Symptoms of Terminal Passion

by Chester Aaron

Fiction. SYPTOMS OF TERMINAL PASSION is a wise and graceful collection of seven short stories of love from the Northern California-based Aaron. "I did not want these stories to end. I wish the collection were a long novel that I could settle down to read over the next few weeks.... If you ever wondered what mature love looks like, read these stories. In Chester Aaron's world, even when couples separate, love lives on, in fact, sometimes it thrives,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0976298376
• ISBN13: 9780976298373
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: El Leon Literary Arts
• Length: 126 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A fabulous book for foodie's who love short stories

This is a review I wrote for San Francisco Magazine. "Chester Aaron was in a WWII heavy-machine-gun platoon and helped liberate the concentration camp at Dachau. After the war, he worked as an X-ray technician and later as a lit and writing professor at St. Mary's College in Moraga. Along the way he became an expert on garlic (he raises 92 varieties from 30 countries on his Occidental ranch). He's also published 20 books. The themes of the seven stories in his latest are familiar: love and loss, old world versus new, war, death, Italian food. But the tales combine aspects of his interesting life in surprising ways. In "Winterswijk," the sweet awkwardness of reuniting with an old flame in Holland merges with dreamlike memories of the Holocaust. In "The Female of the Species," tragedy affects the arts of love, bird watching, and bruschetta making. For each passionate tale, Aaron carefully blends complex, seemingly contradictory emotions as if matching a pungent Italian garlic with the perfect Napa Valley varietal."

Life lived to its fulist

Like Willa Cather, with just a few words Aaron reveals a rich tapestry of people, places, textures, smells and flavors. Every page lures the reader more deeply into the story to find unexpected plot twists and wonderful prose. His characters are the essence of ... Passion. A must read for the wit and insight to the life of an amazing man. Do read this book.

A modern and older California Hemmingway

A friend recommended Terminal Passion, which I bought to give to my parents. But I started reading this thin volume with 7 delightful short stories and got hooked. Aaron's home base is Marin County, California, but he was part of WWII in Italy, and has been back to Europe since, so they also provide backdrops to his love stories. The war story in Italy (the first story) reminded me so much of Hemmingway writing about an earlier war, except that Aaron has much more sympathetic protaganists in all his stories. Most of his characters are loners, but loners who have experienced love and welcome love, but particularly if the love shares his interest in garlic farming, fruit trees and birds. Aaron understands the heart as well as garlic (see Garlic Is Life: A Memoir With Recipes).

This is how short stories should be done....

Once in awhile, I stumble upon prose that serves as a model of sensitivity and discernment rendered with tenderness and care. Prose pared to the essentials is like a thoughtful, gentle kiss. Chester Aaron has written a wonderful book of seven short stories, Symptoms Of Terminal Passion. His characters have histories, a reason for the way they interact with the world, be it during the tail end of WWII, in post-war Holland, on a ranch, or as the struggling patriarch of a family. These aren't overwrought, reactionary characters as if in a play that tries too hard. They live and think. There's wisdom here and a certainty that only comes about if a writer is secure with himself to let his stories unfold the way the characters want. Beautifully written, I didn't want the stories to end.

Great stories, great writing, great escape!

Reviewed by Irene Watson for Reader Views (7/06) Sadness, anger, joy, happiness, love, lust ... "Symptoms of Terminal Passion" has it all. Chester Aaron's compilation of short stories takes the reader to the depth of the soul of each character - a part of each character that everyone one of us can relate to. Aaron, a World War II veteran himself, references several of the stories during that era. There is much passion and compassion shown as the characters experience a blurb of their life. "The sergeant lowered his eyes and turned away, knowing that if he did not turn away he would take her into his arms. ... He wanted to say, Wait, I'll get you a blanket, but when he looked back she was gone." Other stories are of daily life, simple, yet with much deep meaning - from raising a teenager to naming the hummingbirds that come to the feeder, from reclaiming ancestry to aging. Every story twists and turns within the plot, sometimes with a surprise ending, others with an "aha" and yet others with a "hummm, that's interesting." I found myself, after reading a story, sitting back and contemplating the situation. It's hard to pin point exactly what it was that struck a chord within me, yet something did. Aaron's writing is uncomplicated, flows easy, and I found myself wrapped up in the story as though I was right there in each scene.