Author Prashker deftly interweaves lives, loves, friendships, warfare, and complex family connections into a collection of fascinating tales. Names, places, events, and memories are skillfully brought to light in five story segments: “Childhood,” “The Holocaust,” “US51426447,” “Friends and Family,” and “Encore.” The opening story, “The Doll,” offers a poignant, painful account of the effect of parental failings on a perceptive, emotionally wounded child. Scenarios rise and flow from youthful adventures and aspirations to aging, loss, and death. A teenage boy suffering from traumatic headaches after the murder of his grandfather decides to visit a prostitute working in “Room 503” and is sickened to see men he knows, even the husband of the boy’s therapist, seeking the same pleasure. Sending his counselor anonymous information about the encounter gives him renewed belief in himself.
In the titular tale, “Hazardous Pay,” Corporal Weiler, stationed in Texas in the 1950s, is assigned to guard a fellow soldier, Trueblood, a black man, on a trip to confinement and punishment. Being shackled to his charge, Weiler observes the common white attitudes of the era, which he gradually realizes he does not share. He develops sympathy for Trueblood, buying him fresh clothing and ensuring that both of them have tasty food along the way. His extra pay for the assignment is a scant reward, as he is forced to listen to his superiors’ prejudicial viewpoint on the task he performed. Later, Weiler’s feelings for Trueblood will arouse regrets and guilt, elucidating for modern readers the harsh conditions of low-level military men and the disdain, even hatred, that many Americans harbored for those with dark skin.
A woman named Marie, or Maria, or Mirella, is a prostitute whose role in several of Prashker’s stories will gradually bring to light her circumstances, her disgraces, and her ability to love, longing for the warmth of a family she has abandoned. Prashker’s vantage points include varieties of religious positions—Jewish and Catholic among them—and equally deftly drawn views of female and male protagonists and antagonists, arraying panoramic issues and emotions that offer readers transforming perspectives from each unique but subtly linked segment.
Prashker is a widely published creator of short stories that have appeared in such wide-ranging publications as Harper’s Magazine, Ladies’ Home Journal, Playboy, and The Best American Short Stories. This current collection melds accents, geographical sights, sounds, human experiences, juvenile mischief and accomplishment, typical but hardly laudable adult immoralities, heroic actions taken by seemingly ordinary folk, and the endings that all must face as one of the frequently depicted characters, Eric, seeks to bring together a group of his friends from bygone times, only to be confronted with elderly ailments, disappearance, purposeful avoidance, and the loss of cherished friends to the arms of death. Yet as the final story, “Lake George,” so dramatically divulges, even the worst deteriorations seniors must face may yield affections and blessings. Prashker’s enthralling compilation of human failings and triumphs will undoubtedly expand his recognition, attracting and satisfying readers across a broad spectrum of interests and awareness.
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