The King of Siam

David E. Kemp, a former drama professor at Queen’s University, is the
author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

A tension-filled dinner party, a game of chess in a community centre, a
Vancouver racetrack, and a Las Vegas poker room are among the settings
of the 13 stories that make up this collection. Logan’s stories
illuminate the alleys and back streets of humanity, not the main
thoroughfares. Most are about marginalized people who are searching for
either meaning or redemption: a profligate father is defended by his
teenage son, a woman attends a bizarre memorial service for someone she
didn’t know, an elderly woman decides to get a tattoo. If some of the
author’s plot devices are Kafkaesque, then his dialogue—natural to
the point of minimalism—can be described as Pinteresque; characters
reveal themselves not so much through what they say as through what they
don’t say. All in all, this is narrative writing of the highest
calibre.