Ghost Tracks: Stories of Pittsburgh Past
In Ghost Tracks: Stories of Pittsburgh Past, Mark Saba writes about a Pittsburgh that is neither material, nor historical, but a place of memory. Beginning his collection with a quote from Tolstoy, “Everything is, everything exists, only because I love” he sketches in the “everything” with stories about professors, workmen, children, and nuns told in an amazing range of voices. Some of the narrators relate events as they are occurring; some talk about what happened after their deaths. In the last story in the book, a father who had died when his son was three wonders what his son would have been like had he been a part of his growing up. The father says that the only consolation he can find is that his son uses “his uncommon perspective to bring light to others who may have found themselves in the same circumstance.” Mark Saba has an uncommon perspective and he has used it to connect us to characters that exist for us because of his expert telling of their stories.
CHRIS BULLARD, Fear
In Ghost Tracks: Stories of Pittsburgh Past, Mark Saba writes about a Pittsburgh that is neither material, nor historical, but a place of memory. Beginning his collection with a quote from Tolstoy, “Everything is, everything exists, only because I love” he sketches in the “everything” with stories about professors, workmen, children, and nuns told in an amazing range of voices. Some of the narrators relate events as they are occurring; some talk about what happened after their deaths. In the last story in the book, a father who had died when his son was three wonders what his son would have been like had he been a part of his growing up. The father says that the only consolation he can find is that his son uses “his uncommon perspective to bring light to others who may have found themselves in the same circumstance.” Mark Saba has an uncommon perspective and he has used it to connect us to characters that exist for us because of his expert telling of their stories.
CHRIS BULLARD, Fear
In Ghost Tracks: Stories of Pittsburgh Past, Mark Saba writes about a Pittsburgh that is neither material, nor historical, but a place of memory. Beginning his collection with a quote from Tolstoy, “Everything is, everything exists, only because I love” he sketches in the “everything” with stories about professors, workmen, children, and nuns told in an amazing range of voices. Some of the narrators relate events as they are occurring; some talk about what happened after their deaths. In the last story in the book, a father who had died when his son was three wonders what his son would have been like had he been a part of his growing up. The father says that the only consolation he can find is that his son uses “his uncommon perspective to bring light to others who may have found themselves in the same circumstance.” Mark Saba has an uncommon perspective and he has used it to connect us to characters that exist for us because of his expert telling of their stories.
CHRIS BULLARD, Fear
Big Table Publishing (2017)