I bumped the short story collection Dead Boys by Richard Lange up in my reading queue after reading a review in the San Francisco Chronicle that declared:

“Dead Boys” is not just one of the best collections thus far this decade: “Dead Boys” is one of the best short story collections of the past 50 years.

That’s what the reviewer said. I don’t have any kind of gauge for determining how wildly off base that comment might be, but this is of the best short story collections that I’ve recently read.

For one thing, this is a very cohesive collection. Each of the stories takes place in the down-trodden and neglected corners of Los Angeles. The characters have generally fallen through the cracks of society and have found themselves (or a loved one) on the proverbial edge. In most cases, a missed chance, a blown opportunity, or a singular tragic event that can not be recovered from are what have led the characters to the sorry states in which they find themselves.

In a story titled Bank of America, “John Q” relates how he, a family man, found himself planning a bank heist with two near strangers. He says:

To me it was like, “Hey, let’s make a movie, or, “Let’s open a pizza place,” one of those shared pipe dreams guys sometimes use an excuse to keep meeting when they’re too uptight to admit they enjoy each other’s company…I’d always imagined that when you crossed the line you saw it coming, but it turned out to be more like gliding over the equator on the open sea. Don’t let them kid you, it’s nothing momentous, going from that to this.

None of the people in these stories saw the line coming. The subtext seems to be, “this could happen to you. It happens to real people like this every day.”

In another story, The Bogo-Indian Defense, events set a character adrift who had a job and had been more or less keeping his life together.

Cedrick found me with my arms wrapped around the water-coooler, my head resting on top of it. There was such kindness in his voice when he told me to take a break. On the way out I dropped my nametag on his desk, because I knew I wouldn’t, couldn’t, come back.

The title story, the last in the collection, portrays people who are successful in the traditional sense but are so morally bankrupt that the reader feels more horrified by them than the skid row types that we’ve encountered throughout the collection. The “dead” in Dead Boys is emotional, no one ceases living in the physical sense.

And yet, this is not a collection without hope. Each story (or at least most) also leaves the possibility open that if something changes, if a lucky break comes along, the situation could reverse itself. It’s a long shot, believing in these people. I suppose your read may depend on whether you’re a “glass half-full” kind of person. The characters have been so fully realized in these stories that you can’t help but hope that they somehow turn that corner.

I doubt that it is intentional, but the book can also be a metaphor for the short story itself. The SF Chronicle reviewer all but declared the short story dead - down on its luck, a drunken mess, banished to the dark places of literature with little hope for redemption. The short story as an art form may be down right now, but with a little a little luck, the right encounter, or more stories like these - there is always hope.