The Divinity Gene by Matthew J Trafford

The Divinity Gene by Matthew J. Trafford is a book of short stories.  The book was chosen the read for the Opinionless Virtual Book Club and Matthew joined us for the discussion.

This was my first book of short stories and I thoroughly enjoyed reading the collection.  The stories were not related but had a loose thread running through them  - love and loss with a few angels or other divine beings (or not) running through them. 

What really impressed me about this collection was Matthew's writing style.  Many of the stories were written in a completely different point of view and style.  He used a technique in a couple stories in which he listed several, well more than several, descriptive terms one right after the other.  For example, in "Finding Helen"  he listed probably all of the literary spiders ever written about.  Interestingly, I knew most of the spiders, and the list fit well into the story.

"I-Faust" was an epistolary tale of letters written by an elderly man to his recently deceased wife about the antics of their grandson - I loved this story and the "typical" stereotyped characteristics of the old fashioned grandfather and the disrespectful selfish grandson.   

Another story, "Victim Services" was written in snippets from various characters lives, seemingly not connected with the following snippet, but as you read along, you realize they are so connected.  This is the story that I wish was a book on its own.  As discussed in our book club, the problem some see with short stories is that you start to become invested in a story and then it ends leaving you wanting to know more about the characters.  Maybe some short stories are not like this, but most of Matthew's collection left us wanting more.

I cannot do this book all the justice it deserves in my review so check out the reviews from other OVBC  members:
Aaron:
http://www.opinionless.com/book-review-matthew-j-traffords-the-divinity-gene/
Penny:
http://literaryhoarders.wordpress.com/2012/02/18/the-divinity-gene/
Jackie's Book Trailer:
http://literaryhoarders.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/review-the-divinity-gene/