Residing inside the pages of Edward Belfar’s short story collection are a series of wanderers who find themselves far from home both geographically and emotionally. Some of them travel halfway across the world while others are literally trapped within themselves, but all of them are searching for a way back into the feeling of home.

The stories in this collection take place in a variety of locations ranging from Kenya to a psychiatric ward to Italy to Yankee Stadium, and they examine issues of identity, responsibility to family, sexual insecurity, and global economics.

Many of the stories take place in Kenya. In “Departure,” a Kenyan expat to America visiting her home country takes an overnight train from Nairobi to Mombassa, expecting the comfortable journey she had experienced 30 years earlier. However, instead of bone china, crystal, and waiters in starched white jackets, she finds grimy, ripped seat covers and hole-in-the-floor toilets. She has plenty of time to reflect upon the differences between the Kenya of her childhood memories and the reality of present-day Kenya during the train’s frequent break-downs. Neither a local and nor a tourist, she feels a sense of displacement that is shared by many of the other characters in this book.

My favorite piece was “A View of the Fireworks,” a story about a depressive patient on a psychiatric ward following the death of his eating disordered daughter and the resulting split from his wife. Dreading the visits of his ex-wife, lover, and university colleagues, he can only abide the company of his fellow patients. He is particularly fond of a 13-year-old anorexic girl who reminds him of his daughter. I could not get enough of this story! It takes place during the span of one day, but there were enough allusions to Thomas’s past to make me crave more. There is a lot of backstory hiding under the surface, and I would love to see this story expanded into a novel.

Other stories involve a honeymoon in Rome gone awry when the husband spends $200 on champagne for a prostitute, the same man paralyzed after a drunk driving accident ten years later, a Kenyan airport security officer who must make a moral call, and a middle-aged man who meets his former law professor, now old, frail, and disoriented, in a bar late one night.

I really enjoyed this story collection. Although the stories range in length from 10 to 22 pages, and most of them take place in the span of a few days, Belfar does a fantastic job of fleshing out his characters and their backgrounds. Without using too many words, he is able to convey complicated relationships and emotions. He delves into his characters’ pasts — their secrets, longings, and injuries — while still maintaining forward momentum in a fairly compact medium.

I usually read short story collections in sips, reading a few stories here and there but I gulped this one down. Belfar’s language isn’t flowery or highly stylistic, but it has a gravity that pulled me deep into the lives of the characters he created and in some cases left me wanting more. Some characters were more sympathetic than others, but they felt realistic given their backgrounds.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review on Books Speak Volumes, a book blog. ( )

Edward Belfar’s collection of stories takes readers to dusty towns in Africa, on a honeymoon in Rome, and to Yankee Stadium, among other places. The characters who people these stories include a man who chooses the wrong wife, a woman who returns to her childhood home just outside Nairobi, a former pro baseball player who lives in squalor after missing a fly ball in a championship game, a man who seems to have lost it all and resists his brother’s offer of assistance, a Kenyan man desperate to provide for his wife and child, and a Greek Orthodox woman who moves from one lawsuit to the next. All of Belfar’s characters seem to find themselves disillusioned, failing at marriage or jobs or relationships, and searching for some kind of redemption and hope.

Mwangi, a Kenyan man is struggling with poverty and exhaustion in Something Small. He loves his wife and child, but feels hopeless to provide them with an adequate home.

For a moment, Mwangi, still a bit lightheaded, flirted with the idea of calling out sick and crawling into bed beside her. Today, Sunday, was his day of rest, when he worked only in the evening. Tomorrow – and countless more tomorrows – would bring fourteen hours of toil, the day spent at a downtown Barclay’s branch, where he labored as a teller, handling other people’s money, and the evening at the airport. It seemed to him that he lived only to work – to work without end and without reward, save the ability to sustain himself so that he could work some more. – from Something Small, page 123 -

It is no wonder then, when faced with a chance to make some extra money, that Mwangi is tempted to abandon his moral beliefs. This short story was perhaps my favorite of the collection because Belfar so clearly sets Mwangi’s life out for the reader and then places an ethical dilemma in his path.

