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Reviewed by Jon Michael Miller for Readers' Favorite
Unconventional Heroes: Stories of Inspiration, Humor and Misadventure is a collection of fourteen short stories by Don Lehmkuhl. Most of them are set in the vicinity of Cincinnati, Ohio, and they comically and tragically portray what the author refers to as “redneck America,” mostly in the mid-70s. The stories are well-written, easy to understand, and accurately convey the feelings mentioned in the title. Some have a literary flavor, others the feeling of homespun yarns, others a sense of disappointment and loss, and some just plain old hilarity. Taken together, they skillfully illustrate the author's range and versatility as a storyteller. He is at home with the deeply tragic as well as with the farcically comic, and altogether, this book bustles with life in all its aspects from young to old, sad to joyful, spiritual to earthy, and serious to absurd. Mr. Lehmkuhl can do it all.
A few of the pieces seem to be reminiscences from the author’s childhood and young adult experiences. In “The Brief Encounter,” a portrait of a lowlife dart bar in a Cincinnati trailer park, the narrator and his friends wildly experience coming of age. But the author can switch direction to the superbly literary as he describes an aging woman in a rest home, recalling the view of a fabulously beautiful Pacific beach as if she were actually there. Or he can go off on a realistically comic episode of choking on chewing gum during a Catholic church service. There’s a friend’s suicide in a garage, the moving death of a little girl, and the regrets of a middle-aged man as he reflects on his life, and so much more. All told, Don Lehmkuhl’s Unconventional Heroes is a superb entrance onto the writing stage, and a powerful one indeed.
