoy these. As I said about Horowitz too. You sure can tell the screen writer living full boat in the novelist or poet or fiction writer. Any form- you can tell. Dialogue gets snappy and sit com like. "Here's trouble." Indeed. Humor with a large side of condescending arrogance. Half laughing with and at least a quarter laughing AT the "other".

Not overlong and very worth the perusal. I feel deeply for his Catholic Mother. And that's not entirely facetious.

[Diane Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was not even on my radar, neither was the author, when a series of coincidences came together. Antoinette gave it a glowing review, I liked the sound of it and checked my library. It was actually on the shelf at my local branch, I had to return a book anyway, so I picked it up right away. I had just finished an intense book, coinciding with a busy week and fractured time, so short stories seemed to be perfect. Add to that, I loved the very first story, and the one after that......

Such is the reading life. There were only two in this collection that didn't stand out, the rest were gems. Told from male and female points of view, humorous and serious, none of them left me hanging or wondering about the conclusion. My two favorites were the title novella, The Angel of Rome, and the last story, also a novella, The Way the World Ends.

Jess Walter is on my radar now. He had a bestseller a few years ago, Beautiful Ruins, that I never got around to reading, so might have to give that one a try in the near future.

[Meagan (Meagansbookclub) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook

A collection of short stories narrated by Julia Whelan and Edoardo Ballerini!!!!! I loved it. Every story was perfect. Some I enjoyed more than others, but it held my attention completely start to finish. Would absolutely recommend this to anyone who likes an inside look into interesting lives and people but doesn’t want to commit to a full audiobook story experience.

[Alan (on December semi-hiatus) Teder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shorts Looking Back & Ahead
Review of the HarperAudio audiobook released simultaneously with the Harper hardcover (June 28, 2022)

[3.75 Average Rating, rounded up to 4.0]
I've previously enjoyed author Jess Walter's romantic fiction Beautiful Ruins (2012) and historical fiction The Cold Millions (2020) and had run across one of these short stories (#12) when it debuted as an Amazon Original in 2018. Overall this was a very entertaining collection of short stories, many of which read as memoirs of people looking back on dramatic events in their earlier lives which ended up dictating their futures. Some of the shorter ones were simple vignettes, some sweet and others so-so. But the more substantial stories all left strong impressions and many had some pretty wacky comic elements as well. This is Walter's 2nd short story collection following We Live in Water (2013).

1. Mr. Voice ***** read by Julie Whelan. A young girl grows up with her wandering mother and eventually with her stepfather Claude, the Mister Voice of the title.
2. Fran's Friend Has Cancer **** read by Eduardo Ballerini. An elderly couple in a NYC restaurant discuss the wife making a trip out west to help the husband's cousin, the Fran of the title. They realize that the young man at the next table is writing notes of their conversation.
3. Magnificent Desolation **** read by Eduardo Ballerini. A 50-year-old divorced Science teacher finds himself attracted to the mother of one of his students who is acting out in his classes and saying the moon landing was faked.
4. Drafting *** read by Julie Whelan. While dealing with her cancer diagnosis, Myra gets back together with her old 'bad boy' boyfriend Boone on a road trip to Seattle.
5. The Angel of Rome ***** written in collaboration with & read by Eduardo Ballerini. In 1993 a young student goes to Rome to study Latin at the Vatican. He ends up in the middle of a movie set and meets an Italian film starlet and a fading American TV actor. Later in life he remembers all these events and returns to Italy with his family. This 2 hour story/novella had an earlier release as an Audible Original The Angel of Rome (September 16, 2021). The latter is currently incorrectly merged with the full collection, as if it were the same complete work.
6. Before You Blow **** read by Julie Whelan. A woman looks back on her late teenage years when she dated a boy in college. A dramatic event with friends reveals his personality to her.
7. Town & Country ***** read by Eduardo Ballerini. A gay son tries to deal with his aging father who has been kicked out of his girlfriend's house due to his libidinous ways. A possible solution is a senior's residence called the Town & Country, which is like a time capsule back to the 1950s.
8. Cross the Woods *** read by Julie Whelan. After a supposed one-night-stand a woman observes her lover teaching her son how to tie a knot in a necktie. Very short but kind of sweet.
9. To the Corner *** read by Eduardo Ballerini. An older man interacts with a group of school kids hanging around on his street corner.
10. Famous Actor *** read by Julie Whelan. A coffee shop worker has a one-night-stand with a 'famous actor' who is going through an existential crisis.
11. Balloons ** read by Eduardo Ballerini. Slacker kid earns allowance money by helping the neighbour across the road. Not much to this one.
12. The Way the World Ends **** read by Eduardo Ballerini. As with story #5, this had an earlier release as an Amazon & Audible Original The Way the World Ends (Oct. 30, 2018 which I rated 4 stars and reviewed as Much Better Than the Title Would Suggest.

