(from In The Garden of the North American Martyrs)
A strange, messed situation gives way to watching TV. This funny-scary story conjures up more questions than it answers. Like why does the husband-wife duo in the foreground sleep in separate beds, like a TV couple of old? The "geography" innuendo is sweet.
Many thanks to the thoughtful Beth Gabriela Warshaw for making a huge donation to I Read A Short Story Today. She dropped off a big box containing the following treasures: Tobias Wolff, In The Garden of the North American Martyrs Granta #81, Best of Young British Novelists Granta #87, Jubilee Granta #88, Mothers Granta #89, The Factory Ethan Canin, Emperor of the Air A.S. Byatt, Little Black Book of Stories A.L. Kennedy, Indelible Acts Alan Bennett, The Laying on of Hands R.K. Narayan, Under The Banyan Tree Muriel Spark, All the Stories Richard Ford, A Multitude of Sins Modern Short Stories: The Uses of Imagination Modern American Prose: Fifteen Writers +15 Alice Munro, Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage The Bedford Introduction to Literature William Trevor, The Collected Stories
A funny little vignette about a ruthless dickhead. The story has no moral and no point. Because neither did Fat Joe.
Reading stories over the next week might be tough because work is nutso. But I'll try. I introduced Chuck Klosterman before his book reading at the Free Library yesterday. He's a nice guy.
A conversation about lots of things, but also nothing.
(from McSweeney's #15)
If I were to guess, I'd say this was a conversation between to riffing, ironic, overeducated business men, but it's hard to say for sure who the two people are trading irreverent quips and supportive witticisms. Though there are no quotation marks, you can tell the entire story is a dialogue between two possibly inebriated people, but there are no he saids or clues as to who is saying what where and when. Here's the kind of creek-of-consciousness nuttiness the conversation wades into: Constant Rectitude and Studio Becalmed have run away to join the circus, but they join the army instead in error and will die as patriots rather than as syphillitic roustabouts. Failure is to success as water is to land. This is the great secular truth. It's funny and foggy. An alternate universe where nobody ever heard of Godot.
This story of two divorced people meeting up as more mature improvements on their former selves is sometimes very casual about the meaning of its details and asides. Her baggage-free health plan, his new dignified wrinkles. Other times, it's a bit over, like when the two recite poetry to each other (and us). Overall, a fun and sharp story. Maybe even hopeful. I've read one other story by Kalotay, during the early days of I Read A Short Story Today, on December 30. Here's that write-up.
Adventures in Stereo, "You Hurt Me More Than You Know"
The moments of young sexual tension and hope were okay, and the titular card trick was a neat little moment (and a hammer-to-the-head metaphor), but mostly I enjoyed Gina's visits to the home of a supposedly famous and important novelist both as a young woman and an older woman. It's not done with a flourish, more like an unfolding. Sneaky.
Tough times in the tough Russian prison/military system, which is tough.
(from The Atlantic Monthly's Fiction Issue)
What's that you say? You don't have a copy of The Atlantic Monthly's Fiction Issue (shame on you) but you'd still like to get the same high, the same rush of adrenaline one gets from reading "Tell Them, Please Tell Them" by Maximilian Schlaks? Don't fret, just follow these simple steps: 1. Remove your socks and shoes. 2. Get behind a UPS truck. 3. Clutch the bumper tight with both hands, and bend the knees. 4. When the truck begins moving, attempt to water ski with your bare feet on the unforgiving asphalt. It's something like that. Not because it's poorly written, or tedious in a way that suggests a lack of talent or effort on the author's part. Quite the opposite: So tireless is the hideous detail, so uncompromisingly grueling is the life of the characters Schlaks has created only to torture into submission or insanity, that you read on only because it's well written. There's really no other reason. (Not even "I have this blog..." is a good excuse.) See it's about these two people drafted into the Russian army in a cold hellscape where torture, insanity and cruelty are frequent occurences slipped into a daily planner already booked with rotten food and lots of lack of sleep. And once that boulder starts rolling, Schlaks gets into a pattern of out-bleaking himself, piling horribleness onto terribleness until the end comes like sweet, merciful disembowlment. Yeah, wooo!
________________ Ok, that's the last bit of fiction in the The Atlantic Monthly's first ever Fiction Issue. There were eight stories total, by Joyce Carol Oates, Nathan Englander, Shira Nayman, Charles Baxter, George Singleton, Mark Jacobs, Adam Haslett and Maximilian Schlaks. So. Let's review: Stories set at least partially in New York City: 3 Stories which allude to New York City as a place of escape and opportunity: 2 Stories accompanied by pictures of turtles: 1 Stories with Jewish persecution plots (or subplots): 3 Stories with sci-fi elements: 1 Stories with references to street hockey: 1 Stories featuring enormous robots: 0 Stories told in the first person: 5 Stories with alternating narrators: 1 Stories whose endings are foretold by their subheads: 1 Stories where comedy was a priority: 0 Stories about writers: 0 (Is that right?)