Two of the stories in Belfar’s collection are connected by characters. In Roman Honeymoon, David and Salma travel to Rome for their honeymoon where David seems to regret his decision to marry, and Selma appears completely unhappy with not only David, but life in general. Later in Visitations, the reader gets to see the couple years later while David is recovering from an accident in hospital. I quite enjoyed this “fast forward” where questions which arose in Roman Honeymoon are answered in Visitations.

Belfar’s writing is vivid and character driven while anchored in a firm sense of place. The reader feels like a bit of a voyeur, peering into the lives of these troubled characters and hoping for them to find redemption.

This is not a feel good collection of stories. Often I found myself feeling nearly as hopeless as the characters, wishing them a better life, or a break, or a glimmer of happiness. The Ruined House was able to offer me a small light of hope. Njeri leaves her home in America to return to Nairobi where she grew up in a small village outside the city. At first she is dismayed at the changes to the area, then she is reminded of the beauty still present in the countryside.

Njeri exulted as the rich, undulant landscape that she remembered so well spread itself before her once again. Sisal plants that had taken root in the red soil by the roadside stretched out their broad, flat leaves to catch the sun. To the right, at the bottom of a gentle declivity, lay vast fields of maize, and every now and then, Njeri could discern the outlines of a human form hunched over amid the stalks. To her left, she saw banana orchards. – from The Ruined House, page 69 -

Despite finding her family home in disrepair, Njeri is able to find a trickle of hope for her country as she watches the caretaker’s son dash through a newly raked pile of leave and scatters them to the wind. “Things will get better,” reminds her brother.

After finishing these stories, I found myself thinking of the characters at odd times. The fact that I felt their despair and worried about them speaks well of Belfar’s ability to pull the reader into their lives.

Wanderers: Stories is a book which will appeal to readers who enjoy well-written short stories, especially those set in foreign lands. ( )

This volume of 15 short stories are unvarnished moments of disappointment, disgrace, and disgust, feature men entering or exiting marriages, suffering through the long, dirty decline of their life after one or more poor life choices, and the wistful nostalgia of what was (or never was, but could have been). Set in urban Kenya (usually Nairobi and the suburbs), the hospital, or the scummy pits of a rent-a-week room in the city, the mood is a little dark, a little dirty, bitter, wry, nostalgic, gently sad, or savagely angry.

I wasn't sure what I was expecting, but while reading, I was surprised to find I enjoyed the stories. The 'voice' in these stories is very straight and male, which is an unusual tone in my reading, and while I found the way Belfar portrayed women to be flat, it fit with the mood of his angry, hurt protagonists.  Hysterical in their own way, these characters are fitful and resentful, tired and resigned; they're mired in their anger, self-pity, and regret, and can't see a way out.  Belfar expressed that in a way that hooked me.

According to the back blurb, one of Belfar's stories, "Errors', was a winning entry in the Sports Literature Association's 2008 fiction competition. I'm not a sports fan, and I contemplated skipping the story entirely. I didn't, and I'm grateful, as it is a standout in the volume. The potentially tired premise -- a down-and-out former baseball player undone by one very stupid mistake is chased down by a journalist -- became a very poignant look at our passion and hatred for athletes.  Given the current climate on bullying, it was a surprisingly emotional piece (for me), and I'm glad I didn't give it a pass!

Those interested in Kenya will especially like this volume. As I learned in an interview with the author at Booklover Book Reviews, Belfar's wife is from Kenya and they often visit, which explains the frequency with which Kenya shows up.  Reading about modern Nairobi is unusual for me, and it was a great surprise armchair escape.

My one tip is to not read the stories in this volume back to back (as I did) for Belfar's repeated use of certain phrases will jump out and grate. (Every decrepit abode has 'fuzzy orange and black mold' for example; the harridan ex-wives all pull out their hair in a violent nervous tic.)  Otherwise, I have no complaints: I was pleasantly surprised and greatly diverted with these stories, and it was revealing to see marriage (and the end of marriage) from a different viewpoint. ( )