Rear View : Stories

Rating:
Summary: Hard, gritty, real
Review: Duval, misplaced Southerner I believe him to be (what with his conflicted view of religion and preoccupation with blue-collar grit), has written as fine a debut collection as I've read in many years. Reminiscent of Thom Jones, Denis Johnson and Larry Brown's FACING THE MUSIC.

Rating:
Summary: Duval's masterful text
Review: I just finished Peter Duval's Rear View; it was one of the most remarkable books I've had the pleasure to hold in my hands. Growing as part of the bustle of blue collar New England, I felt an incredible emotional connection to the characters in Duval's stories. Everyone who grows up in a neighborhood like mine knows a dozen characters like the major players in the text. Duval is part of a new generation of blue-collar New England writers who convey the stories of arguably the most often overlooked social group in "Yankee" literature. Duval's New Bedford, MA is my North End of Burlington, VT, could be another writer's Bath, Maine or another writer's Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Duval's writing is iconoclastic; it gives agency to a mass of people the literary world would rather forget.

Clayton

Rating:
Summary: Flash Fiction at it's Finest
Review: Pete Duval has fine-tunned each story in Rear View to reveal the gristly, meaty bits of life. His stories are refreshingly concise and concentrated. Duval does not waste words, and that is an admirable trait in contemporary fiction. His paradoxial themes on religion and the working class make for orignal, highly intriguing stories.

I highly recommend this collection.