"The People I Know" is a collection of nine stories, told by
characters who hover at the edge of life. Whether it's Lorne,
perched on a sofa as a wedding party swirls around him, or the
elderly Mrs. R of "Morning at the Beach," imagining a career in
crime as she sits on the front porch of a Miami hotel, these are
people oddly accustomed to the sidelines of their worlds.
Nancy Zafris's characters do not so much hurdle their barriers
as contemplate them with varying degrees of humor, regret, and
fanciful expectation. Gazing out of his window at a horizon of
crushed cars, Bonner Junior fantasizes about working at an I.M. Pei
office building instead of at John Bonner and Son Metal Shredders;
at the same time, his job allows him to amuse his friends with
grisly, embellished stories of human shreddings and wild dogs. In
"Meeting in Tokyo," a businessman examines his own attraction and
aversion to conformity after taking a young secretary to a "love
hotel." For Wendy, born with a strong nose and a Baltic name,
cosmetic surgery has brought acceptance but also boredom. Suffering
little "deaths of feeling" with each success, she flirts with
disaster, with anything that will make her heartbeat "go up to 75
or more." Grace, in "Grace's Reply," prefers to deal with reality
through illusion; she blames her son's death on a Navy intelligence
operation and sends Pampers to an imaginary grandson.
Ranging from the kiddie bleachers of television's "Uncle
Sylvester Show" to the upholstered seats of a Tokyo coffee shop,
from a Navy recruitment office to a meeting of Alcoholics
Anonymous, these stories enliven the common places of our world.
Sad, yet rarely defeated, Nancy Zafris's characters toe the line
and sometimes manage to cross it.
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