Demons in the Spring by Joe Meno was a finalist for the Story Prize thanks to this short story collection. The judges noted,
“In lesser hands, these unconventional forms and outlandish leaps of imagination would feel like empty concepts, but Meno fills each of these stories to the brim with heart. There is true emotion hiding behind every trick mirror, and it comes across in spades. As I finished each story, I found myself looking forward to the next, wondering what Meno would surprise me with…what sets this collection apart, and moved me the most, was that his characters consistently choose hope over despair…and proves, as in his story, ‘The Architecture of the Moon,’ that human connection can be the small light used to illuminate a great darkness.”
This covers Meno pretty well—he’s a Romantic writer, willing to bend the rules and let people turn into clouds or the moon to stop working. He does “brim with heart,” but shows the burdens that such a life can bring, as he does in the story “Oceanland”.
In that story, which is a quirky re-casting of the Prodigal Son, Barry plays the older CPA brother who has always followed the rules in life. His younger brother Jack is a guitar hero who gets high and opens the family’s marine attraction when the feeling is right. But the father has seen fit to let Jack run the show and Barry must suffer beneath his ineptitude.
At one point Barry’s wife diagnoses the problem: “You have to figure out how to be happy in a world that isn’t as good as you think it should be.” It’s a brilliant line that also could apply to Jonathan in Meno’s most recent effort, The Great Perhaps.
Siblings are an interesting theme in this collection. The story “The Unabomber and My Brother” traces the life of the narrator’s brother Alan against the life of Ted Kaczynski. It has a broad scope with quick passages of time as Alan gradually self-destructs. It culminates in the moral dilemma: will the narrator betray his own brother as Kaczynski’s did and take him to a home for help.
Another story that deals with sibling betrayal is “Get Well, Seymour!” where the narrator is supposed to defend his sister against a name caller. But he is smitten by the girl and chooses his own self-interest over his sister.
Other standout stories:
- “The Sound Before the End of the World”: We see Ron’s life gradually fall apart. One by one his wife and kids abandon him, and all he has to rely on is the KISS army, a group dedicated to all things KISS. They meet in full costume and Ron even once threatens his daughter’s date that he could kill him and the coroner would cover for him because both are in the KISS army. Meno deftly shows the depth of Ron’s fall when he learns that KISS drummer has left. The simple detail reveals the “end of the world” has come for Ron.
- “People are Becoming Clouds”: As the title suggests, John’s wife Eleanor becomes a cloud, often at inconvenient moments. It’s funny and terribly sad at the same time. Eventually Meno lands another perfect line: “Would I still love my wife so badly if she wasn’t so impossible to claim?” And the final three paragraphs of this story are pitch perfect.
Other Meno works:






The Count of Monte Cristo is, as Robert Wilson describes in the Signet Classic Introduction, a melodramatic story full of unlikely and unrealistically fortuitous plot twists. But it’s those plot twists and the way that they satisfy Edmond Dantes’ quest for revenge that allow readers to forgive Dumas and keep coming back to this French classic. If things didn’t work out so neatly for Dantes, if is injustice were not in some way remedied, I’d venture to say that people wouldn’t keep coming back. It is a Romantic adventure in every sense of the word—points of lowest misery and highest ecstasy, overblown dialogue and fantasies between lovers, and an idealistic picture of how the world could be.