Shot of Short #57: Killer Heart by Barb Johnson
January 2, 2010 by Rob
Filed under 100 Shots of Short, Short Story Reviews
Title: Killer Heart by Barb Johnson
Date Read: 06 December 2009
Available Online?: YES (as one of the stories posted by Harper Perennial on their website Fifty-Two Stories, which promises a new (or classic) short story from their collection, posted every week throughout 2009).
Briefly: While taking a break from the marriage in order to sort a few things out, Dooley heads to the mall with his daughter to buy her new shoes. Irritated by the badly designed car seat, Dooley spots the perfect car seat in a shop window. Pulling into the parking lot, his life is about to change forever.
Afterthoughts: In his intro to Killer Heart, Cal Morgan hails the collection that this story is taken from as being ‘one of the most astounding collections of the year.’ Well, if this story is anything to go by, then I wholeheartedly agree with Cal; such is the quality of this story. It’s gritty. It’s engaging. And ultimately it’s despairing; the kind of story that sticks in the head for a long time. It’s always a pleasure to discover a new (to me) and exciting writer, and in Barb Johnson it doesn’t seem to get much more exciting.
Notable Quote: Dooley lifts his squirming daughter—Toby Tidwell’s daughter? Impossible—into the car seat, which seems to have worked loose from the seat belt that is meant to hold it in place. Why has Tina put up with this piece of shit for so long? Dooley puts Gracie back in the foot well and struggles to rethread the seat belt. Sweat soaks his shirt while he fumbles with the clasps of the pain-in-the-ass seat.
Rating: 
*Story read as part of my 100 Shots of Short reading challenge.
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Rob, a self-confessed bibliophile, is without any hope of rehabilitation. He gets unnaturally excited over anything book-shaped, and if book sniffing were a crime then he would have been locked up years ago (which wouldn't bother him in the slightest provided his cell were lined with books)
