The four stories in Barrington Jackson's Half Deserted Streets center around chance meetings between people who seem very different, but have a yet undiscovered thread that binds them together, with life changing results. In the first story, Tethered, a nun and a tech geek venture into an unlikely, unseemly place together. In the second story, A Cross to Bear, a girl and a boy, who despite being of different races, share poverty and hope to escape it. In the third story, Because She Does Not Hope to Turn: The Story of Pearls, two children from different sides of the tracks are drawn together, even as they grow up and their circumstances should keep them apart. And finally, in the fourth story, Auerbach's Hands, two older men who seem to be polar opposites find that music makes them the same. Jackson's four stories will take readers to places dark and light, evil and good, desperate and hopeful.

What readers will find in all of the stories in Half Deserted Streets is a unique storytelling style that provides robust, memorable characters in richly detailed settings. Author Barrington Jackson's descriptions are often poetic and always satisfactory in conveying a specific mood for every situation. Whether it is the growing malaise the reader feels in Tethered, or the suspense and fear in A Cross to Bear, Barrington skillfully manipulates his words to lead readers down one path or another. Sex was central to three of the four stories, but the most beautifully written, evocative story for me was Auerbach's Hands, which was in no way sexual.

Parts of some stories are written almost stream-of-consciousness style, where the lack of structure and punctuation could cause confusion between speakers or internal and external monologues. Additionally, particularly in Tethered, a thorough editing needs to take place to correct a number of basic issues (like repeated sentences, dropped and extra words, tense issues, etc.), which detract and distract from the thoroughly creepy story. Despite the across the board need for editing, the stories in Half Deserted Streets are worth reading, though I give a cautionary note to readers uncomfortable with sex and sexual or religious perversion.

Half Deserted Streets is a short story collection written by Barrington Jackson. The first tale, Tethered, is the story of a young man, Nathan, who becomes obsessed with Marta, a woman he meets at a party. From the moment she hands him a soft leather hood to put on, he's hers no matter what the cost. His memories of each adventure in her rooms is cloudy and confused, filled with images of swaying spectators and death, yet he comes each time she calls for him. In A Cross to Bear, two young children grow up together on a deserted plantation. Luster and his mom live in a shanty on a piece of land that's been home to their family for generations. Marianne and her mother, Adie Mae, move into the shack down the road. Auerbach's Hands is the story of a tailor who once played a clarinet.

Barrington Jackson's short story collection, Half Deserted Streets, is filled with images, scents and sounds. There's the smell of incense and blooming flowers at midnight, the long, hot summer's heat rising, the quiet of encounters that seem to last forever. It's easy to get wrapped up in all the sensuality and sensation and utter poetic beauty found within this deceptively slim volume. Jackson has the power to suspend time and alter reality simply with a turn of phrase or a random gaze, though I suspect it's not all that simple to accomplish. Half Deserted Streets is a book to read as slowly and languorously as possible in order to allow every nuance, every delicate scent and shade of meaning to rise to the surface and bestow delight. I'm awed by the talent behind this remarkable collection of short stories and found myself quite overwhelmed reading each of them, though I did find the last tale, Auerbach's Hands, to be especially moving. Half Deserted Streets is most highly recommended.