“My Life in Heavy Metal is a dozen stories about sex and love, being together and standing apart. Almond has a wonderfully strong and pungent voice. Some of the stories are excellent, some are duds; several have stuck with me. Well worth the read.
In the best of the collection, Almond truly inhabits his characters. Not only the protagonist, and not only the male characters; he also writes secondary characters who matter. The lively characters are the key to these stories in which, as Almond says, "What they do, and quite vigorously, is have sex and suffer heartbreak."
More review of the stories themselves here:
http://www.readforpleasure.com/2007/08/steve-almond-my-life-in-heavy-metal.html”