Reviewed by Janet Jensen for Readers' Favorite

"The Weight of Deeds", a collection of short stories by Eli Thorpe, contains fourteen well-crafted, thought-provoking stories: tThe lone male, searching for the source of his recurrent nightmare; an adolescent wrestling with the sea and the need to prove to himself and others that he can take on the challenge and succeed; a young boy climbing a tree his father once climbed, facing the fear that he has climbed too high and can’t get down; a man who gets in his car and drives, without conscious thought, to old haunts, visiting the past, yet hesitant to open the door and see what remains; two estranged brothers in an emergency room, wondering if they can ever reconnect; a man whose recurring dream spurs an odyssey to new possibilities. These and many other elements are explored in Thorpe’s stories.

Loneliness, bullies, disillusionment, the transient and unplanned journeys, unlikely and innocent loves, secrets of the forest and the sea, ghosts, and unlikely visits to the past also appear in these stories filled with humanity and honest self-assessment.

Thorpe’s fourteen stories are varied and well-written. They reassure the reader that the art of the short story is alive and strong. Thorpe generates a strong sense of place, in descriptions such as the following: “He looked up, and saw the moon was gone, behind the hill. The beach stretched out before him, denuded of water by the tide, the shaggy heads of seaweed-covered rocks revealed in the faint light of the fire, subtler and more suggestive now than they had been. Dreams. Memory. Imagination. Night was the proper time for this.”

One of my favorites was 'The Magician', about a man who loses his way while driving home after a long day of seminars, which was preceded by other days of long seminars, and would be followed by the same numbing routine, even though the man is regarded as successful at his job. He finds a place to stay and meets a magician, who gradually seduces him into the world of imagination and mystery with his tricks, until both are building images in the fire with their hands. A cherished childhood dream materializes, and the man suddenly knows he will revive the dream and live it with all the passion that has been missing in his life for so many years.

This collection of varied stories is a highly satisfying read for different kinds of readers: those who are looking for a book with substance and thought-provoking ideas, characters that we know, or characters who may just be a facet of ourselves; those who are willing to take the journey with these characters into the territory of the past, dreams, nightmares, or the unknown; and for the readers who appreciate clean, evocative and honest writing.