Story Title: ‘Nativity’ by Adrian Stumpp
Collection/Anthology?: Various Authors Anthology 1 (The Fiction Desk)
Briefly: Teacher Ed Devereaux is worried about the future. He’s thirty-five-year-old and he’s about to become a father for the first time.
Afterthoughts: I can’t ever remember reading a story on the fears of impending fatherhood, so this is a new one on me. And I think that author Stumpp has treated the subject brilliantly, raising all of the fears and the upheavals that impending fatherhood brings with it. But with the story comes even more depth and complication. Not only does his wife in her pregnancy suffer from ‘sleep-punching’, but with fatherhood weighing heavy on Ed’s mind he thinks about visiting the father he hasn’t seen since he was four. With so much going on it sounds like Nativity may be too busy, but it’s a surprisingly engaging and thoroughly entertaining read.
Rating: 
This story was read as part of a review of the Various Authors Anthology, Volume 1. If you want to find out more about this anthology then I invite you to pop along to my forethoughts post for this title. I also encourage you to make a trip over to the publisher page for this title.
About Rob
This is a wonderful review Rob! Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughts about this story. It’s one of my favorite short stories by Adrian.
says:
And thank you Britta for taking the time to stop by, and thank me for reviewing it. It’s a beautiful story, but I wonder how much of the author is in the story itself. I would say, because it’s on such a depth of understanding, that this story is the author i.e. your husband.
Warmest
Rob