The Cowchip Café (Cowchip, Al) by Norman Morrison.  Reviewed in Kindle format. Book length is listed as 45 printed pages. Price: $0.99 at Amazon.com.

The Story

The Cowchip Café by Norman Morrison is a delightful novelette set mostly in the only restaurant in the small rural town of Cowchip Alabama.  The cast of characters include:

• Lewis Stubbs: the restaurant owner, rebel, idealist.
• Port Love: the cook. An older black man living in a typical southern town and dealing graciously with the prejudice that entails.
• An assortment of “old farts” having their weekly get-together for coffee and tale swapping. Included is the former town mayor.
• And a nutty alien who orders a burger and triple hash browns before threatening to destroy the planet.

Along the way we learn something of the town of Cowchip Alabama’s quirky history, how Lewis came to own the restaurant, and some interesting background on Port Love. The “old farts” discussion includes a flash of light seen the night before and their experiences (real or imagined) with alien visitation.  The Mayor’s diplomatic background comes into play in resolving the current instance of otherworldly invasion.

The story is told in Morrison’s wonderful ‘down home southern’ writing voice and contains a good bit of subdued humor – including a twist at the end of the story that turns the whole thing on its ear.

This is one story in a series about Cowchip, its inhabitants and the mysterious RYO Corporation.

The Technical

The story is well told, weaving back story into the plot, helping us become familiar enough with the characters to care about them.  The tale is humorous without being silly and integrates poignancy, prejudice, fear and jubilation.

Two technical issues stood out while reading this book.

• It would have benefited from one last editorial pass: there are a number of instances where the wording was awkward: probably a result of previous changes to the text.
• Told in third person past tense, the point of view often shifts without warning.

The second may not have been the authors fault, many authors shift the POV within a chapter and signal the change with added white space between paragraphs.  Morrison may have done so as well, but the Kindle conversion script stripped this out.  If a revised edition is offered, a graphic (that little rocket ship at the end is nifty) would help in signaling these head-hops.

Summary

The Cowchip Café (Cowchip Al) is an entertaining story employing a unique writing style with engaging characters.  The technical issues are distractions, but not story killers.  Anyone enjoying light sci-fi and humor will want to read this book as well as the others in the series:

Management Decision (Cowchip/AL)

TopDown (Cowchip/AL)

Mr. Poppin’s Basement Improvement (Cowchip/AL)

Whiney Willie (Cowchip/AL)