The Book of Names (2015) is a collection of 20 short stories published under the pseudonym Royce Leville—the pen name of Australian-German journalist and author Cam Jefferys. As the collection’s title suggests, each story in the collection is named for its main character. Although the stories are not linked by plot elements, they are thematically and stylistically of a piece. Set in a variety of locations that range from the UK to Germany, Australia, and Canada, all of them explore societal outliers—people who have decided to commit immoral or illegal acts, pursue a passion in ways that are unhinged, gain control over untenable situations in creepy and off-putting ways, or foist the least helpful kind of help on others. Despite their dark and disturbing subject matter, the stories are often funny, although readers report that the laughter sometimes comes from discomfort and disbelief rather than straightforward humor. The collection won the Australia/New Zealand category in the 2015 Independent Publisher Book Awards, or IPPYs. The stories featured in this collection include “Willard,” the story of a creepy, self-delusional man who is the only locksmith in a small town. He has made a copy of every single key to every lock with the intention of spying on the town’s residents because he believes that he is their judge and protector. As one of his acts of helping, he kills a woman who has attempted suicide, staging the death to look like a second, successful attempt. “Ronald” is a heavily metafictional narrative in which a book reviewer writes about what it’s like to be a writer considering writing about a writer writing. “Barbara” describes a sexually adventurous woman in her 70s who is accused of murdering her husband. In an interview with a psychologist trying to determine whether she is guilty, she tells him about the many affairs she had while married and convinces him that she isn’t responsible for the murder. “Mikelis” is about an old man who is in the process of dying after a lifetime working for a shady agency engaged in “population control”—killing off lonely old people so that they don’t become a drain on society. In “Pavel,” an ambulance driver who aspires to make the US Olympic team in the triathlon, lives a shadow life through the mail of Pavel, another triathlete who took performance enhancing drugs ostensibly for research. “Marty,” an overworked marketing executive at a male-dominated office where her efforts and talent are consistently undervalued, spends her evenings inventing a make-believe world called Herth (“her earth”) as a bedtime story to tell her daughters. In this version of a female-run Earth, Marty works out her inner frustrations until her fictional realm becomes a slave society where women have complete control over men. “Esmeralda” is a story about a visit to a brutal, gruesome, and violent circus in which none of the dangerous tricks is actually a trick—so, for example, the knife thrower really is throwing knives at her performance partner. The highlight of the show is a mesmerizing white tiger that transforms into a contortionist who can open a bottle of champagne in an unsettling way. When a man fascinated with the performance tries to meet her after the show, the circus manager prevents him from approaching and instead gives him the champagne cork as a souvenir. “Karl” introduces a middle-aged man in the middle of a birthday party where his employees, friends, and family wax rhapsodic about the tough, brave, loyal, and generally excellent man that he is. As the party goes on it becomes clear that much of his reputation comes from the assumption that the conspicuous scar on Karl’s face comes from a youthful duel. In the middle of the party, Karl’s older brother tells the story of how the scar really happened—he whacked Karl in the face with a tree branch as a prank when they were kids—and almost immediately the guests’ mood toward Karl starts to shift. In “Emily,” an unattractive and lonely pediatrician has a complex relationship with an increasingly vicious and cruel imaginary friend. This figment of her imagination empowers her to better her office standing and seek out potential boyfriends, but eventually proves to be a manipulative and terrifying presence, abusing Emily and unwilling to let her go. Other stories include one in which a teacher turned gravedigger is accused of a crime he didn’t commit and exacts vengeance on the parish where he works. Another describes a war veteran who has become a serial killer bent on doing everyone a favor: taking out of the world people who turn out to remind him of himself and justifying his murders by harvesting the victims’ organs. There is also a story about a group of undocumented immigrants trapped in a shipping container. They are stranded in a harbor in an unknown country with no way to escape their situation.

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Royce Leville

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Short Story Collection

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