Books

In this unique collection, David Joseph crafts more than sixty pieces of extraordinarily short fiction. They depict the author’s clarity of language, character, and ideas at their economical best, while managing to construct a literary world that feels complete despite the succinct nature of these stories.

Like a gallery in an art museum, the portraits in People I Know look back at us. In doing so, they become people we know. Wrapped in the cloaks of their own stories, they carry us on a roller coaster ride of the human experience - humorous, hopeful, sad, touching, curious, and nostalgic.

In this kaleidoscope of family, friends, lovers, and uncommon strangers, David Joseph’s concise writing cuts deep.

In David Joseph’s fourth collection of fiction, I Wanted To Be A Bluesman, he explores human relationships through the Delta-dipped lens of the blues.

Each of the twelve stories in this collection are carefully intertwined with the blues—from Mississippi to Chicago and places in between. Along the way, the bricklayer, priest, car thief, cook, and others are connected through the common thread of the blues. Whether traveling by car towards Clarksdale in searing summer heat or on a train bound for the north, the blues cross borders and play on.

And yet, these aren’t so much stories about the blues as they are stories about regular people who are connected to the music through the manner in which the blues have spoken to them and shaped their lives. The music provides the backdrop for their dreams, desires, memories, decisions, uncertainty, secrets, and, in some cases, their chance at redemption.

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In David Joseph’s third collection of fiction, I Never Knew How Old I Was, the stories explore the complexity of relationships across age - physical, emotional, spiritual, and experiential. Young and Old. Age that can be life affirming or world-weary. Foolish or wise. Confident or insecure. All written from the first-person perspective, the stories here are deeply personal and revealing. Through the emotional and physical intimacy of the characters’ interactions, his writing unearths the invisible wounds we cannot see.

Consistent with his first two collections of fiction, The Old Men Who Row Boats and Other Stories and I Didn’t Know What to Say, So I Just Said Thanks, David Joseph uses his ability to explore challenging themes through the most natural human interactions. His writing style is simple and clear in an attempt to leave just the right amount unsaid.

I Never Knew How Old I Was is an ambitious collection that resonates with quiet power.

In this collection of stories, David Joseph examines human relationships through the manner in which the characters learn to cope with expectations, dreams, and disappointment. He depicts interactions with subtlety, as characters seek redemption and relief in an effort to find gratitude.

Similar to his first book of fiction, The Old Men Who Row Boats and Other Stories, David Joseph displays an ability to draw insights from small moments. The result is a powerful new collection of short fiction. I Didn’t Know What To Say, So I Just Said Thanks captures the awkward silences and empty spaces where time is suspended, and we are forced to consider the complexities of what lies ahead.

In this collection of stories on love and loss, hopes and dreams, and memory and regret, David Joseph’s prose resonates in an authentic and convincing manner.His writing possesses an ability to convey real emotion through compelling, simple language, human interaction, and small moments. The collection, which is set in the Iberian Peninsula, carries the weight of the author’s sincerity throughout. In an effort to bind us as humans, the characters in these stories experience extraordinary moments within the confines of ordinary lives.