Book Blurb & Info
In this volume, “A Dog Story” captures a crumbled marriage and the love of a dog named Scrappy. “Joni Paredes” shows the birth of a new relationship that starts at a daughter’s wedding. “Nestor by the Numbers” follows one man’s often hilarious online dating experiences after he finally accepts his wife is gone. “Jerry with a Twist” shows an actor on an audition while his pregnant girlfriend helps him through a crisis. These and seven other stories will bring you into the special world of Meeks.
As reviewer Grady Harp notes, if you’ve previously “discovered the idiosyncrasies of Meeks’ writing style and content, rest assured that this new collection not only will not disappoint, but also it will provide further proof that we have a superior writer of the genre in our presence.” Try this book. You’ll have a lot to think about.
Buy Links
Amazon / Goodreads
“Life was absurd, but you had to laugh anyway.” 'The Benefits of Breathing' has so many life-changing stories that it's hard to encapsulate everything that I loved about it in just one review. In this collection, Christopher Meeks touches on love, life and the fundamental things that make us human in a way that is both heartfelt and hilarious. Short Stories are one of my favorite genres. Where else can you meet a character, begin to tremendously feel for them and then part with them all in the span of a few pages? Where else can you get such a compact and fulfilling narrative? Of course, I have stumbled across some not-so-well written short stories in my time. So many authors have tried and failed to do what Christopher Meeks seems to do effortlessly.
My favorite stories in this collection were the many character driven ones, where we look at the world through the eyes of a divorcee, a young woman just striking out on her own, or a man reaching the end of his life and looking back at all that he has done. I absolutely loved the way that Meeks brought you into these individual worlds in such a breezy, yet distinct way. I really felt like a fly on the wall, observing snapshots of people's lives. And in today's world of constant news cycles and new people getting their 15 minutes of fame on the internet every day, having a quiet look at these lives was very refreshing. These stories are of love, life, grief, reckoning and forgiveness and all are unique and moving in their own way. It's hard for me to imagine not falling in love with 'The Benefits of Breathing,' and I highly recommend reading it for yourself so that you can see what I'm talking about. I give it a firm 5 stars!
Award winning author, Christopher Meeks has five novels and two collections of short fiction published. The Benefits of Breathing’ is his third collection of short stories.
He has had stories published in several literary journals, and they have been included in the collections “Months and Seasons” and “The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea.” Mr. Meeks has had three full-length plays mounted in Los Angeles, and one, “Who Lives?” had been nominated for five Ovation Awards, Los Angeles’ top theatre prize.
Mr. Meeks teaches English and fiction writing at Santa Monica College, and Children’s Literature at the Art Center College of Design. He lives in Pasadena, CA.
Website at: www.chrismeeks.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Christopher-Meeks-212382392140974/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christopher.meeks1
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MeeksChris
Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus May 4 Guest Post
Amy Locks, Hooks and Books May 5 Review & Excerpt
Angel Amazon May 6 Review
Sam Goodreads May 8 Review
Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus May 13 Review
Cremona Mythical Books May 14 Review
Lu Ann Rockin' Book Reviews May 15 Review & Guest Post
From Isi May 18 Review
Infantina The Periodical Gazette May 19 Review & Excerpt
Dawn Bound4Escape May 21 Review
Bookgirl Goodreads May 22 Review
Jas International Book Promotion May 26 Review
Lisa's Writopia May 27 Review
Gud Reader Goodreads May 28 Review
Penny Amazon May 29 Review
Kathleen Celticlady’s Reviews June 1 Guest Review & Excerpt
Linda Lu Goodreads June 5 Review
Betty Toots Book Reviews June 8 Review & Interview
Dee Donadees Corner June 12 Review
Lisa Goodreads June 19 Review
Lillie Amazon June 22 Review
Mindy Room Without Books is Empty June 26 Review
Toot's Review by Betty Bee
“Life was absurd, but you had to laugh anyway.” 'The Benefits of Breathing' has so many life-changing stories that it's hard to encapsulate everything that I loved about it in just one review. In this collection, Christopher Meeks touches on love, life and the fundamental things that make us human in a way that is both heartfelt and hilarious. Short Stories are one of my favorite genres. Where else can you meet a character, begin to tremendously feel for them and then part with them all in the span of a few pages? Where else can you get such a compact and fulfilling narrative? Of course, I have stumbled across some not-so-well written short stories in my time. So many authors have tried and failed to do what Christopher Meeks seems to do effortlessly.
