St. James Infirmary

Steven Meloan’s new collection of short-shorts offers an eclectic mix of tales spanning the arrival of our family in Los Angeles, to his later adult life in San Francisco, to the summer he and I spent busking the Tubes of London, the Metros of Paris, and a brief stint in Berlin. The stories include a wild assortment of quirky characters imbued with yearning, poetic magic, and sometimes danger. In The Ranch, a young woman has a brush with a horrific aspect of LA history. And in The Dancer, a couple on the road narrowly escape an encounter with a dangerous female predator. Smell-O-Vision offers comic relief as my brother’s biological effluvium sets an entire movie theater talking.But I’d like to highlight The Swan for special attention. It explores a quirky brief romance between Theresa and Al that exists in the realm of shamanic encounters or mundane insanity–sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. There is true longing and etheric dreams fraught with meaning that soar ecstatically. Is meeting Al synchronicity, or not? Maybe both. And a toy monkey who will always love you. The Swan is still rattling around in my brain.

The short stories really linger but don’t leave me hanging. If you are looking for hilarious, absurd, scary, mysterious, or nostalgic – this collection delivers! I enjoyed every story – no duds. Love “Petra” and the line “She looked like trouble in a tube”. Also “The Apartment“ would be a great “Black Mirror“ episode. And “St. James Infirmary” captures the 60s when our moms sacrificed their own ambitions while at the same time rebelling. The author is not above a little shameless fun (e.g., the smell-o-vision story). Superbly written, relatable characters, and original plots. This collection is a real gem!

Steve Meloan's St. James Infirmary is a lively and laugh-out-loud collection of short stories. With vivid imagery, the reader is treated to the Paris subway, a late-night LA diner and motel, a 1960s cocktail party, and an array of other settings where strange, yet ordinary, things happen.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I read this collection in ARC form, and volunteered to provide a blurb.The stories in this collection are quintessentially American, part coming of age, part discovering the realities of adult life. Disconcerting family situations, dealing with weird roommates, interacting with strange characters we are simultaneously draw to and repulsed by. "Infirmary" indeed: here we find a motley crew of walking wounded, navigating life as best they know how.One thing about this book, and my one true metric of any book: you can flip it open to any page and immediately sink into the scene. Five stars for that alone!

Steve Meloan’s book of short stories immediately enveloped me, and I couldn’t put it down. His writing is honest and truthful, real and innocent. Each story presented a unique look into a slice of life taking us throughout the past many decades, of which I could relate to.Bravo and well done!

This collection of essays might have been called Postcards From the Edge, had that title not already been taken. As a child of the 60s, a young adult in San Francisco in the 80’s, and a transplant to California, and ultimately LA, I can say with certitude that St. James Infirmary captures the zeitgeist of each time and place with stunning and riveting accuracy. The writing is so clean, tight, and evocative, I felt like I was on each journey with the author. It’s not so much the details of the era or area, though Meloan was spot on with his writing, as much as the aura, the feeling,the sensibilities of the characters involved that he nailed with evocative prose. To wit, this was the way frustrated mothers talked. This was the way teens sassed. This was the way young men navigated love, lust, and loss. Lies, loneliness, even the restless energy of youth, are captured in technicolor with sharp, precise prose and pitch perfect creativity. I wasn’t ready for St. James Infirmary to end. I wanted more—more stories of Meloan’s life, but also more memories for myself ofwhat it was to be in those places at those times of life. As writer Westley Heine notes in the book’s Foreward, the collection is about a rock and roll attitude and some pangs of regret. My only regret is that the collection ended toosoon.

St. James Infirmary is such an imaginative, vividly written and darkly humorous book of stories. I was touched by the honesty and vulnerability that this author conveyed always with a touch of irony regarding his life’s twists and turns growing up in the 1960’s and coming of age in the ‘70s and ‘80s.There’s a fine spirit of youth and vigor throughout these often heralding stories. The manifold situations that the narrator often unwittingly walks into make the book such fun to read. But at the same time, some of the stories can turn serious and arresting in their description of romantic love gone wrong or never getting off the ground.Stand-outs for me were the funny yet poignant “St. James Infirmary,” “Googies,” that reads like a memoir of a truly insular wacky neurotic nuclear family on a road-trip, and “The Apartment,” self-described as San Francisco in the 1980s with such an often-odd and fun kick to it. But I highly recommend this book of short stories.

I absolutely love this collection -- honest, with great observations of human nature, place, and culture -- St James Infirmary reads like an On the Road coming-of-age story... with essays often written from the perspective of a young man finding his way in the world. Taking place in Paris, Berlin, L.A., and the San Francisco Bay Area, St James is raw and relatable; the essays brought back a lot of memories for me, from beloved songs to my first car. A great summer (or Fall or Winter) read.

Meloan writes many stories looking back on the past here, but he avoids the common trend of those who indulge in a redacted nostalgia that makes incomplete and saccharine reminiscences of people's lives. Some of these stories are very deliberate and intricate in their dismantling of pop culture's propaganda dictating how past decades are to be seen. Meloan glorifies nothing, getting as close to the truth as he can. He gives us a variety of short stories, in different subject matter and different tones, set in different places during different decades, mixing short fiction with autobiographical tales. He exhibits a great understanding of the places and times he writes of.Smell-O-Vision is the perfect short story for the 'monster kids' that some of us are yet, for those still reading Shock Cinema or Scary Monsters. While it is one of the shortest stories, it might be one of the funniest, as Meloan looks back at the film craze that was supposed to take off after 3D... Possibly sabotaged by his flatulence when he attended a film at a local theater.African Moon is a very short story, but it loses nothing in its brevity. If there's humor here it is very dry and subtle. It is more about a down to earth human moment, shared by some Peace Corps volunteers and Africans on the eve of the July 20, 1969 moon landing.The title story of the collection, St. James Infirmary, almost makes the famous song a character in the story. It hangs subtly over the narrative, as parents host the typical '60s party for grown-ups, while kids are expected to behave themselves in the background. Two brothers get high and cause some grief for their put upon mother, but as conveyed by Meloan it winds up being a subtle and saccharine-free tribute to their mother. In this wistful look back, the empathy for their mother is palpable.The Ranch is a real eerie story about the Spahn Ranch and one woman's very close call with its dangerous and infamous occupants. It has that fiction-based-on-fact chill I usually get from some of Jack Ketchum's stories.Many of the personal stories in this collection detail moving to Los Angeles as a child, young adulthood in San Francisco, and times spent busking London, Paris, and Berlin; first crushes, first loves, unrequited loves, and the emotional cost of nostalgia. It's all honest, and unfiltered, accomplished writing. He lets each story be what it needs to be, whether humorous, mournful, spooky, or slice of life. These stories are immersive: you will feel like you were there.