"Save Me Stranger," Reviewed by William Winkler

Erika Krouse is a novelist, essayist, and short story writer whose works have appeared in The New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly and multiple other literary magazines. She is also a part-time private investigator.

Krouse’s most recent book, “Save Me, Stranger,” is a collection of 12 short stories, most of which have been published in the past three years. The stories are all written in the first person yet the narrators seem to have little in common; different ages, different genders, different approaches to life. All of the protagonists are facing life challenges, some of which are resolved more successfully than others.

Krouse has either done extensive research or has travelled widely. The leadoff story, The Pole of Cold, is set in the remote Siberian village of Oymyakon, the reputed coldest inhabited place on earth. The Standing Man takes place in a suburban Tokyo ramen shop. Other settings include Bangkok, Omaha, and Alaska. In each of these locales Krouse includes elements that draw the reader rapidly into the story, details that give instant credibility to the narrator as a real, not fictional, being.

Each story unveils, page by page, moments that invite the reader to wonder, “What’s next?” An abused wife, fleeing from a God-obsessed husband, finds herself in a bed and breakfast in the Rocky Mountains, an apparently haunted hostelry. The daughter of a petroleum engineer, whose work takes him abroad and who takes his family with him on “vacation,” discovers that her father is a pedophile who choses Bangkok for its flourishing sex trade. A retired military man with pancreatic cancer discovers that his disease remains in remission as long as he continues his work as a euthenist hired to end the lives of terminal patients.

Krouse’s prose is lucid, clean, and full of detail. Readers will likely want to pause after reading each story to contemplate what literary horizons have opened in front of them.

This is a book that many readers will wish to return to after the first reading. Each story will reveal fresh insights the second or third time through.

Buy the Book.