Meet Me in the Parking Lot

Lori A. Dunn is an ESL teacher and an event coordinator, with a
background in linguistics and education in Okanagan, B.C.

Meet Me in the Parking Lot, Leggat’s first collection of short
stories, is a dark ride. Written in deceptively breezy prose, the
stories quickly metamorphose into an edgy worldview. Seemingly normal
days transform into anguish or slow-moving tragedy.

“Bone Key” reports on the remoteness of communication and the games
our minds play with our memories. “The Parking Lot” conveys the
perceptions of two-bit drug dealers, while “Cradle Me” is a brief
study of desperation. A few of the stories hover on the edge of full
comprehension, like a poem one needs to read a third time. All of the
stories are disturbing, and haunt you until you do reread them.

In the acknowledgements, Leggat thanks her influences for “darkening
my psyche.” These stories invite us into her darkened world, much like
the lyrics that are the source of her title, from the song “God
Created Woman” by Johnny Dowd: “Meet me in the parking lot / Up on
level three / There’s something I must show you / There’s something
you’ve just got to see.” Each story in this collection has something
to show us, whether or not we are ready to accept it.