Camera Lake by Alex Pickett. Madison, WI: The University of Washington Press, 2024. 189 pages. $17.95. Paper.
Photo description: Alex Pickett featured left and cover art for Camera Lake featured right
Photo credit: @alex_pickett1 on X
Pickett’s short story collection Camera Lake has characters that feel human. This should be a given for any story, but Alex’s characters feel like anyone you might meet on the street. As a reader, you share with them their regrets, their anxieties, and even their loneliness.
The first short story in the collection “Practice” displays this wonderfully. The coach tests his teams’ fathers as a punishment for them, but it’s never anything embarrassing. Just the words “I love you Dad.” From this and a conversation with one of the team members we can feel how these are things the coach has probably never said to his own dad. It leaves the reader with a lingering feeling of things maybe they wish they had said to their own parents or even friends. There’s a sense of regret in the story that sits with the reader long after the story ends.
That feeling follows us into our next story, “At the Twin Pines Motel”. Our narrator who has run from her family to the motel is someone who seeks out thrills. Her old life bores her and she is currently lost with no idea where she is going. So much so that she begs Richard (A stranger) for any answer for who she is and what she’ll do next. She makes the reader confront their own feelings about what they want in life and who they want to be.
Finally, we come to the titular short story “Camera Lake”. A story in which our narrator thinks they’re being observed at home. We dive a bit into his past as a school counselor and begin to understand his need to move from a city to a small house on a lake in Wisconsin following the deaths of 3 of the students he counseled. We see his fear and the hesitation to get back to a normal life when he feels that everyone around him thinks he’s responsible for the deaths and the way he thinks he might have ruined his wife’s life because they moved so far away from their home of 16 years. When the main character finally lets out the breath he feels like he’s been holding, the relief for the reader is equally as satisfying.
Throughout the stories in this collection, there’s an ominous feeling that follows you. Like at any moment a twist could happen and the stories could turn into a horror film. Then the reader is
caught off guard when these expectations aren’t met. It’s interesting for the reader to be surprised by their own unmet ideas. Maybe Richard will be that creepy guy who murders our POV character…maybe the coach’s dog who goes missing was stolen by a student who was embarrassed by the texting punishment or their angry father who heard about the prank. Maybe our narrator in “Camera Lake” is really going crazy. There’s no one there with a camera watching them or his wife is gaslighting him or maybe he really is causing all these deaths. Then, we never have our fears confirmed. It should be something that leads the reader wanting for more excitement, but every time it feels satisfying to realize we’re jumping to conclusions and should just let Pickett’s stories carry us where he wants us to go.
Alex Pickett’s story collection Camera Lake plays wonderfully with the reader. Trying to tempt them into their worst fears and then always comes back to the human. Of course the dog wasn’t murdered. Of course Richard is just a normal guy taking over his uncle’s business. In fact, our POV character makes Richard uncomfortable.
Each story in Camera Lake excites you, making it hard to put down till you’ve read all 14 stories. The collection is gripping, powerful, and so human. A must read for fans of short story collections.
– Liz Barnett, Mid-American Review
Available for purchase: https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/6240.htm