one story is told from a female point of view, and that’s one of the weakest in the collection. The other protagonists are men, usually of advancing years, reflecting on the decisions they’ve made (that often haven’t turned out well). Some stories resemble Shakespearean tragedies, and none of them are what I would consider light reading. The storylines are sometimes familiar, but the author puts a unique spin on them.

The best story in the collection is one of the longest, “A Charmed Life.” Felix, the narrator, discovered at a young age that people he encountered who did ugly or evil things soon met terrible fates. You can probably guess that a power like his could come back to haunt him, but it takes decades for him to learn exactly how. During that time, he mostly led a quiet life as a teacher in third-world countries, mainly keeping to himself until he returned to Hawaii to retire. I can easily picture Stephen King writing a story based on this same plotline, but Theroux turns Felix’s eventual fate into a byproduct of Eastern mysticism and spirituality.

The protagonist of “Love Doll” is younger, but burdened by a life of poor decisions. Blanton is a teacher in Honolulu trapped in an unhappy marriage with a wife and baby. To make ends meet, Blanton teaches English as a second language to a night class of international students. He’s infatuated with one attractive Vietnamese student and follows her to learn more about what she does after class. This story also has elements of classic tragedy.

Not all the stories in The Vanishing Point are gloomy. “Navigational Hazard” is a tale of righteous revenge as the captain of a luxury yacht based in Singapore works for years based on a handshake agreement with the boat’s owner that the yacht would one day be his. Everyone knows what a handshake agreement is worth, as the captain learns to his dismay. Turnabout is fair play, however, as readers eventually understand the meaning of the story’s title. “Father X” is one of the few genuinely uplifting stories in the collection. When his father dies, a middle-aged man learns that the father’s birth certificate is fake, and there is no record of his birth anywhere. Dad had an unusual occupation, ghost-writing Catholic sermons for priests whose Biblical, literary, and oratorical skills weren’t the world’s best. He also published columns in local newspapers under the byline of Father X. The son realizes he had no idea who his father was. His quest leads to an unusual discovery.

Some stories deal with the perils of academic life. “Home Cooking” is about a failed author who has a knack as a chef. He started a catering business in the college town where he lives, which soon became quite popular. He wants to keep the menus and recipes simple. Still, his customers make increasing demands on his time and eventually turn his business into something entirely different (and far less satisfying) from what he originally envisioned. “Ghost Fest” also has some supernatural elements and occurs at the same fictional Willard College where “Home Cooking” was set. The narrator, Andy Parent, is an aging writer who attends the annual Ghost Fest at the college. (Parent also narrates five other stories in the collection.) The event is a gathering of students and others who related “real” paranormal encounters. Before attending Ghost Fest, however, Parent attended a scarier, real-life meeting with a former colleague now confined to a nursing home for those with dementia. The author merges the real-life grimness of aging with a different type of encounter.

About two-thirds of the stories in The Vanishing Point are excellent. None are poorly written, but a few seem pointless. I was especially disappointed in “Camp Echo,” the first story narrated by Andy Parent. It takes place in the 1950s, where a pre-teen Andy attends a summer camp where he is assigned a cabin with the other boys whose names begin with P. There, he learns about racial, religious, and anti-gay prejudice as well as generalized bullying. These lessons may have been new to a sheltered 1950s Boy Scout, but not to modern-day readers, and I felt the story lacked the immediacy that the best coming-of-age stories have. Still, I can picture this as the basis for a movie if someone punches up the script a bit.

Again, let me repeat. There are no bad stories in The Vanishing Point. Some don’t quite meet the standards of the best in the collection. Those are worth a second or third reading to pick up on the nuances. Reading The Vanishing Point made me extremely happy that Paul Theroux hasn’t yet vanished from the literary scene.

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.