I listened to The Angel of Rome: And Other Stories through the Audible Daily Deal from October 16, 2022. The narration performances by veterans Eduardo Ballerini and Julie Whelan were excellent.

[johnny ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

the queer stories were badass. the rest, eh.

[Summer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Going into a Jess Walter book you know that you are going to be instantly transported to another time and place. He truly is a master storyteller with characters that you feel like you know on a personal level and stories that you will never forget. I don't read a lot of short stories but when I first learned that Jess Walter was coming out with a short story collection, I knew that I just had to read it!

The Angel of Rome is a collection of 12 short stories. The stories are all about the small moments in life when everything changes- for the better, worst or even the outrageous. The collection contains a diverse cast of characters and voices as well as a huge range of settings taking the reader from Idaho to Italy. Using his signature big-hearted approach toward the darkest parts of humanity, the stories are not only humorous but also poignant and redeeming.

I truly loved each and every story in The Angel of Rome. It's hard to choose an absolute favorite out of the collection but I will have to say that either Town & Country or Famous Actor are the most unforgettable ones. Town & Country tells the story of a gay son who must repeatedly come out to his senile father while searching for a place to care for the elderly man. Famous Actor is about an actor in a recovery who has a one-night stand with a film critic. Not only do I recommend The Angel of Rome: and Other Stories by Jess Walter, but I also recommend his prior works The Cold Millions and Beautiful Ruins.

The Angel of Rome: and other stories by Jess Walter will be available on June 28! A massive thanks to Harper Books for the gifted copy.

[Sunny Lu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m astonished and blown away at how good this is

[kaitlyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is excellent! it’s full of interesting and engaging short stories that talk about life, adolescence, aging, and hope. i highly recommend this one! especially the audiobook - the narrator is fantastic

[Alexandru Lungeanu · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an extremely short book. I don't know exactly how many pages it has but on Audible it was something like two hours. I was a bit skeptical, initially, I was thinking it will be something between a novella and a novel and both characters and story will remain undeveloped. How wrong I was! The book is very charming, very nice and, I dare say, very wise. In the end, I have noticed, lately, that everybody tries to make books resemble life as much as possible. Even fantasy books have a sad, grim, realistic touch. While I do not disagree with this completely it is so heartening that there is still someone who dares write a book which is just beautiful.

[Shelby (catching up on 2025 reviews) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well that was..... different. 😂
But I think I liked it!!!

I'm not sure if I'll write a full review or not. 🤷🏼‍♀️

[Mary Lins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a huge Jess Walter fan, so when I heard he had a new story collection, “The Angel of Rome and Other Stories”, I was excited to dig in! I had loved EVERY SINGLE ONE of the stories in his last collection “We Live in Water”. Could that magic happen again?

It did! From page one/story one I knew I was in for another Jess Walter treat. There are three strong pillars to his immense writing talent: 1) his ability to completely flesh out a character in just a few words of description and dialogue: one sentence from a character can convey volumes. 2) His wonderfully relatable stories of the human condition: the reader cannot fail to identify and understand the situations Walter puts his characters in. And 3) his wit: there were more than a few occasions when I laughed out loud reading these stories: they can be hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time.

I’d like to just comment on a couple of the great stories in this collection. The titular “Angel of Rome” was the longest story, and it was my favorite. It is narrated by native Nebraskan Jake Rigel, who is recalling when he was a naive 20-year-old and in Rome in the 1993 on a Latin scholarship - which he got by lying about his proficiency in Latin. On the day that he is so dejected, poor, and hungry that he’s ready to sell his leather coat for a ticket home, he stumbles upon a movie set and a beautiful Italian actress known as the Angel of Rome. Hilarity ensues, but so does growth, opportunity, wisdom, and life-changing friendships.

