All the things that go on in the house she grew up in.
(from the web)
It's not so much a story as a colelctions of ponderings and images. Some of them are grim and stimulating (oh those poor rats) some are nostalgic. It's pretty sharp that way. I didn't care a whole lot for the skipping style, the way the narrator wordy overexplained things, and some of the moodiness was a little heavy-handed. Just a matter of taste, that. This is a short one, and in that way it seems to accomplish a lot of senses-piquing in short order. Nicely done. Claudia Smith herself sent me the link to this story, and I thank her very much. Here's the author's site. Here's a direct link to the story.
Set in 1929, the days of chocolates and tea and social no-no’s, this story mixes the quaint and antiquated with some pretty ribald passages. At times, I must admit, I found it a little boring. But there were also smart and intriguing little moments. I mostly enjoyed the gradual changes Lillian goes through, turning her dreams of cocks and such into ones of a fantasy home and domestic bliss.
A black Irish college students goes to New York City under the auspices of studying a link between Irish literature and the Harlem Renaissance, but really he's looking for his grandfather.
(from McSweeney's, #16)
There's something distinctly cinematic about this story. It's not just the way scenes are spliced together in a way that momentarily confuses and then pleases your internal compass. It's also the simplicity of the story's grander gestures. Like when Declan goes to Ellis Island. It's overt in its intentions. It's honest about its desired influence on the reader. It's also, to a small degree, corny in its sentimentality and unashamed about it. It has a neat little halyard knot at the end. (And yes, I just Googled "types of knots" to come up with halyard. We should always be learning.) I also want to say that this character was so subtly and warmly revealed. Nice. Couldn't sleep, so I read. Oh man I have so much work to do tomorrow, too. Now this story has woken me up. So much better than that horrorble story Roddy Doyle had in the Enchanted Chamber.
Now all that's left in McSweeney's issue 16 is the Ann Beattie novella (which isn't a short story so what do I do?) and the comb (which, have you seen my hair?). I kinda want to be the first person ever to read a whole issue of McSweeney's. That's my patented brand of optimism mixed with cyncism, topped with a growing need for a time machine. Oh man, the things I'd do with a time machine.
Hannah Pittard, "There Is No Real Name For Where We Live"
Things get a little more fucked up in a fucked up little trailer park when a dog turns up dead and hanging from the big tree in the center.
(from McSweeney's, #16)
Excellent story. There was an unwavering sense of hopelessness and dread that made me feel so bad for the characters, or most of them. You sort of buy into their implied worldview, that there's no escaping the perfect circle of their nameless trailer park. What a mood. Felt good to be in such an ugly place. Here's a moment: I can tell Tessa isn't the same girl anymore, the way you can tell the last car in a funeral procession from the first of the cars that aren't. and: Moonie calls an official meeting after the police finally leave, like we're some high-school club. No, I'm not going to make Hannah Pittard fight Hannah Tinti.
Bernardo Atxaga, "Pirpo and Chamberlán, Murderers"
Two guys in the time of the Spanish Civil War plot an elaborate murder/robbery.
(from The Paris Review, issue 173)
The running gag, if you can call it a gag, is that these guys believe they have carte blanch but it's sorta tragic that they don't know the phrase "carte blanche." All they know is they are in charge of their own destinies during a nearly free and slightly lawless time. They are seemingly unhindered by morals and obstacles, and their brutal crimes are equated to a peculiar circus. A short and enjoyable read, with a fun, freaky outlook and a solid, satisfying end. The mood wasn't the same, but it still made me think of "Smith and Jones" by The Silver Jews, a song about two doomed partners in crime. "Are you honest when no one's looking?" it asks immediately, before telling their tale:"They walk the alleys in duct tape shoes. They see the things they need through the windows of a hatchback. The alleys are the footnotes of the avenues." _______________ Work has been, and will be for the foreseeable future, very busy. My reading suffered this week. Let's all hang in there. _______________
In other news, the latest Book Quarterly in the Philadelphia City Paper, under the careful, clever leadership of my boss/pal Lori Hill, is awesome. It's all about independent bookstores. Gotta start here with the intro. Here's a story on shops adapting within today's Amazonian Borders. Here's the amazingly exhaustive rundown of indie bookstores in Philly. Here's an article on the amazing Russakoffs. This BQ kicks so much ass. (Because the web site hates its own content, these links will expire when the next paper comes out. I'll try to remember to fix the links when the time is right.)
