Amazing Things Are Happening Here

Fiction. I don't know how Jacob Appel does it. I'm not talking about the fact that Appel is a physician and attorney and teacher in addition to the work that he does with a pencil in his hand. I'm talking, too, about the stories that he writes, stories that are uniquely his own, written with equal doses of heft, hilarity and heart. AMAZING THINGS ARE HAPPENING HERE is an apt title for a collection such as this, filled as it is with a sense of invention and evention or eventiveness that makes Jacob Appel about as original of a voice that you're likely to find if this is the kind of looking you are looking at this book to find.--Peter Markus In his new short story collection, AMAZING THINGS ARE HAPPENING HERE, Jacob Appel renders our post 9/11 world through a variety of personalities, each narrating their unique and startling stories. Meet the shy high school student with a crush on a girl dying of leukemia, the mother whale who beaches to save her offspring, the search for the VA hospital's lunatic who goes missing and never returns, and more. We are in the hands of a patient, master artist who watches the world unfolding around him, sees its protagonists' inadvertent mistakes, and observes them endeavoring to reclaim their dignity. These stories lift us far above the realm of entertainment, and instead enrich and enliven the psyche's oceanic heights and depths.--Marilyn Krysl