Category:  Horror Publisher: Two Harbors Press Type: Fiction Pages: 261 Copyright: December 2008 ISBN-13: 9781935097075 A collection of twenty-two speculative fiction and horror short stories.

Whistling Shade
Edging Past Reality, David Fingerman’s new speculative fiction collection, is similar to the science fiction horror of The Twilight Zone. The twenty-two stories are divided into four sections based on the ages of the main characters: “Too Young to Know Better”, “Old Enough to Know Better”, “Is This a Mid-Life Crisis” and “Senior Moments”. The characters come alive throughout the book, inviting the reader to be genuinely concerned for them.

While the children’s stories are somewhat predictable, the stories in the mid-life crisis section are chillingly original, leaving you to question Fingerman’s sanity. His many years working in the Hennepin County court system yields several surreal stories based on juries and lawyers.

Edging Past Reality is decorated with humorous and gruesome irony. In "The Witness", a skyscraper window washer finds himself in a near-death experience when he miraculously avoids falling from his hoist, only to get blamed for being a witness to a murder he never saw. In “The Blue Light” and “A Crack in the Air”, the main characters manage to use their situations to the best advantage despite the horrible circumstances in which they are placed. Cross dressing and flirting with dimensions of space/time become instinctual when the stakes are up. And Fingerman delightfully revels in raising the stakes higher whenever necessary.

The diverse and eclectic nature of the stories in this book add to its surrealism. Many of the stories are set in Minnesota in present time, bringing familiarity to the local readers and a Midwest prairie feeling of innocence, while Fingerman deftly spins his tales of horror. You’ll find yourself turning pages well past your bedtime—perhaps the worst time to be entwined in a reality such as this. No doubt it was this reality you sought in the first place, however. You will choose well to have Fingerman as your guide. And hopefully you will arrive on the other side safely.

But of course, that arrival is merely speculative.

- Deanna Reiter