After losing the love of his life, a man's downward spiral puts him in touch with some bad people.
(from The O. Henry Prize Stories, 2005)
An excellent story, prone to tangents, laced with humor and unpredictable. Moody. Awesome. This story had a little bit of the loneliness of The Silver Jews and the too-far-gone-to-care attitude of The Hold Steady. Here, I'll type the opening paragraph for you: After she left, the town where we lived grew flat as an envelope. Sound carried: the song of a truck driver showering five miles east. Nothing could block his dirge. Long-distance misery leaking across the fields while he scrubbed away the road grime. He, too, had come home to a to drawer cleared of underwear. (I tried to find you that paragraph, so I wouldn't have to type it, by Googling the phrase "truck driver showering. Two hits. Looks like I'm the third. Yay.)
I bought this collection at The Book Trader. Used, of course. The inside cover contains the following list: TO DO Bank Class Call P.S. (?) Collect taxes info. (for Friday) Sympathy Card B. Day Card for Joy Wedding Card Laundry —need to Always deal Always w/ S.L.'s Always + Transcripts!
There was also a recipt inside saying the book had been purchased for $15.98 from City Lights Books (a "literary meeting place since 1953" in San Francisco). I bought it used for $8.50 or so. Sucker. Kidding. Thanks for passing it along. Good luck with the S.L.'s.
Mother hires a maid and waits for Father to come home.
(from Ploughshares, Spring, 2005)
This story is told from the perspective of an American boy living on a military base during the last days of the Vietnam War. Beyond that, heck, I just don't know enough about the history to match the details in "Mother." Regardless, this is a neat, sharp little series of moments and anecdotes from what must have been a tumultuous and exciting period this boy's life. Good, short. I read it twice in a row to make sure I got it all and because it's that short.
A young mother sings "I-ee-I-ee-I, I think I'll have an affair" just like her own mom did.
(from McSweeney's, #16)
Some stories are poundcake and some, like this one (despite its relative shortcakeness) are layered. In that sense this is everything a short story should be, with every word and phrase counting, carefully chosen. Tight, smart, occasionally ambiguous is a sneaky way. There's this moment that knowing what really happened is obscured, and you wonder about it and then you wonder if it matters, or what the ending means in light of the two possibilities. (And yeah, some stories are bundt cake.) (And, okay, sorry, that I-ee-I thing is from an old song by The Low Road.)
Now you're probably wondering: Who would win in a battle between Pia Z. Ehrhardt and Poppy Z. Brite? Hmm. Far as I know, I've only read one story by each — Brite's was "The Devil of Delery Street," from McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Secrets. Link to my write-up here. — but here goes.
Actual Reading: Pia: A cool, thoughtprovoking family-ish drama. Poppy: A cool, scary, Catholic horror story. Advantage: Pia
Homepages: Pia: Links to cool places, frequent updates. Poppy: Lots of things to click on, looks like a band page. Advantage: Poppy
Links to I Read A Short Story Today: Pia: None. Poppy: None. Advantage: Not me.
Hometowns: Pia: New Orleans. Poppy: New Orleans. Advantage: None. What were the odds of that?
Dogs: Pia: A lab named Eddie. Poppy: A one-eyed dog (make and model unknown). Advantage: Poppy (especially if the dog wears an eye patch).
Google hits: Pia: 835 Poppy: 85,ooo Advantage: Poppy.
And the winner is: Pia Z. Ehrhardt. It was a tight race (and hardly a fair fight, since the Enchanted Chambers book had a lot of writers working within genre-riffic boundaries), but in the end Pia slashed a swift little Z into Poppy (who promptly wrote a story in the blood).
A guy with undisclosed issues is feeling low so he wants to trade his long underwear with a man he frequently mistakes for a medicine man.
