Robert Wintner Touches Nerves in Critical Mass: Beach Stories
By: Devin Wallace
Author Robert Wintner is known for rhythm in dissonance with a sharp eye and distinct voice. Critical Mass: Beach Stories is on point, with Wintner building pressure to the verge of consequence. Critical mass triggers a chain reaction. What’s the difference, science to society? Critical Mass stories show daily life under pressure, crowded, cramped, and loud; too many people, too much media, bad news, and noise. Stability wavers, stress crazes, doubts rise, fragility abounds.
“Urgency is the new norm. This just in is most often hokum, blather, nothing. We adapt to the more, more, more of it. Where can we shelter? A beach is a snug harbor; the shit closes in, but under open sky, no rafters. The crazies close in now, changing quiet rectitude to Oh, brother. Anyplace decent or bearable, much less beautiful, draws crowds, becomes something else, too much, too many, too needy.
“Our beach was a gem and still can be,” Wintner reflects. “Unless it’s jammed.”
Critical Mass, Beach Stories are narrative short fiction with two short memoirs in real time. “I put them in the collection for the fit, for the shadow casting over the land, our land. Who sets out with a shadowy objective? Not me. I see. I write. Stories emerge.”
Critical Mass: Beach Stories portray conflict, challenge, and mostly fun, at least food for thought. Humor helps tough themes, road rage to inner tension.” Wintner’s stories show aggressive assertion in laughable conflict. “That’s the world we’ve come to, unless it’s only me. I doubt that. I sense trouble on a regular basis these days. I have an eye for it. An appetite?”
Critical Mass, Beach Stories are snapshots flipping on a mentality movie. “Elders commonly recall better times,” Wintner says. “Old people look back on a better, easier, more playful, honest, cleaner world. Young people rarely sense those changes, immersed in vitality, hormones, and fun, never mind manipulated wits or participation trophies. Youth feels good, not sad over what’s been lost.”
Critical Mass: Beach Stories includes love, foremost in Wintner’s dog, Cookie, a grounding presence, shared ego, and willful competitor. Wintner thumbnailed Cookie: “She is joy, a place to shelter, a steady connection in a complex world. She personified warmth and vitality. The bright side for those who can and will is the presence of Dog above. Anybody who sees the world dimming will have a dog to enjoy life.”
Wintner’s take on shorter life to the best people: “Cookie’s passing broke my heart. Recollections filled months on end, until she lit up on another recall: ‘Cookie, look! It’s a little dog!’ Perking, looking here and there, she craved dog play. She encouraged a new dog. She insisted: please. It’s time, time for Lonnie, another pup coming home. They would have played until they had to lie down. Maybe they do.”
In novels, stories, memoirs, and journals over decades, Wintner explores nature, reefs, culture, politics, and truth around the world. Critical Mass: Beach Stories continues the adventure, at an impasse perhaps, resolving on a laugh to keep from crying. “My objective: entertainment, line for line, page for page, insightful, incongruous, and fun. I want to keep you up, make you smile and laugh aloud when least expected.”
Critical Mass: Beach Stories by Robert Wintner, in ebook, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook, all at Amazon.





