Kevin Michael Marley

Soul Kitchen Kevin Michael Marley

Soul Kitchen is a collection of impressive and daring short short stories. They are written in the vein of Franz Kafka, Herman Hesse, Haruki Murakami, and even Rod Serling, host and writer of The Twilight Zone. Many of the stories such as "The Ticket," "John Lennon's Still Dead," "I Know Why The Drunkard Drinks," and "Kafe Buffet" carry a common thread in that: What appears real in the so-called physical world, isn't. And what is real, comes forth from the changing shadows, from another world in such a tangible manner that it may send a chill up your spine. These stories deal with the common themes of our times such as political decay, inequality of wealth, global crises, and the innate struggle to survive.

The protagonists are equally substantive as we meet such famous personages as Charles Bukowski, John Lennon, Jackie Robinson, and J. Alfred Prufrock who come back from the dead, and some back from our collective imagination to rail against the irrational and the inhumane, and these corrupted times. Like a princely Hamlet, they oft pace back and forth twisting their hands, knowing that The Chain of Being has been greatly disturbed and that something is deeply amiss.

In short, the greater contribution of these potent stories is that they offer a much needed possible discussion, and indeed, a lengthwise mirror in which to see ourselves, and perhaps, the views are both startling and strangely unnerving.