(from McSweeney's, #16)
Well, because this is a sweet, very distinct character, one who instantly inspires curiosity and sympathy, I'm willing to forgive the fact that this is yet another story wherein idiosyncracies are simply lined up in a way that screams of forced quirkiness cache. Does that make sense? There's this wave rushing through the ether right now and I can neither define it nor much longer appreciate it, but it's making me want to hate things like Amelie and Garden State and Neal Pollack and The Royal Tenenbaums and that Jonathan Safran Foer book I never read. Anyway, why am I bringing this up, whatever it is, right now? Sorry. I have already forgiven this story, remember? In the morning I will wonder what the heck I was talking about. But it's 1:41 a.m., the Phillies are heading into the 13th inning, and I am rambling. Okay. This story has some really pretty, memorable moments (especially at the end) that elevate the whole thing. If the main character didn't have a sister of childbearing age, I would have mistaken him for an old man. I think that's part of the magic, that he narrates his own story and therefore never defines himself or his condition. Nice. I saw Kevin Moffett read at Molly's recently, and I thought he was reading from his novel, but maybe it was from this, because parts seemed a little familar.
I bought some books which contain no short stories today, from Hakim's Bookstore in West Philly.
June Boldridge Stallings, "The Day the Gypsies Came"
Did the gypsies come to town to steal food or children?
(from Life in a Country Store)
This is a neat, unassuming story of country life during a darker age. It's probably a stereotype, although gypsy-specific racism isn't something you hear much of, in Philly 2005 anyway, so it's hard to say: The gypsy family is poor and hungry, and everybody's too bigoted to hire them, so they come rolling in with their jangly wagon to read a fortune, pick a pocket and raid a garden. The narrator is sympathetic with everybody — the children who are taught to fear the gypsies, the gypsies who are not looking to get rich so much as get by, the blacksmith who is entranced, almost cartoonishly so, by the fortune teller and loses his life savings. Of course, much of this — the character's thinking, the narrator's outlook — is politically incorrect, absurdly, but not out of malice. The telling is conversational, like a story being told over smores, and the action unfolds in a natural way, with humor and asides and quickly dispelled suspense. A fine read.
Life In a Country Store is a self-published collection of fiction (old wives' tales) and memories by a retired florist in her 70s. Here's a an article on "June Boldridge Stallings."
Here's an excerpt from the forward: It is my story as I lived it in the village in Stevensburg, Virginia. My purpose in sharing it is to relate what life was like in a simpler time, when folks HAD to live with their neighbors. The world was not as open as it is today. In an earlier time folks needed to depend on one another, their families and their neighbors for entertainment, friendship and survival.
I bought this book at the Old Sperryville Bookshop and Coffee House (44 Main St., Sperryville, VA, 540-987-8444), a beautiful new/used book store in an old converted church. Here's a picture. I can't find a web site. I imagine you can mail order this and other works by June Boldridge Stallings from them if you call.
Two boys go searching for their missing sister, but all they see are fish ghosts.
(from The New Yorker, June 13 & 20, 2005)
This was dreamy and marvelously inventive and yeah yeah yeah. It's set up as a sort of children's story, a twisted almost-fairy tale, a nigh Roald Dahl grotesque adventure where you didn't feel like you were in the same world with its chracters. I dug its supernatural moments and its half-nihilistic attitude, if that what it is when you feel like there's no rhyme or reason to behavior, science, life, death, worldview, whatever. I also liked the saracasm and idiosyncracies the boys exhibited in their speech and actions and thinking. It was deeper than the water. At time, parts of it screamed for a little streamlining, the gentle strokes of the editor's scalpel to cut out redundancies and awkward parts. I don't think it would have hurt. Here's a link to the story. Damien Jurado, "Lottery," as heard on WPRB via Brian Howard's No Culture Icons show.
Adam Levin, "Considering the Bittersweet End of Susan Falls"
Susan has trouble dealing with the loss of her legs and her crush on a classmate.
(from McSweeney's, #16)
This story was great. Made me smile on every other page, and really empathetic in the interims. I giggled like a freak on the bus today, with my iPod blaring Superchunk and me all squished next to my fellow riders. I laughed out loud at the neatly inventive and completely sound (far as I know) mathematical equations Susan has for the things she thinks about, from quantifying Adam's legacy to determining the utility of snow pants on accentuating or deflecting attention from the ass. Maybe I should have hated this story, what with the finale foretold by the title and all the meta moments. But damn. There's no fighting this story. As soon as I finished reading, the bus took a turn I didn't expect, so I had to pull the cord and disembark in a hurry, else i woulda pushed up the aisle fishing for high fives while "Song for Marion Brown" blared for me alone and a funny, sad little story made me find the poetry in the bad.
