My son chose my book Where Pigeons Roost and other stories for a high school English class assignment. He had to read and analyse the book, then write a critique of it. He earned a grade of 84% for the following critique:
They did not yet know that this was as good as it got.
-Excerpt from Stalemate, from “Where Pigeons Roost and other stories”
Where Pigeons Roost and other stories is a collection of short stories by self-published Franco-Ontarian author AM Matte. Though they are all very different stories, they are all related by the same theme of inevitable grief. It has a lot of dark humor and subtlety in all its stories. Due to the unique presentation of this book, this review will go through and rate each story individually.
ABÎME: A popular actress is reading a book by her ex-husband about the affair she was having with the contractor who was renovating their home. As she finishes reading, she decides to go make things right with her ex.
This is an interesting story about betrayal and hatred. It was interesting how the protagonist’s mind went back and forth on her opinions about her ex-husband and how she should deal with her feelings. Wasn’t all that interesting, safe for a few funny moments. 6.5/10
STALEMATE: Two sisters, Feather and Gaelyn that are in their late 50s seemingly hate each other, but must keep face due to, one, living together, and two, having to seem happy when they have guests over. Oh, and they also want to kill each other, for reasons that are entirely avoidable and, dare I say, stupid. Feather attempts to murder her sister simply because she said something about the woman who got with the man she wanted to get with. Gaelyn had literally no idea. Feather apologises, and life goes back to normal. (Yes, that’s actually what happens)
This is an interesting piece of dark comedy in this book. Seeing Feather slowly become more and more enraged with her sister, without the latter even knowing what’s going on, is definitely funny. 7/10
Where Pigeons Roost: The titular story of the book, this is a tale about a young woman named Mykle who participates in an underground “sport” known as “Pigeon Thwacking”, which is… exactly what it sounds like. Basically, every year there is a competition to see who can thwack the most pigeons. Each pigeon equals one point. Whoever has the highest point total wins that year’s competition. Toyosi, the reigning champion of the sport, is evidently cheating, since he’s always ahead of Mykle by just a little bit. Mykle’s plan is to just beat up the same group of pigeons for an entire year, but during this massacre she stupidly slips and cracks her skull open, dying in the process… but not before writing her final point total on the ground with her blood: 22158
This is a really fun story, with high stakes and fun storytelling. The ending is somewhat disappointing, due to her death due to pigeons. Personally, I was hoping for Mykle to become the true, rightful champion and to expose Toyosi for his fraudulent ways in the process. Then again, I don’t think that we, as readers, are supposed to be rooting for this obviously flawed protagonist. Nonetheless, still a great read! 10/10
Overall, you could call this a triple-a book; that is, a book about Adultery, Attempted murder and Avicide. Each story brings something different to the table, but they all circle back to the same theme: how people handle (or fail to handle) grief and disappointment. While not every story hits equally hard, the collection is bold and unafraid to be weird, which works in its favor. I rate this book 9 stars out of 10. Would recommend.*
*emphasis mine
