BOOK REVIEW: The Minotaur takes a Cigarette Break by Steven Sherrill

This novel was a staff pick in a bookstore I was browsing in last weekend. The premise was just so odd, I was intrigued. If you find yourself in the mood for a well-written, sad, and very strange story, pick up a copy of The Minotaur takes a Coffee Break by Steven Sherrill.

The Minotaur is that minotaur, but he is nothing at all what you would expect. An immortal half-bull/half man, he is not mythological but very real, very lonely, and tired.

"M," as he is called by those around him, has settled in to a life as a cook in a steakhouse-type restaurant in a small southern town. He lives in a small trailer park where he has grown comfortable with his neighbors and landlord. He is friends, more or less, with some of his co-workers and tolerates the rest, who try to pick on him because of what he is. M has been around for millenia, so he has a high tolerance level for idiots.

Over the course of a couple weeks, M goes about his business and the reader is treated to the minute details of his daily life and his desperate yearning for companionship. His greatest fear is that the small inconveniences and errors will accumulate to the point where he will have to make a change, move on. His life is a series of moving on, and it wears him down.

Still, hope has not been entirely extinguished. A waitress has come to work at the restaurant who is also different in some respects. M summons up all his courage to make a connection. With so much that can go wrong, is he right to take the leap?

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this unique book is just how commonplace the other characters find it to have a Minotaur in their midst. Some people are put off, some are momentarily frightened, but for most, he just is and they accept it. The reader is able to feel empathy for his very human dilemma, even though his alienation is a result of his not being quite human. This should not read as realistic fiction, and yet, it does.