The final story, “The Way the World Ends”, really showcases Walter’s writing chops. During a freak snowstorm on the campus of a college in Central Mississippi, Walter brings three disparate characters together in the otherwise empty campus hotel. He introduces us to two middle-aged climate scientists, Anna Molson and Rowan Eastman, and the college student on duty at the hotel desk, Jeremiah Ellis, who has been out of the closet for “about 20 minutes” and is in a quandary about attending an upcoming Pride Parade. Walter gets them all together and then proceeds to regale us with catastrophic facts about our impending doom due to climate change. This story is at once a hilarious farce and a dark cautionary tale. Only the pen of Jess Walter can present something both preachy and hopeful with such aplomb.

As with all of Jess Walters stories and novels, I closed the book ready for more.

Thank you, HarperCollins, for an advanced copy of this collection.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rec. by: Will Byrnes; previous work
Rec. for: Angels and devils, and those who fall in between

Jess Walter writes novels, mostly. The Angel of Rome and Other Stories is only his second short-story collection, and it comes more than a decade after his first—I read We Live In Water in 2013, and I'd almost forgotten I'd done so.

This collection is different. Better, as one would hope. I think the things that Walter had to say in The Angel of Rome are likely to stick with me for a long time.

*

"Mr. Voice" is not actually front-and-center in the story that bears his nickname—our viewpoint for this poignant autobiography is a beautiful woman's daughter—but he is nonetheless the pillar at the center of the tale.

Max and Sheila can't keep from bickering—they're an old married couple, out for lunch in their favorite restaurant—but then there's this guy who's been listening in... "Fran's Friend Has Cancer" takes a sharp turn away from the mundane, in a way that reminded me favorably of a Jonathan Carroll story.

In "Magnificent Desolation," Edward teaches middle-school science—which can be just about as desolate as anything can get. But as Buzz Aldrin called the Moon... even Edward's thankless profession can be magnificent.

Myra and Boone have good reasons for a road trip, in "Drafting."

Jess Walter is, by the way, very good at coming up with titles that carry multiple meanings. You'll see that again later on, as well.

The first angel in Walter's title story "The Angel of Rome" is a woman, of course—and Jack Rigel is just nineteen years old, which means that seeing her as she really is may be beyond him. This is not exactly a fresh or unique scenario, but Walter handles it exceptionally well, in a way that I thought both manly and sensitive (and really, those qualities should not be considered opposites). Having studied Latin for four years myself (in grade school), I can relate to Jack's linguistic struggles too, quite as much as to his mooncalf obsession with the beautiful Italian actress Angelina Amadio.
Although there are many implausible connections in this tale, I think it really ended well.

You can feel the bite of being in and from a small college town—I sure did—in Walter's character study "Before You Blow." The second person viewpoint makes you a teenaged waitress at Geno's in Spokane, Washington (Walter's home, and the setting for many of his stories both short and long). And Joey is... well, he's only pre-law.

"Town & Country" cuts a little too close to the bone, especially when encountering this story in 2025. "The most Idaho..." indeed...

And this is how we have chosen to go out—as a country—smoking and drinking and straight-fucking our way right into oblivion.
—p.173

Truth be told, I think I prefer fantasy.

And—I know empathy has become unfashionable, but in "Cross the Woods"... damn, Maggie shouldn't have to wake up alone, again.
I feel that...

"To the Corner": I heard them kids, all up in the corner by the Suprette, talkin' they smack... but I did not expect that ending, that corner sharply turned...

The "Famous Actor" is in Bend, Oregon, for a film shoot, while checking out the local talent...

"I think sometimes movies, like people, just try too hard."
—p.204

Yep, "Balloons" goes there... but then Ellis is just nineteen.

"The Way the World Ends" is the final story in Walter's collection. It speaks directly to the reality of global climate change, when a freak snowstorm in Mississippi brings people together who would not otherwise have met.

This one is science, and it's fiction, but it's not science fiction—the SF is limited to Walter's section headings, while the story that plays out is of the current moment—a moment which, I found, contains some of the most quotable bits in The Angel of Rome:

Among client scientists, it's called "pre-traumatic stress disorder" but the feelings are no joke: anger, hopelessness, depression, panic—a recurring nightmare in which you see the tsunami on the horizon but can't convince anyone to leave the beach.
—p.231

My wife confirms that those experiencing climate grief do also call it pre-TSD.

In fact, sometimes the smug self-satisfaction of Portland (I am saving the planet in my brand-new Tesla) is the worst thing she can imagine.
—p.233

I can confirm that one myself...

