Velvet Shipwrecks

'Tim Wenzell’s Velvet Shipwrecks is a collection of short stories characterized by the unexpected detour, the stops along a narrative way that take the reader into a marginal America, where surprises happen and are cast in a dark humor that paradoxically lights our way. Consider ́Check Point, ́ where the entire Wolrath family is arrested for drunkenness—including a sixteen-year-old son ́was fed sips of wine in the middle of the fair grounds for five hours by his mother ́ and ́Annie, barely ten, ́ who kicked the officer’s shins as the father, sober, attempted to pass his sobriety test. Consider, too, the dark ́Downstream, ́ and the funeral of the narrator’s brother—shot in the head by a man wearing steel-toed boots. Or consider ́Y, ́ the story of a misread ultrasound and a father who ́jumped the gun, went out to the Wal-Mart and decorated his soon-to-be-baby-boy’s nursery with baseballs and footballs. ́ Of course, ́The fetus...emerged a girl, ́ and ́Ted’s dream of coaching a son was dashed. ́ Indeed, Wenzell’s stories are moody and uneasy, but they are simultaneously delightful.'--Amazon.com description.