Beach Town

by David Daniel

Shift whistles at the soap factory and the shipyard, along with the changing tides, mark the rhythms of life in the beach town. This is a world of fast food, double dates, and Saturday morning haircuts at the barber shop-a world as seemingly uncomplicated as a summer night's ride on a carousel. A lonely girl from "away" seeks connection with high school classmates who give no notice; a harried salesman confronts his deepest fear; a middle-aged woman reckons with unfulfilled dreams; and a man returns for a class reunion and finds himself face to face with something beyond his imagining. In Beach Town, David Daniel recreates the seaside town of North Weybridge, recalling in stories poignant and sometimes mysterious, the loves and losses, the magic and hard realities of clam diggers, sailors, barmaids and disillusioned lovers, characters revealed in moments of crisis or enlightenment.

224 pages, Paperback

Published January 2, 2023

About the author

David Daniel's stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies alongside work by Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson. He is author of more than a dozen books, including entries in the St. Martin’s Press prize-winning Alex Rasmussen mystery series: The Heaven Stone, The Skelly Man, Goofy Foot, and The Marble Kite. Other novels include White Rabbit, a novel of the 1960, and the bestselling political thriller The Tuesday Man.

His newest book, Beach Town, a collection of short stories, is a bittersweet look at the loves and losses of characters, young and old, living in a coastal town.

Born in Boston, Daniel has traveled widely and has been a teacher, surfer, tennis coach, clam digger, and brain slicer in the neuropathology lab at Harvard Medical School.

Reviews

[Adrian Vladimir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beach Town is a truly fantastic collection of short stories and one novella that runs the gamut of the human soul. From the intense (a woman walking home late at night while a killer stalks the fog-drenched community in September Song) to the beautiful (the longing for young love unrealized and a quest to find where all the missing kids have gone in The Late Bus) to the funny (a promiscuous college student gets a case of the crabs in Crabs), Daniel skillfully guides the reader through a range of human experiences.

Daniel stirs emotions in the best ways, and each story is a trip, an insight, and a moment of reflection that left me wanting more while wondering about my own life choices and the people I once knew.

If you like short story collections with a literary flair, this book is for you.

[Joseph Carrabis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting collection of...well, not quite stories. They read more like modern fables without the fabulous or fantastic to me. They seemed to have morals, either implied or stated.
Each entry is a short read. Some have appeared online and in print, and all have a distinct New England/Mass Coast flare to them (which I enjoyed as I know that area - from Salisbury to the South Cape and islands - and set some of my own work there). I also appreciated Daniel's "long view" of things. He's mature (don't like the term "senior") author who's had a full life and that shows in his work.
Good reads, especially if you're going to spend some time on a beach this summer. Or at a cabin in the woods. Or on a long commute with someone else at the wheel. Or...

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful short stories that filled me with a nostalgia for my youth in Weymouth. Daniel moves through vignettes and longer stories of the people of “Weybridge”, all characters that I swear I’ve met or known in town. Even if the stories often take place before I was born, not much has changed in town and it took me back to good times and memories of my own life.