Not The Same River - W.A. Polf - ★★★

AUTHOR: W.A. Polf

GENRE: Short Story Collection

PUBLICATION DATE: August 3, 2024

RATING: 3 stars.

In a Nutshell: A short story collection about “ordinary people confronting extraordinary circumstances.” Literary in feel. Diverse in content. But some stories didn’t suit my reading preference, and the slice-of-life writing style isn’t a favourite of mine.

This collection has fifteen short stories across 300 pages. While there is no author’s note introducing his intent or the theme, the blurb states that these stories involve “ordinary people confronting extraordinary circumstances”, where the characters lead us to wonder if we shape the future, or is it the other way around. This theme is adhered to diligently in the stories, though it isn’t always done justice to.

The title comes from the epic quote by Heraclitus (also mentioned at the start of the book): “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” It’s a great way of representing the situations in the stories, where a character might face a similar quandary for the second time in their life, but their reaction differs, and changes the course of their trajectory.

(The above quote reminded me of a favourite quote by Canadian poet John Barton: “You can never step into the same book twice, because you are different each time you read it.” How true is that!)

Most stories are from the male perspective, which is common for a book by a male author. (just as most women authors tend to have female protagonists.) But to my surprise, a couple of the stories do come from women characters’ points of view, and even handled well. The timeline, plot, and setting varies across the stories, and the descriptions are always vivid.

The writing approach is a combination of literary and slice-of-life. As such, the plot progression isn’t in the typical start-middle-end style, but somewhat random. Though each story has a clear focus, the tales often go meandering through various topics and backstories on their way ahead. A common plot structure for many stories is that it begins in the contemporary timeline when the main character is older and facing a conundrum, then the character goes reminiscing into past memories of a similar conundrum or a related person, and at random, resurfaces in the current timeline, and ambles and rambles a little more before the story reaches the end. So the timeline is, at times, tough to keep track of.

Some of the tales weren't really my kind of stories, being too “macho male” in approach, or having certain triggering content related to animals. The endings were also a mixed bag to me. Though they never felt abrupt, they also didn’t offer satisfaction or closure in many of the cases.

As always, I rated the stories individually. Most of the stories ended up around the 3-star mark, meaning I liked them but they didn’t blow me away. These were the few that touched or crossed four stars:

🌊 Banjo - Not at all what I expected this to be. A bittersweet story about letting go in more ways than one. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

🌊 Chickens - A tornado causes chaotic devastation outside and confused pondering inside. Enjoyed the story, loved the ending! - ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

🌊 Stepping Off the Curb - A man steps off the curb and finds himself unleashing a domino-chain of mishaps. But is he guilty? It was a surprise to discover a funny story in this serious literary set. - ⭐⭐⭐⭐✨

🌊 A Ride Home - A beautiful story that would have worked even better as a novella. I’d love to read a longer version of this, if it ever comes out. There’s so much potential in this tale! - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

All in all, this is an interesting collection with some lyrical writing and novel plotlines. The meandering structure rarely works for me, but to the right reader who enjoys slice-of-life writing, this collection ought to work much better.

Recommended to short fiction lovers who like slice-of-life writing and male-dominated stories.

3 stars, based on the average of my ratings for each story.

My thanks to Atmosphere Press for providing the DRC of “Not The Same River” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.