Over and over while reading Pathologies I had the same reaction. I read a story and thought, “Ha ha, that’s funny,” and felt like I’d got the point. Then I finished the story and thought, “Hang on, that’s more than just funny…,” and reread it to enjoy the many layers William Walsh packs into each very short piece. These stories read quickly, giving the illusion of easy understanding, but they become more complex and subtle as you read. Most are pared-down portraits of characters, honing in on their strangest quirks not to reduce them to laughingstocks but to make them more nuanced than those quirks at first seem to allow. I was reminded of Gary Lutz’ fiction in how powerfully they get to the heart of a character, and have a “simple” surface that belies the complexity beneath. But rather than the skewed syntax of Lutz, the stories in Pathologies accomplish this by offering precisely the right detail at precisely the right time.

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