Scouting for the Reaper by Jacob M. Appel

One protester in particular frequents the café, but in addition to being anti-abortion, she’s a vegetarian, which challenges Ziggy’s culinary skills.

His mission on Earth is “to observe the outlying planet’s inhabitants,” and he has plenty to observe because shortly after he takes over the café an abortion clinic opens across the street, attracting demonstrations by both opponents and supporters. In the title story, an alien (as in, from outer space), in the guise of a Latvian named Zigfrids, purchases a restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama that he renames Café Riga. Besides their pedigree, these stories share a quirkiness that makes them both surprising and entertaining. Miracles and Conundrums comprises eight stories, all of them previously published in such fine literary magazines as Gettysburg Review, Conjunctions, and Threepenny Review. (Very possibly this list isn’t complete!) A mystery, Wedding Wipeout, came out from Cozy Cat press in August 2013 a novel, The Biology of Luck, was published by Elephant Rock Productions in October 2013 Black Lawrence Press published another story collection, Scouting for the Reaper, in February 2014 Phoning Home, a collection of essays, came out from University of South Carolina Press in May 2014 another novel, The Man Who Wouldn’t Stand Up, was published by Cargo Publishing in September 2014 Einstein’s Beach House, a story collection, was published by Pressgang in December 2014 and then Miracles and Conundrums. Miracles and Conundrums of the Secondary Planets, under review here, came out from Black Lawrence Press in June of 2015, but it’s just one of seven books under Appel’s name to appear over a two-year span. And then I noticed he was beginning to win contests for story collections, so it was only a matter of time before the books appeared.Īppel is a prolific writer, and now that some of those books have been published, he seems to be the king of small presses.

But at that point, Appel hadn’t published a book that I knew about. It was even kind of a joke one year at AWP, because there seemed to be no point in submitting to a contest if Appel was going to send in one of his stories. Miracles and Conundrums of the Secondary Planetsįor a while, it seemed that every short story contest was being won by a guy named Jacob Appel.

Scouting for the Reaper by Jacob M. Appel