To Slow Down The Time: Stories

To Slow Down The Time is a great coffee table book, if people still place books on their coffee tables. For one thing it can sit there looking interesting all by itself. The cover is like the best kind of art, both familiar and intriguing. More than that though, the book offers up a selection of short stories, the chance to delve into another world for a few minutes between other activities. You can sit down on the couch for a moment, pick it up, and taste a sampling, enjoying a story before the rush of life takes over again.

The stories appeal on two levels. Ian Dingman's artwork is beautiful and engaging, and as you look at each picture, stories begin to sprout from your head all on your own, trying to second-guess, if you can, what Matthew Allard has come up with instead. I would love to put some of those pictures up on my wall, even. And then Allard's stories take you into the world of the picture. If the stories have a weakness, it is that they are all too brief. Each one comes off like an amuse-bush of something more, and you can't help but wonder where the extra pages went.

It is an interesting collaboration, the pictures and words presented here, the kind of book you don't find much any more. Dingman and Allard are not worried about seducing you. The stories are not overall scandalous or headline grabbing. Instead, they have the uncomfortable and exciting feeling that perhaps they are not quite fiction. Perhaps these stories have happened to real people in some real place. Allard's ability to draw you into the stories with only a few pages, to connect with his characters, makes the book a pleasure to sit down with. And when guests come over, it's a great thing to have on your coffee table, because they'll find that pleasure too.