I had been hungrily looking for my next great read - the book I would voraciously devour and sink my teeth into and not let go because it was that good and I had almost given up hope when a dear friend sent me "Darwin Alone in the Universe" by author M.A.C. Farrant, the author, I discovered, whom Publisher's Weekly called "A brave iconoclast." I had not read Farrant before Darwin Along in the Universe and so began my adventure with Farrant as my tour guide of her universe.

A collection of short-shorts, or short fiction / creative non-fiction works, Darwin Alone in the Universe captures everything in our lives from those who so pious and self-righteous and "lovely" such as Dr. Lovely in the story "Whoops", an hysterical brief account of what it must feel like to be known as god's special chosen one by a radio or television doctor who doles out advice to the willing-to-listen and tell us, "The path of the righteous is a lovely path. Because all the landmines and nasty surprises are going off in the backyards of those people who have chosen a life of unloveliness," we are told. If we could all strive to be as lovely and perfect as Dr. Lovely and her forty glasses of water consumed each day: "Water - keeping me lovely." she self-importantly tells us. How much Dr. Lovely sounds like some less fictitious counterparts in the real world, alas.

Here too is the famous dead journalist in New Laws who comes back to life only to have a child at age sixty-five and show us how we have nothing to fear, but leading us clean in a hospital and show us that 'the dead can return' and we can "become hysterically fearful all over again." There are children who are like characters that walk on during a sitcom with their baggy clothes and backward caps and wry and cynical viewpoint for their young age. There are data entry clerks who fantasize about fellow-coworkers in their snug Dockers and old men having breakdowns and watching too much daytime TV and sensationalism and loving every minute of it and yet still all retaining their intelligence and wit and dare we say, even wisdom.

Farrant even has a way of taking the most intellectual of conversations as in "The Sale of Mysteries" - and adding a note or certain tone that lends an otherwise purely intellectual story a real charisma and oomph that is suggestive if not flirtatious or sexual at times. And although sex is never overtly mentioned here, there is a play at work that tell us these characters know each other well, and whether they are married or just having a conversation, the waythey discuss and consider books, stories, the world we see that one thing leads to another and whether intended or not (or this reviewer's mind only) there is a playfulness and a flirtation here that is delightful, smart, assertive, and outright sexy. Perhaps it is that there is something sexy about two people having an intellectual conversation in this day and age and each being able to keep up with each other. Whichever the case, Farrant makes it work.