Interview With the Ax-Murderer is an oddly eclectic collection of stories starting with a fantastic retelling of Lizzie Borden. After we hear her story in a new light, the author does a 180 and we’re reading sci-fi. The stories vary in genre throughout the book giving the reader a nice variety of various reads, all in one spot.
Incident at the Seventh Street Shelter was particularly good. I appreciated that McFall had someone with PTSD as I always appreciate it when an author includes that in their stories. The story also centered around energy, and as a believer in energy, I related well to that portion.
I think my most favorite story was the one that took up the last half of the book, Eternal Cafe. This story centered on two women who wake up in purgatory. Morgan is a woman who feels she failed in life doing social work, she failed a young girl, and she lost her ability to care about the people she worked with. Morgan’s best friend Amber was a bit wild when she was younger, and while she has grown up, she doesn’t feel she did as much in life, especially with her writing, as she would have liked.
Amber spends most of her time at a bar, which is highly entertaining, especially because a lot of well-known authors hang out there. The conversations were amusing and I liked Jude, who ran the bar. I also particularly liked who Megan calls “the demon”, Meph. I think McFall could take Meph and expand on his story into a full-length book, he really is a great character and I would love to know more of his story.
While not all the stories were to my taste, which can and will happen when you have a collection of short stories, overall I was pleased with this book. It was a well-written, enjoyable read, with a nice variety of stories to keep me entertained. Nicely done.
You can read my review on Goodreads. Interview With the Ax-Murderer is available on Amazon in paperback for $10.00
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