{"id":1524,"date":"2025-01-08T11:41:58","date_gmt":"2025-01-08T16:41:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/?p=1524"},"modified":"2025-03-12T23:36:22","modified_gmt":"2025-03-13T03:36:22","slug":"book-review-on-alex-picketts-camera-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/book-review-on-alex-picketts-camera-lake\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: On Alex Pickett’s Camera Lake No. 19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Camera Lake by Alex Pickett. Madison, WI: The University of Washington Press, 2024. 189 pages. $17.95. Paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Alex<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Photo description: <\/strong>Alex Pickett featured left and cover art for Camera Lake<\/em> featured right<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo credit:<\/strong> @alex_pickett1 on X<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Book review written by Liz Barnett<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pickett’s short story collection Camera Lake<\/em> has characters that feel human. This should be a given for any story, but Alex\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first short story in the collection \u201cPractice\u201d displays this wonderfully. The coach tests his teams\u2019 fathers as a punishment for them, but it\u2019s never anything embarrassing. Just the words \u201cI love you Dad.\u201d 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\u2019s a sense of regret in the story that sits with the reader long after the story ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That feeling follows us into our next story, \u201cAt the Twin Pines Motel\u201d. 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\u2019ll do next. She makes the reader confront their own feelings about what they want in life and who they want to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, we come to the titular short story \u201cCamera Lake\u201d. A story in which our narrator thinks they\u2019re 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\u2019s responsible for the deaths and the way he thinks he might have ruined his wife\u2019s 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\u2019s been holding, the relief for the reader is equally as satisfying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the stories in this collection, there\u2019s 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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

caught off guard when these expectations aren\u2019t met. It\u2019s interesting for the reader to be surprised by their own unmet ideas. Maybe Richard will be that creepy guy who murders our POV character\u2026maybe the coach\u2019s 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 \u201cCamera Lake\u201d is really going crazy. There\u2019s 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\u2019re jumping to conclusions and should just let Pickett\u2019s stories carry us where he wants us to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alex Pickett\u2019s story collection Camera Lake<\/em> 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\u2019t murdered. Of course Richard is just a normal guy taking over his uncle\u2019s business. In fact, our POV character makes Richard uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Each story in Camera Lake<\/em> excites you, making it hard to put down till you\u2019ve read all 14 stories. The collection is gripping, powerful, and so human. A must read for fans of short story collections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

– Liz Barnett, Mid-American Review<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Available for purchase: <\/strong>https:\/\/uwpress.wisc.edu\/books\/6240.htm<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Camera Lake by Alex Pickett. Madison, WI: The University of Washington Press, 2024. 189 pages. $17.95. Paper. Photo description: Alex… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1524"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1692,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1524\/revisions\/1692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casit.bgsu.edu\/marblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}