Kirkus Reviews describes “Tales from Webster’s: The Verminous Resuscitator and The Monsignor in the Zoot Suit” as “a collection of inventive flash fiction” that uses Webster’s New World Dictionary “as a trove of writing prompts.” The bolded key words on the left of the page are consecutive entries from the dictionary, never fewer than five key words in each tale. The text on the right is the author’s connective narrative. The longest tale, “Nebraska – negotiation,” uses 85 entries in creating an excerpt from the self-serving memoirs of a corporate CEO. The book’s cast of characters is broad: lustful senators; a foreign legionnaire; a German zeppelin crew on an espionage mission; an Italian diva; an English vampire; an erlking (nationality unspecified); a baseball slugger; the naïve Lohengrin, eager to learn the facts of life; tough-guy detectives; frustrated teachers; and your regular Joes and Janes.
Although they have a similar appearance on the page, the tales range widely in tone and content. Many are witty or overtly humorous, but there is also the tale about the mother grieving for her son ("homestretch – homing pigeon") and the tale about the man thinking back to his crush on a girl when they were in high school ("year – Yeats"). Several are parodies: for example, a takeoff of the novels of Dan Brown ("glyptograph – goat") and a spoof of a horror movie ("Vaal – vacuum tube").
Kirkus Reviews: “Fans of linguistics, puzzles, poetry, and humor will each find something to excite them in this work.” The tales are short enough to be read and re-read; picked up, dipped into; put back for the next time. The collection is good, not-so-clean intellectual fun that also suggests a certain amount of craft, taste, and range.