My favorite stories in this collection were the many character driven ones, where we look at the world through the eyes of a divorcee, a young woman just striking out on her own, or a man reaching the end of his life and looking back at all that he has done. I absolutely loved the way that Meeks brought you into these individual worlds in such a breezy, yet distinct way. I really felt like a fly on the wall, observing snapshots of people's lives. And in today's world of constant news cycles and new people getting their 15 minutes of fame on the internet every day, having a quiet look at these lives was very refreshing. These stories are of love, life, grief, reckoning and forgiveness and all are unique and moving in their own way. It's hard for me to imagine not falling in love with 'The Benefits of Breathing,' and I highly recommend reading it for yourself so that you can see what I'm talking about. I give it a firm 5 stars!
Interview
INTERVIEW
WITH Author Christopher Meeks & Betty Bee
Before
we start, Betty, I have to say I’ve been reading recently the fabulous
biography on Paul Simon by Robert Hilburn, and I just finished a section where Hilburn
analyzed the Graceland album and dove into the song “Call Me
Al.” That song features the line “I can call you Betty / And
Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al.” I thought, “I’ve never known a
Betty.” Today I’m talking with one. Life is sometimes funny that way.
LOL Chris! I love Paul Simon and
know ‘Call Me Al” well!
Betty:
Tell us about your new book?
Why did you write it?
CM:
Most fiction writers don’t write a short story collection from scratch. Each
story is written separately and often at far different times. This book burst
forth because I had had a number of stories published in literary journals over
the years that I had never collected together. I didn’t have another novel in
mind after the emotion-wrenching The Chords of War. Besides, I truly
love writing short fiction.
I liken short story collections to music albums.
You have to consider is there a theme working here? You have to consider
juxtaposition and whether each story fits in a collection. I have dark stories
and fun stories. Not all the stories I had fit, so I didn’t include everything.
I wrote new stories to fill gaps. What you include and the order is so
important.
The last story in the collection, “A Warm Front
Appears to be Moving from California and deep into Minnesota,” I had written
originally forty years ago. Its essence I liked, but it just never felt
complete. I’d take a stab at it maybe every ten years when I’d stumble across
it again. This time, I changed the ending completely, and it suddenly felt
right. The editor, Carol Fuchs, liked it so much, she suggested it as the last
story.
Betty: Location
and life experiences can really influence writing, tell us where you grew up
and where you now live?
CM:
Funny you asked that. The above story brings where I now live, California, with
where I grew up, Minnesota. Anyone who loves foreign movies realizes that specific
locations lead to universal truths. A couple years ago, my son, who loves film
festivals, took me to a film by an Iranian. Iran is the axis of evil, yes?
Instead, I found the film funny, tender, and incredibly truthful about how men
and women work in relationships, which is something that often filters into my
stories. As a writer, I have to know the place to make it feel real.
A while back, I set my novel Love
at Absolute Zero in Madison, Wisconsin, because I made my protagonist a top
world quantum physicist—for reasons that he could move to Denmark where I had
once lived. Denmark is tops in physics, particularly quantum physics. It’s the
stuff that takes place near absolute zero. I then had to go about learning
quantum physics, and I had to fly to Madison and move around the city for a few
days to get it in my body, even though I had researched the hell out of the
place.
Betty: How
do you work through self-doubts and fear?
CM:
If we’re talking about writing, self-doubt is a given. Each new story feels as
if I’m a beginner, learning all over again. Will the magic work? Is there
magic? The nice thing about feeling like a beginner, though, is I don’t care if
I screw up because I expect to, and that’s okay. This is to say, I don’t try to
write a story just like another one I’d written before. I like to try new
things, and maybe it won’t work or maybe it will.
For instance, take the story, “7 Truths about
Love.” In that case, the title came to me first. Do I know seven truths? How
about twenty? How about three? Seven seemed perfect. At the moment, all I had
was one truth, which is if you anger someone who’s just broken up with someone,
that person will be as ferocious as the Hoover Dam bursting.
I then flashed on a story of a woman giving her
ex-husband a pound of Starbucks coffee as a Christmas gift, a peace offering,
and she later found it in her bushes. That pissed her off. My story was off and
running.
Because
the story was inspired by a dam bursting, there was physics involved. How could
I simplify this into a truth that sounded like a law of physics? I came up with “Physicists know about
potential energy. A rock balancing on the edge of a roof has much potential
energy. So does a person rejected in love.”
As I wrote more of the story, I took time out to
write as many truths as I knew about love, and then I reduced it to the funny
ones. Once I finished the story, I looked for spots for the best of these to
fill out seven.
This is all to say, in relation to your question,
that self-doubts and fears don’t hang around me because I get caught up with
each story’s need. Self-doubt and fear take a lot of ego, and I just don’t need
that when I write.
Betty: If you could live anywhere in the world where
would it be?
CM: This is asked as if people can’t really move
where they want to live. I took my junior year of college abroad to Denmark,
and once I fell in love with the place, I realized I could live there if I
wanted – or anywhere. I decided after I graduated college, I’d love to live in
Los Angeles. My parents had their doubts, as I had no job lined up, but I
figured I’d find something, and I did. I wanted to be a film director, and then
a screenwriter. When those weren’t as wonderful as I’d thought, I wondered if I
were brave enough to become a fiction writer. I pursued that, and it’s been a
pleasure. I love this city. It’s where I became brave enough to write and
teach. Those things fit me.
