Poor Advice and Other Stories edition by Lou Gaglia Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : Poor Advice and Other Stories edition by Lou Gaglia Literature Fiction eBooks 
An awful poet, dumped by his girlfriend, roams through Italy, where he clearly doesn’t belong; an oil delivery man falls in love with a clumsy woman and becomes even clumsier than she is; and a six year old and his father kill over two hundred flies at a horse farm while the father wonders about life and death. Poor Advice and Other Stories, with its mix of the serious and the absurd, reveals Lou Gaglia’s humor, imagination, and range. A man avoids paying a World Series bet to a dying old woman; a vindictive whale chases after movie stars; and a man is jealous of his brother-in-law’s ventriloquist dummy. Find these stories and many others in Mr. Gaglia’s debut book.
Winner of the 2015 New Apple Literary Award for Short Story Fiction
Winner of the 2016 New York Book Festival Award for Fiction
Library Journal---Self-e Program
Poor Advice and Other Stories edition by Lou Gaglia Literature Fiction eBooks
Lou Gaglia must be a funny/fun type of guy because his debut story collection is dead-on funny. The plots are similar to how Seinfeld approached plot: find the humor and quirk in the everyday experience. This is what Gaglia does in this book. His character voices, whether told in first or third person point of view, are dark and twisted funny. This book made me laugh out loud. It's also written from an intelligent brain. Anything really funny has to come out of a sharply perceptive mind and imagination. I could have read more. Terrific. Highly recommended.Product details
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Poor Advice and Other Stories edition by Lou Gaglia Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
It is always illuminating to be able to “see” an author behind a text. Logically, the best genres to get acquainted with these authors would have to be memoir and autobiography, right? If not, then surely the emotional catharsis of poetry. Journalism, perhaps? Logically, yes, undoubtedly. You can get to know an author plainly by these genres alone. But consider for a moment the short story and a short story collection constructed with care, story by story. Each housing, usually, a simple enough, and therefore infinitely complex human truth or experience.
Lou Gaglia’s ridiculously quirky stories from his collection Poor Advice are, for the most part, standalone stories, grazing elbows rather than holding hands, but while each is distinct, they are strung together by the colorful strands of a wonderful personality, which I suspect comes from behind the keyboard.
Most stories feature a male narrator, always thoughtful and often strung out. Some, like in the first story, “Hands,” “The Ventriloquist,” and “Letters from a Young Poet” are lovelorn over women they don’t know, or torn up over wives they don’t understand, or girlfriends they wish they no longer knew. Underneath these concerns, they question the minor aspects of their mundane lives. They are indifferent young carpet cleaners or New York natives with a crush on a supermarket cashier, and suburban dads paranoid about fixing the car. A couple of stories walk the line of fantastical and feature a lonely Russian spy and agnostic American priest, or an orca set on revenge. One involves an existential mustache (yes, you read that right). Simply stated, the truths that make these stories shine aren’t weighted down with their own seriousness. In fact most of them mock this seriousness, in turn revealing the zany everyday scruples of human life.
“The Lady with the Red Van” is such a one. In it, a lady insists on Pump Eleven every morning to pump gas, while inside the gas station, there’s a small conflict brewing between the attendant and a customer over a book of matches. A thoughtful patron with a white beard and khakis offers sage advice against capitalism. One gas attendant trying to go about his job and three others stuck in the rhythm of their ways, which, as the Red Van lady illustrates, are often inconsequential, even ridiculous.
Or take “The Fly Massacre”. A dad and son waiting for their daughter and sister to finish her horse riding lesson methodically swat at as many flies as possible. During the successfully violent onslaught, the father considers
“Every living thing was precious, yes, I thought, waving a few flies away from my face but slapping at one (with lightning speed, I thought) that landed on my leg. …Or maybe (I swatted at the fly on my thigh again the same damn one, I imagined) there was nothing at all [after death], and we just croaked into blackness, pointlessly getting older and wiser. …Life beautiful, but pointless?”
At first glance Gaglia’s stories are quirky, humorous, and have a wickedly wry ear for human desires. But slipped in between are thoughtful passages about what happens to us, why we do things, and what they mean in the grand scheme of things. And it is not as though the humor detracts from these deep and important questions. Perhaps, like the mocking, good-natured, bocce-playing grandfathers featured in his story “Little Leagues,” Gaglia knows that the hard questions are all well and good during a lifetime, but you aren’t getting much of anywhere without a few good laughs.
Throughout this short story collection, Lou Gaglia weaves together the absurd and serious, somehow making everything believable. These are stories that are easy to get lost in, and you'll find an exciting new adventure in each tale. There's never a dull moment in this book. I highly recommend Gaglia's work to any fan of short stories. .
Gaglia has a knack for taking mundane, everyday tasks—like pumping gas, selling pools, and getting your car repaired—and turning them into the funniest and most damn profound stories you've ever read. Don't let the title fool you. Gaglia's stories are full of good advice. Just don't take any of them too seriously or you may find your life in shambles.
I received an advanced reader copy of Poor Advice and Other Stories directly from the author. Having been a fan of Lou Gaglia's work for several years, I was honored when he asked me to reader an advanced copy. After reading the collection, I was truly blown away by Gaglia's talents.
Early stories are good and connect via theme/character and they just keep getting better. Had me still thinking about them after I'd read them. "Orca" is like reading one of your own dreams. It's a twisted story I fully enjoyed - especially loved hearing Bud Abbott and Boris Karloff's' voices in my head. The idea of Russia sending spies to figure out America's advantage - God - in "The Spy and the Priest" and what happens in the story is awesome. By the time I got to "Tony The Mustache" I was laughing out loud. Love the stories and look forward to reading this collection again....
There is no way not to love Gaglia's characters. Often humorous and bumbling, they're just so marvelously distinctive. Their pure manner and approach is so well constructed that you have an instant handle for who they uniquely are, regardless whether or not you know a single detail about them. You get so caught up in those characters that you're willing to follow them wherever, regardless how normal some of their adventures could in some cases otherwise seem. Really beautifully done. Had a great amount of fun.
I find that the more heartfelt and certainly less humorous stories are fantastically potent. I ran “Little Leagues” in Umbrella Factory Magazine a few years back. At the time I read “Little Leagues” I knew it was a higher caliber story than many I was reading at the submission desk. “Little Leagues” also felt like it could have been my neighborhood growing up. There was a very universal feel to it. When I reread it in Poor Advice I felt the same way. But it wasn't my favorite Gaglia story anymore. “This Is My Montauk” has to be one of the most quiet, beautifully heartbreaking stories I've ever read. It's the story of two guys who live on Long Island and and they go help out a dead friend's mother. It's not a particularly long story. There is more going on in this small space than many novels I've read. Perhaps this is the definition of a good short story writer a writer who can swing from the very funny to the very serious and still retain a sense of universality.
Lou Gaglia must be a funny/fun type of guy because his debut story collection is dead-on funny. The plots are similar to how Seinfeld approached plot find the humor and quirk in the everyday experience. This is what Gaglia does in this book. His character voices, whether told in first or third person point of view, are dark and twisted funny. This book made me laugh out loud. It's also written from an intelligent brain. Anything really funny has to come out of a sharply perceptive mind and imagination. I could have read more. Terrific. Highly recommended.
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