Oddities and Endings

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Oddities & Endings is a collection of forty of Giorgio’s stories, the majority of which originally appeared in literary magazines. A few special “never before seen” stories specifically written for this collection are included as well. Oddities & Endings; The Collected Stories of Kathie Giorgio delivers everything its title promises. Kathie Giorgio’s first published short story, accepted when she was fifteen years old, launched a career that has now spanned forty years.

Giorgio’s stories are filled with quirky characters doused with a heaping helping of humanity. Readers will recognize these characters from their own lives and possibly from the reflections they see in their mirrors every morning. There’s the woman who battles loneliness by searching for dead birds during her lunch hour, bringing them home to her special angels’ cemetery in her back yard. The man who becomes obsessed with finding the voice already recorded on his newly purchased answering machine. The woman who decides to dub herself a widow and gain new friends and sympathy at a retirement village in Florida. And the couple who struggle to restore intimacy after the husband’s emergency surgery leaves him with a stoma and colostomy bag he names Mick, creating an odd threesome in bed. Plus many more, covering the full spectrum of the oh so human spectrum.