A boy witnesses the bizarre burial practices of the local communards.
(from McSweeney's, issue 16)
As much as this story was colored with rich, sensuous detail, it was also seasoned with mystery and shadow. Though I bought what was happening, I found myself wondering exactly where it was happening. What country? Under what conditions, what govenment, were these communards (people who live on a commune, as poor Takehashi tells us) allowed to live and practice their strange rituals and way of life. Anyway, it's not like confusion dogged the action or hampered the story. Just made me curious is all.
A lost carnival mechanic meets up with a couple guys working on a housing development in the New Mexico desert.
(from One Story)
With a beautiful setting and semi-strange characters, this story had the potential for all kinds of plot directions and surprise endings, in the story and in the story within the story. Instead it was merely weird. It set up a sense of dread and the potential for something drastic, but nothing happened. But, you know, to hell with judging a story on what it wasn't. I think I was craving a twist is all. The story, as it was, was neat, indiosyncratic in an uncasual way that led me to believe every little moment had a purpose, even when it clearly didn't. The deliberately molassesian unraveling (and one glaring typo) did put a damper on things, but hey.
Here's a Q&A with Peter Rock about this "Lights," because it's a One Story story.
Precious moments with soldiers on a military base in The Phillippines in the ’60s.
(from McSweeney's, issue 16)
A nicely written half-story. That's not a dig, just a description. "Lucky" has no interest in telling a tale. It's about setting up tension, getting into the heads of its characters for vignettes about the hell war would be if they were in a war. Those vignettes are pretty sharp.
A single father and teacher loses control of the language.
(from McSweeney's, issue 16)
You know from the first page what kind of story this would be: The kind where a guy has a problem that just gets worse and there's nothing anybody can do for him and that's just all. In this one, the guy tries to say some words but different words come out. Eventually it affects his work, his homelife, his peace of mind. And it's just a symptom of something worse. That the man's apparent brain malady is sometimes played for comedy, or maybe that's just how it reads when a guy says "gravy" when he wants to say "fishing." Some conditions are just silly. Of course, we the readers of the world are aware that the author invented this disease as a means to afflict his character and, by extension, us. Still, not a bad read.
Here's an interview with Brian Evenson. It's all nerdspeak and theory.
Greta moves to a small mountain town and falls in love with an asshole in the midst of a drought.
(from The Iowa Review, vol. 35, #1)
Listen, you. I'm about to spoil the ending of this story, so don't continue on this page if there's any hope at all that you can read "Stand Wherever You Want" at some point. It's worth reading. Not a great story, but an interesting one with memorable moments and characters. The thing is, I really, really, for real really hate it when characters buy into symbolism the way an author can. If like two people get a divorce after their grandfather clocks stops ticking, or fall back in love when their long lost dog returns home, I'll buy it because hey, I don't want to real about chaotic gritty real life every day. There's plenty of room for literary devices. But geez, when Jonathan, during the long-awaited rainstorm, announces that his relationship with Greta is over because it was raining, well, please. Don't make me barf. Even Northern Exposure never made that leap. Of course, that's more a matter of my taste than this author's skill. I mostly found this to be an enjoyable and maybe even fun read.
All the courtiers are suspects when the King of Hearts' tarts go missing.
(from McSweeney's Issue 16)
The McSweeney's people are into, among other things, presentation. So it was only a matter of time that a story written on shuffled playing cards would end up in one of their issues (time being infinite, all things being not only possible but probable). Here's how it works: The story is divided into 15 fairly equal parts, each of which is printed on its own oversized playing card in the heart suit. The backs of the cards are not identical, which is fine since you'd need more cards to actually play something other than the world's most pretentious game of War, and those other cards would also likely contain bits of stories, so like, stop playing and start reading. The Texas Hold 'Em phase has passed. There's a set start (a title card) and a set end (the Joker). The 13 other cards are to be shuffled before each reading so that the experience changes each time. These middle cards are written to be untethered by chronology, and don't step on each other in terms of unfolding the plot. The story's central mystery — who stole the tarts — was solved early for me, but this was not actually a mystery story, but a funny, ribald, amoral fable. Here's the order in which I read them: Title Card, 9, 7, 8, 10, King, 3, 4, Ace, 2, 6, Jack, Queen, 5, Joker. (Looks like I should have mixed them up better, but, hey, you try shuffling a 5" x 7" deck.) Clever? Sure. Gimmicky? Hmm. Yeah, but is that a bad thing? I really felt like this was a story set free by unusual presentation, not hampered by smug uniqueness. Will I re-read it? Not soon, but yes. Scout Niblett, "Good To Me"
Journalist Daniel and photographer Tim are in over their heads covering a West African conflict.
