Reviews

• Writing style
  Scenic in which the author comes on as almoust not being there
  Slice of life is a type of story that depends less on plot than on an event that effects a change...read more
  
  
• Your style is very strong and consistent. There's a lot of great, realistic, dialogue that really moves the story along.
  – A Reader (3/13/09)
  
  
• Slice of life story, that pays homage to the mythos of the testosterone-fuel antiheroes of Hemingway.
  – A Reader (3/16/09)
  
  
• “In the Rough” and “Street Life” by George Arthur Davis

  Portraits of the Urban underground of early 1970’s Philadelphia figure prominently in the short stories contained in the books “In the Rough” and “Street Life” by George Arthur Davis. 

  According to the bio information, Davis was born in Philadelphia in 1947.  While the reader can infer that Davis is fond of his hometown, it is difficult to determine if he’s writing from experience or simply using the city as a backdrop for a world full of drug dealers, lesbian loan sharks and two-bit hoodlums.  The stories are gritty and brief, and fall between the lines of crime stories and tales of the seamier side of humanity.  Davis does not indulge in sympathetic views of the characters; most of the stories offer a blunt narrative that has the feel of someone merely relating events that occurred. 

  In “Street Life”, there are a number of characters that appear in several stories, creating more of a centralized thread than in “In the Rough”.  One of the stories appears in both books, although under different titles, and Davis does include stories that take place in Florida and New York in addition to the Philly tales.

  Both books are quick reads, and some stories are more captivating than others.  A couple of stories leave the reader wanting a bit more to bring the situation to a satisfactory conclusion, but the stories stand on their own as portraits of people and places that contemporary society deems underground and criminal. 
  - Kevin Smith 

• Greetings George:
  
  Thanks for sending on the review--and congratulations for your work. Overall, I agree with the reviewer's comments. he should have mentioned also how interesting the characters and situations are--brief glimpses of life, tightly written.
  Keep up the good work.
  - Best, Rufus Caleb
  
  
• In the Rough
  George Arthur Davis
  The Peppertree Press (2008)
  ISBN 9780982047941
  Reviewed by William Phenn for Reader Views (8/09)
  
  Not your typical daily fare, but the unadulterated stories of ‘the hood,’ gangs, crime and much more. Mr. Davis can do little to change things in the city but he brings it out in his stories. He writes about it and makes the world aware that it’s there and will continue to thrive unless things change.
  
  This is the setting for the stories that George Davis presents. They are a cross section of his life, stories that he is relating to us about what he has seen and heard. He relates his experiences of life as he moved on in time. Some stories are funny, some tragic, but all will keep you reading till the end.
  
  George tells stories of rivalry between the underworld thugs and their seedy bedfellows (“A Phalanx of Tough Guys”), Bull Dykes (“Mickie the Dyke”), hookers with golden hearts (“Yancey’s Holiday Weekend”) and innocent wives that get caught up in this tangled web because of their husbands (“Jay Wall’s Wife Looks For the Truth”); they are all here.
  
  Some of the very short stories of this short-story collection left a little to be desired. I don’t know if I expected a different ending or just something a bit more than what was there, in any case; the few questionable ones were very brief and with an unusual ending. In my opinion, the only deterring factor in the whole book.
  With its raw language and some of the descriptive verbiage, this book would not be one for young adults or teens. It is a graphic depiction of real life and as such, there are parts of it that are not suited for the general audience.
  
  With a hard-hitting series of tales and a fast-moving write, I gave “In the Rough” by George Arthur Davis a C+ because of some poor editing (which is not the fault of the author but instead of the publisher). The stories were interesting, the writing was captivating, but the proofreading and editing left me skeptical.