Thin Ice and Other Risks

The lead selection in Eller's first collection of short stories provides both a title and an apt metaphor for the entire volume. In ``Thin Ice'' a novice adult skater labors to maintain a delicate balance, trying simultaneously to avoid tripping on ridges in the ice and to move about with some grace on a pond whose surface could suddenly break under his weight. Eller skillfully parallels these challenges in the main character's analogous difficulties with employment, finances and family. In later stories that focus on alcoholism, divorce, impulsive violence and occasionally on more topical concerns like abortion and AIDS, Eller's characters never master the ice or dazzle with their form; they do persist gamely and learn ``not to fight a fall.'' Eller poses lofty questions but always packs his stories with telling specifics, as in ``Waiting for Extinction,'' in which the creaks and groans of an aging house comment eloquently on the problems of its occupants. At times sentimental in his conclusions (as in ``Season for a Son''), Eller also provides dark comedy (in ``Painting Over Christ'') and gritty realism (especially in ``The Habit of Despair''). Eller was a winner of the Minnesota Voices award for this first collection.

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