Goodnight, Sweetheart and Other Stories

Bruce Meyer teaches English at Trinity College, University of Toronto.

These stories display Richard Teleky’s craftsmanship, eye for detail,
and ability to engage the reader both emotionally and intellectually.
Particularly poignant in the latter respect is the story “The
Album,” which deals with the return of a pilfered family history to
its rightful owners in Japan. At times the stories are too knowing.
Teleky often tries to impress his readers with the range of his
knowledge, as evidenced by the didactic aside on green Korean pottery in
the open page of “The Album”; but such digressions are strategically
vital. The title story of the collection raises some important ethical
and emotional questions about the boundaries between life and art by
examining how the desire for documentary accuracy intrudes on the dying
days of a filmmaker’s grandmother.

Teleky’s stories are told through the eye of an aesthetic philosopher
who sees life as a battle between art and reality; their strengths and
tensions arise from the uneasy recognition that neither is complete or
edifying without the other.