(from The Secret Society of the Demolition Writers)
A very scary, very real-seeming story of war in a strange place. Of course, the title might be a kind of joke because as screwed up as war is through the eyes of the worried Daniel, it's possible this is just how war is. So this may be a country like any other. The matter-of-fact plotting puts the attention on the action, not the phrasing. You wonder what will happen. You worry. This was sharp, smart story and an excellent high note for the Demolition book to go out on. Having read all thirteen stories, I am now supposed to take stab at saying who wrote what. But the thing is, I couldn't even guess. Because, it's like, who knows enough about Ben Cheever's life or the particulars of Alice Sebold's style or who Chris Offutt is? Add to that the declaration in the editor/author Marc Parent's intro that the authors were out to trick the readers, to cover their own tracks or mimic the writing of another author in the Society, and the task is, to me, impossible. I stopped Googling place names and interesting phrases long ago. The only mystery I really want to solve is: Which story did Rosie O'Donnell write? None of these struck me as the handiwork of someone utterly unskilled in written storytelling. Few wowed me, either, it should be noted. Okay, so, I think Rosie wrote "Sweet," the strange story of Earl the wandering homeless man. I'm not sure why I think this. My guess is exactly as good as yours. Tie score! The White Stripes, "I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)"
At his new job giving away coffee at the beach, Allan meets a girl who says she has a stone heart. Like a heart made of stone.
(from The Secret Society of the Demolition Writers)
This story has so many interesting elements, from its insight into the world of coffee promotion to its version of the archetypal Weird Girl, that it's easy to overlook its uneven tone and too-quirky smugness. Well, it's smug about how cute it is, cute about how surreal it is, surreal because that way you don't need things to make sense or come to a conclusion. Truth is: Those flaws, if that's what they are, don't occur to you as you read the story. Best to keep things above the surface of the pool where everything is fun and can be taken at face value. That's where this story is cool and charming and capable of moving you.
Tonight I went to a reading at Molly's in the Italian Market, mere blocks from I Read A Short Story Today headquarters. Eli Horowitz said funny things and waved the new copy of The Believer Music Issue in front of us but wouldn't sell it to us, then passed the mic to to Kevin Moffet and Salvador Placencia who read from their latest books. I enjoyed both. I didn't purchase their books because they were books, as opposed to collections of short stories. I did buy McSweeney's issue 16, which features stories by the above Moffet, Miranda Mellis and more, a novella by Ann Beattie and a deck of 13 cards with parts of a story on them that can be shuffled to create a new reading experience each time. And a comb. I also bought The Unforbidden is Compulsory Or. Optimism by Dave Eggers. It's a novella. Maybe I'll read that one day. Let's say the jury is still out on novellas. Optimism.
Marc is starting writing classes with an infamous lit-diva.
(from The Secret Society of Demolition Writers)
From the very beginning — a quaint lil quote attributed to the book's editor, Marc Parent — you know this is a very self aware story. One way or another, lots of Demolition Writers (and some not included in this collection) get shout-outs, name checks, allusions. Let's see. Two of the main characters are Marc and Alice (as in Sebold, a point emphasized by the description of her "lovely bones.") There's also an Aimee (Bender), a Cheever (Benjamin), a Rosie (O'Donnell, you've really made it), a McCracken (Elizabeth). Sometimes authors are just named outright, as in this awkward sentence: "Her hand passed over Anna Quindlen's Blessings, Sebastian Junger's Fire, and Claire Marvel by John Burnham Schwartz." Oh boy. It's past pretension and back into comedy. Why not, I say. The story itself was decent and interesting, although clearly handcffed by its ulterior motives.
