The View from the Seventh Layer

The View from the Seventh Layer, a collection of short stories by Kevin Brockmeier, is simply sublime. There is something about the author's voice that brought to mind the way one would approach a frightened animal - softly, slowly, and cautiously. Yet at the same time the message of most of the stories was thought-provoking in a "smack you upside the head" sort of way. That dichotomy worked, and it worked very well. The overall tone is melancholy, there are strong messages about society and spirituality, and there is a hint of the supernatural that wafts like smoke from an extinguished candle. And the quality of writing is just perfection.

My favorite stories in the collection:

The Lives of the Philosophers. A man receives an epiphany about his thesis on Thomas Aquinas and Friedrich Nietzsche when his girlfriend experiences a tragedy. This story just shattered me. It left me breathless and weepy. I had to go for a walk. I almost took the book to my sister-in-law and demand that she read the story that very second (because I knew she would understand what I felt).

A Fable with Slips of White Paper Spilling from the Pockets. A man purchases a coat at a thrift shop and discovers the pockets of the coat mysteriously fill with scraps of paper on which prayers have been written. This was such a unique concept and there was a such a quiet desperation in the story. Poignant and profound.

Father John Melby and the Ghost of Amy Elizabeth. A priest endures a crisis of faith when he is visited by a ghost. This story is dark and gothic, and so compelling that I couldn't look away for an instant.

The View from the Seventh Layer. A woman reflects on how her life has been impacted by a childhood visitation from an angel. I loved this story for how it was structured, in a sort of a circular, stream-of-consciousness manner. Beautiful and brilliant.

I also appreciated (but didn't love) The Human Soul as a Rube Goldberg Device: A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Story. This one is just very very clever.

There were two clunkers in the book - a StarTrek fan fic piece and one about a television show similar to America's Funniest Home Videos. These were awful in a "Can I tear these pages out of the book?" way. But ultimately they didn't detract from my rating of the book because the stories I loved, I loved A LOT.