Days of Allison
Eric Shapiro
Crowswing Books
ISBN: 1-905100-20-5
2006
If you’ve read anything from Eric Shapiro, you know that the experience is far from what you see in the mundane universe of mass market paperbacks that are churned out every year. You can usually count on him throwing something new at you, something that will roll around in your head for a few days after you read it. While the topics may not always be completely unheard of, Shapiro tackles the subjects from a fresh perspective, and with such exceptional storytelling that you’ll swear nothing has come close to matching it. Shapiro’s novella, Days of Allison, is no exception.
Days of Alison begins with our introduction to Louis, a man so hopelessly alone and trapped inside his own head that he barely maintains any human relationships other than with his mother. And it is his mother that we quickly learn “is behind all this”, for it is not just his birth into this world that she is responsible for as we eventually discover.
It doesn’t take long to feel for this man. His desire to be alone and his over-analysis of every thought and action are things that we can’t help but take pity for. Here Shapiro excels at forcing a connection with Louis and the reader. His life is truly so pathetic that we can’t look away. We need to see just how deep this pool of desolation goes.
It’s at this point that Shapiro sets the stage for the real heart of this story. The setting of the novella is a future in which robots have become commonplace. Technology has advanced to the point where artificial intelligence can mimic humans to the point of being indistinguishable. These robots are purchased as mates, having the sole objective of fulfilling their owners’ desires. Who better to be a candidate for such a gift from technology than our hopeless loser, Louis.
Enter: Allison.
Allison is yet another attempt by Louis’s mother to pair him with someone of the opposite sex. And while this should have been the easiest and most risk-free way of doing it, based on what we already know about this man, it’s only inevitable that even this relationship should go horribly wrong. What follows is more than just a story of disappointment, but a thoroughly entertaining examination of just how alone a person can be, and how far a man can unravel.
I assure you that you won’t go far in this novella before Shapiro’s storytelling sinks its hooks into you. You’ll ask yourself questions about human and non-human existence in a way that may never have occurred to you. And just when you think you have all the answers, Shapiro slaps you with an ending that makes you realize you never even had a clue. To say that the ending has a “nice twist” would be doing it a horrible injustice. This is really like reading two stories at once – one that appears on the pages and one that was hiding beneath the text the entire time.
And don’t be reluctant to pick this book up if you see it labeled as science fiction. Yes, it deals with robots. But the characters you will read about seem no less human, and the story no less horrific, than any other dark fiction tale. This is just a great story. That is the only label it deserves.
I suspect that after finishing this book you, like me, will want to gobble up anything else of Shapiro’s creation. Days of Allison is simply a masterfully crafted story that will leave an impression on you for some time to come. Love it or hate it, you’re not likely to forget it.
-- Michael De Kler
