Reviews of The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea:

 

In the Los Angeles Times, Carmela Ciuraru wrote that the stories are “Poignant and wise, sympathetic to the everyday struggles these characters face.”  For the full review, click here.

 

Entertaintainment Weekly, quoting Podgirl below, said, "A collection that is so stunning...that I could not help but move on to the next story."

 

Irish reviewer Susan Tomaselli, writing for Dogmatika in Dublin, says under the title "Exceedingly Good Stories" that "Many of these tales have appeared in American literary journals, but reading them together, you get the full impact of Meeks' talent, as he takes you in a head-long assault through ordinary day-to-day life, the mundane under the microscope and given the once-over through Meeks' careful eye."  For a full review, click here.

 

The Midwest Book Review says, "These are original, articulate, engaging stories which examine life in America from the unique perspectives of ordinary people searching for their share of the promises held out as part of the American dream. ... The Middle-Aged Man & The Sea is highly recommended, highly entertaining, and highly rewarding reading."  For the full review, click here.

 

Writing a review for her extremely popular website POD-dy Mouth, Podgirl writes, “Christopher Meeks has put together a collection that is so stunning, so impeccably written, that I could not help but move on to the next story each and every time, until a quick glance of this book turned into a consumption.”  For the full review, click here.  

 

Grady Harp, one of the top reviewers for Amazon.com, says, “Christopher Meeks bounces onto the literary scene as a vibrant new voice filled with talent and imagination. The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea  is one of the finer collection of short stories that will rapidly rise to the top to of the heap of a battery of fine writers of this difficult medium.”  For the full review, click here. 

 

Carolyn Howard-Johnson, who has a column at MyShelf.com, was the first to review the book, and she said, “If the publishing and reading world is fair and just, Christopher Meeks is destined to be widely read and deservedly honored.”  She also gave the book a Noble (not Nobel) Prize, her best-of-the-year awards.  To read the original review by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, click here.

 

Writer and reviewer James Tata, who lives in the Pacific Northwest, says, "Far from being repetitive, the unified thematic thread in The Middle-Aged Man & The Sea allows the reader to look at the troubles unique to men's middle age from slightly different angles, as the stories have an impressive range of effects."  For the full review, click here.

 

Janet Rubin, at Novel Reviews, wrote, “Mr. Meeks has a wonderfully fun writing style—witty, cynical, and often poignant.  His stories are about the stuff of life: love and heartbreak, sickness and death, desires and struggles, spirituality and the search for meaning.”  For the full review, click here. 

 

English fiction writer and reviewer Jai Clare, writing a review for the Cusp of Something, states the book “dissects American life with a surgeon’s knife to reveal the things that concerns ordinary Americans and ordinary people world-wide.”  For the full review, click here.

 

Father Kurt Messick, a chaplain in Indiana and also one of the top reviewers for Amazon.com, says, “Meeks is a good narrative writer, equally adept at description as well as a conversation and explanation.”  For the full review, click here.