In church, they always insisted that the meek will inherit the earth, but Jeremiah has been meek for a good twenty years and this clearly falls under the heading of false advertising.
—p.260

"So, I guess that's what I wanted to ask you," Jeremiah says. "If you think we've done everything we can?"
—p.270

Maybe we haven't done everything we can, just yet... maybe we can still do a little more to turn the tide.

The Angel of Rome ends on a hopeful note, which is something I think we all need right now.

[Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walter’s book is a collection of twelve compelling short stories. One of the longer ones is titled “The Way the World Ends” and many of the stories are about endings of one kind or another. The characters in these realistic stories are confronted with problems, ones that could well lead to despair, but usually there’s an element of possible hope, often combined with a sense of humor, that is redemptive.

In the “World Ends” story which takes place during a terrible storm in Mississippi, some climate change scientists who have gathered there, let their hair down in a wild party, while despairing of the public’s seeming inability to be be much concerned about the possible extinction of humanity. But the storm passes and some time later in a parade, a character, appropriately named “Jeremiah” after the prophet yells every few minutes, “You’ve got to give them hope.”

In the title story, the longest in the collection, a young American who is in Rome has a remarkable adventure with some Italian actors, and many years later he returns and finds one of the actors, now elderly. He reflects on his earlier good luck and thinks that “Rome – over and over, the city reinventing itself for each new generation.”

But not all these endings are as sanguine. In “Drafting”, a story about drugs and disease, a woman thinks back to her youth, “You’re a kid. You go to school And you see where the line is supposed to go: boyfriend, job, husband, baby, whatever. But when I really looked at the line. . . the only parts that really meant anything to me were the jagged parts. . .the parts that everyone else saw as mistakes.”

In many of the stories, these “jagged” parts of peoples’ lives, mistakes that people make, are developed with characters, like this one, thinking about them. In “Before You Blow” a woman reminisces about the summer she found her first job and her boyfriend. These experiences pass into her memory but she is brought up short years later when she sees that boyfriend, wonderful when she was a teenager, but now very ordinary.

A similar situation occurs in “Balloons” but in this case the timespan is shortened n a teenage boy’s experience with an alcoholic neighbor. He is at first repelled by her, but by the story’s end comes to an understanding of the sadness she is experiencing.

At least three of the stories focus on the endings of old people; in one, a widower has a problem with troublesome teenagers, in another, a son has to find an appropriate nursing home for his difficult father, and in a third, a grimly funny story, an elderly man in a restaurant berates a young writer who has been eavesdropping on a conversation he has been having with his wife about the challenges of getting old.

Walter has an ability for finding those parts of people lives, the “jagged” parts where they try, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not, to make sense of their lives. Reading these wonderful stories makes a reader aware of what George Eliot might have meant when she wrote about the “roar on the other side of silence,” the silent lives of ordinary people that opens up and are heard with Walter’s talented writing.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.9 rounded up, which is the aggregate of my individual story reviews as shown below.

It must be very difficult to write a book of short stories without any of them being duds. I’ve rarely seen it done. This one has the full range, from the very good to the ridiculously bad.

Mr Voice 3.5
Fran’s Friend has Cancer 2.4 - I couldn’t really tell if this one had a sci-fi element. Maybe. Anyone?
Magnificent Desolation 3.8
Drafting 2 - Seemed kind of pointless
The Angel of Rome 4.2 - The titular story and one of the best
Before you Blow 4 - Good mix of coming of age + lesson learned/mistake avoided
Town & Country 0.6 - tawdry and blech
Cross the Woods 3.3
To the Corner 3 - Somewhat reminiscent of the Clint Eastwood movie Gran Torino
Famous Actor 3.8 - This one was good for a couple of laughs
Balloons 4.6 - One of the shorter ones, but probably my favorite
The Way the World Ends -0.4 - Yes, that’s a negative. Was this supposed to be a short story, or a really woke article from the New York Times?

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listen to podcasts - well, podcast, if we're being specific - and I keep wanting to try audiobooks. For whatever reason, they are NOT for me. I started listening to this short story (~60 pages) in September. I finally got frustrated and checked the collection out of the library in December. I will retain absolutely nothing about this reading experience except for my inability to listen to a book. I wish it were for me. Alas, it is not.

I will not be reading the remainder of the stories in the published version of The Angel of Rome ... I flipped through and am totally uninterested.

[Debbi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is my third try with Jess Walter, and although I can't find fault with his writing, his style and approach are not for me. His fascination with the movie biz doesn't appeal to me and for the most part his stories feel a little too glib. I wanted to be friends, but alas, I think this is my last try.