3 out of 5

I don’t have many feelings about Bursk’s Cutting Board.  This is another One Story that feels a bit too much like a short story assignment (which has thankfully been a rarity amongst the publications of theirs I’ve read), the assignment this time being to write from the point of view of a bed-ridden dying man.  The man is the titular Bursk, who runs restaurant The Cutting Board after working his way up through the tiers of the food industry.  However, despite healthy living, a family history of liver problems now has him on his last legs, living food dream vicariously through his much younger – by 20 or so years – wife, who continues to plate and bring him delectable dishes that his condition prevents him from eating but he’ll shovel down or pretend to do so anyway.  Cheshire’s sifting through Bursk’s thoughts – informing us of his condition; his worries about his legacy; his wife’s possible infidelities or the loves she’ll take upon his passing – give way to a concluding couple of pages that could be seen as the flurry of griefs that occur before death, and the style, in a positive way, very much reminded me of Donald Antrim’s “tell it in one shot” approach, where a single narrative will just keep moving, for hundreds of pages.  Cutting Board is only 12, but it has that same sense of pacing, which made the tale easy to read even if I didn’t find the teller’s plight particularly engaging.  Bringing me back to that main criticism: I just didn’t feel much about Bursk.  His reflections didn’t dig into any new territory, or voice the topics in any particular way; it felt more as if Scott approached the subject externally: What can I write about, and what’s a unique point-of-view to approach that from?  Apologies, of course, if this was written therapy for an illness or watching a relation go through something similar, but online reviews also mean never having to say you’re sorry, so: three stars.