Betty: What motivates you to write?
CM:
To write is the essence of life. When I write, I think. Cogito, ergo sum, wrote Descartes.
“I think, therefore I am.” I just “am” when I write. It seems to me the best
stories help people, and we’re here on earth to help people. Writers of truth
are a type of brain surgeon.
Betty: Is fiction truth, though? It’s made up,
right?
CM:
One of the writers who has affected me like a brain surgeon is Tim O’Brien,
author of The Things They Carried. The stories in there take place
mostly in Vietnam during the war. It’s a war that was still raging when I
turned eighteen. Luckily, I had a high lottery number so didn’t go. O’Brien’s
book originally showed me what could have been my life, the road not taken, a
road that I would never have selected.
The book has a short story called “Good Form,”
where O’Brien talks about how fiction is perhaps truer than nonfiction. He
talks about “happening truth” (the facts of a real situation) and “story truth”
(the emotions you felt).
Fiction can start by taking something that
happened to you, pairing it with something else that happened at a different
time, and changing the names of the characters. You do such a thing to get at
the deep emotion you felt about these things. You push those feelings to get
other people to feel what you had felt. The truth is in the emotion. Your father’s
or sister’s real names don’t matter. You’re going for a feeling you had in
order to get at the truth of living.
Betty: What do you hope your obituary will say about
you?
CM: This question makes me smile because my father
last year, at 91, decided he was done living. He couldn’t play golf or exercise
anymore. His concentration and hearing were shot. He would fall down a lot.
Gravity no longer was his friend. Time to go. He asked his doctor if he could
go on hospice care at home, even though he had no disease other than being old.
His doctor said sure, and his wife and five children including me said, “What?”
Yet he talked to us a lot about going downhill. It’s what inspired the title
story, “The Benefits of Breathing.”
I was also asked to write his obituary long before
he died because I was the writer in the family. An obituary is a tall order,
but I basically interviewed him. I added some funny stuff such as he thought he
was a great driver, but his wife, two former wives, and five kids disagreed. He
read it and liked it. After he died, everyone got a say in the final obituary. Much
of the stuff I loved was deleted by committee. The end result read like a
resume. It missed his essence. Yet everyone else was happy, so I didn’t push
it.
However, my story about him. “The Benefits of
Breathing,” captures a part of him at the end of his life, so I still got my
say.
I don’t have high hopes for my own obituary. It’ll
probably be a resume, too. Will any of my truths of love make it in? Probably
not, but that’s okay. I hope people find my work after I pass. There’s nothing
I expect in the obituary. The real stuff is in my stories.
Author Info
He has had stories published in several literary journals, and they have been included in the collections “Months and Seasons” and “The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea.” Mr. Meeks has had three full-length plays mounted in Los Angeles, and one, “Who Lives?” had been nominated for five Ovation Awards, Los Angeles’ top theatre prize.
Mr. Meeks teaches English and fiction writing at Santa Monica College, and Children’s Literature at the Art Center College of Design. He lives in Pasadena, CA.
Website at: www.chrismeeks.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Christopher-Meeks-212382392140974/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christopher.meeks1
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MeeksChris
~Giveaway~
This giveaway is for the winner’s choice of print or ebook however, print is open to Canada and the U.S. only and ebook is available worldwide. There will be 3 winners. This giveaway ends July 1, 2020,midnight pacific time. Entries are accepted via Rafflecopter only.
~To Enter~
Please fill out the rafflecopter below
Tour Info
Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus May 4 Guest Post
Amy Locks, Hooks and Books May 5 Review & Excerpt
Angel Amazon May 6 Review
Sam Goodreads May 8 Review
Teddy Rose Book Reviews Plus May 13 Review
Cremona Mythical Books May 14 Review
Lu Ann Rockin' Book Reviews May 15 Review & Guest Post
From Isi May 18 Review
Infantina The Periodical Gazette May 19 Review & Excerpt
Dawn Bound4Escape May 21 Review
Bookgirl Goodreads May 22 Review
Jas International Book Promotion May 26 Review
Lisa's Writopia May 27 Review
Gud Reader Goodreads May 28 Review
Penny Amazon May 29 Review
Kathleen Celticlady’s Reviews June 1 Guest Review & Excerpt
Linda Lu Goodreads June 5 Review
Betty Toots Book Reviews June 8 Review & Interview
Dee Donadees Corner June 12 Review
Lisa Goodreads June 19 Review
Lillie Amazon June 22 Review
Mindy Room Without Books is Empty June 26 Review
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