I read Andrew Porter’s Flannery O’Connor award-winning collection The Theory of Light & Matter over a month ago and I thought I didn’t like it. I was wrong. Today, I fished the book out from the pile that surrounds my bed because I was determined to write about it.

As I flipped through the pages reading paragraphs from various stories I found myself thinking, “oh I really liked this one,” “this one is my favorite.” It was right about then I realized that I really only disliked one story and was sort of on the fence about a few others. But the beauty of stories like “Merkin,” “River Dog,” and “Skin” should have more that made up for any of the others. I am a fickle reader and what I remember most is disliking the story “Theory of Light and Matter” and therefore dismissing the rest out of pocket.

Bad reader! Shame on me.

Read the rest of the review on MN Reads