What He’s Poised to Do by Ben Greenman
Published by Harper Perennial, an imprint of Harper Collins
“What He’s Poised to Do” is a lovely, intriguing collection of short stories by Ben Greenman. What makes this collection unique is how many of the stories were set up as stories or monologues for one of the characters to ask questions of or explain actions to an often-unseen other. The collection was very well-edited, placing the stories in such an order that the more epistolary stories didn’t all stack up on one another and begin to seem redundant.
There is a very clever blog that has been set up to help promote “What He’s Poised to Do” called ‘Letters With Character,’ based, obviously, on the epistolary nature of many of Greenman’s stories. ‘Letters With Character’ allows real people to write letters to fictional characters. The most recent letter is written to the Quiet Old Lady Whispering Hush from “Goodnight Moon” and definitely made me laugh when it showed up in my feed reader.
Take a look at ‘Letters With Character,’ maybe submit a letter, and then pick up “What He’s Poised to Do” to see how Greenman uses letters in this collection.
Buy this book from:
Powells.*
A local independent bookstore via Indiebound.*
Amazon.*
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It sounds like such an interesting book. I’ll look for it!
This one gets stars for creativity!
So, that’s the book that Letters With Character is for! Sounds fascinating!
Oh, I’d heard about the Letters with Character site somewhere else, but forgot to check it out. Thanks for the reminder. I’m off to read them, and perhaps compose one.
This one sounds good – I am not always one to think about picking up a book of short stories but I’ll watch for this. And now I have to go check out the blog!
Sounds more interesting than I would have guessed.
I am always on the look out for books with monologues.
Being an actor you are always looking for good, new material.
Especially something unique and not the same old monologues that every one always does.
I’ll be sure to give this one a read!
I just love the idea of this book. And the blog. Going to be checking out both. Thanks for the recommendation.
I really like the idea of this book, too. I am going to go check out Letters of Character now!
I laughed out loud at the Goodnight Moon one. Good call!