Brendan meets up with a male prostitute while on a trip to New York City with him mom.
(from The Atlantic Monthly's Fiction Issue)
Well. This isn't a mesmerizing story, and it's tempting to criticize it for all the interesting paths it failed to take. But that's not really fair. I will say this: The matter-of-fact title is a tip-off. But it's not like the story was bland, just short and while you feel bad for the main character, you don't feel like you're in the real world. So you're not much worried about him, or his mom.
Meanwhile, yes, I'm still reading a book: A.H.W.O.S.G. On page 265. A recent record for me and fiction.
An aging businessman on an ambiguous search for God seeks out directions from a retired priest.
(from The Atlantic Monthly's Fiction Issue)
Well, since Harry doesn't know what he wants or how to get it, it makes sense that this story has a wandering quality, speckled with possibly meaningless moments and irrelevant epiphanies. But it's funny; some of the language was too precise, overly explanatory. Spelled everything out too well, too much. Worse: You just see the ending coming, not that that's a bad thing, but it does spoil the mystery.
Mom never got over what Dad did. Now she's got a camera and a degree in filmmaking.
(from The Atlantic Monthly's Fiction Issue)
Sometimes you know a story is going for the funny, achieving the funny, but you just don't laugh. Read this one aloud to me and I will surely laugh at the funny parts. But alone and sitting in silence, not even music on, I don't actually laugh. I merely acknowledge the funny, with an inner nod. Nicely done, I think. Well played. The story does many things well. The most striking success is its characters. The playful, honest-but-sneaky Raylou, the dry-witted recovering alcoholic narrator, the foul-mouthed aspiring director mom. The last one, especially, is a character that strolls the balance beam between pained reality and vengeful cartoon with ease.
Cleaning up the old house for the new couple in the days before the divorce.
(from The Atlantic Monthly's Fiction Issue)
Nobody writes the inner detail-riffic monologues of people in complicatedly troubled relationships the way Charles Baxter does. Is he the best at it? I don't know. Yeah, this is a competition, but I shall not judge. Ribbons for everyone. And. I dug this story. I mean not much happens in the here and now, but some of the relationships' apparently numerous pratfalls are revealed in gradual waves, like unwrapping foil from a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And you already know about the sandwich.
I have been reading a book, on the side, in fits and bits. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Get neither excited nor uppity. I'm on page 53. I've gotten this far in books before. I like it so far. I've like books at this stage before, too. I hereby swedge (a swear/pledge, of course) that my reading of a book will never interfere with my mission here at I Read A Short Story Today. People. Don't look at me like that.
Christiane's mother's last words send her back to the old country in search of answers.
(from The Atlantic Monthly's Fiction Issue)
A very long one. Slow at parts, but mostly an exciting and thought-provoking adventure/mystery. Very inventive, although maybe it's just a twist on a certain movie I never saw but about which I have heard lots; one whose title, were I to mention it, would give away or hint at parts of this story. And I don't want to do that. This story was very different from others I've read for I Read A Short Story Today because of the dramatic way the un-self-conscious character dealt with startling and unsettling discoveries, always breaking down, falling to her knees, pondering abstracts. This story has its bleak and horrific parts, but it's neither cynical nor ironic. There's nothing post-modern about it. In that way, that ambiguous way, it seems sort of classic. The Mountain Goats, "Alpha Rats Nest"
The town Anti-Semite is due for a come-uppance, but how can these little boys possibly take him on?
(from The Atlantic's Fiction Issue)
Excellent story. Strange and beautiful and harsh. Something like Fight Club meets Christmas Story, though, kinda not really. It's got a when-we-were-young-and-stupid vibe to this, but I wouldn't call it nostalgia. There's a battery of characters, some integral, who look like some kind of alternate-universe Justice League or A-Team. Assembled to right a wrong, however ill-equipped or wrong they may be. In addition to a great story with lots of action, suspense, terror and some cool parts to cheer for, this was also an entrancing story to read on a line-by-line basis. It's speckled with ancient Hebrew references and an unfolding that could be cribbed from a book of forgotten fables. Nice.
Just before his high school graduation, an orphan boy is starting to feel unspecial. Is he a loser or is something more sinister going on?
(from The Atlantic, Fiction Issue 2005)
Something more sinister is going on. Now somebody tell me, is Joyce Carol Oates sci-fi? Because the only things I've read by her for I Read A Short Story Today have had these sneaky sci-fi underpinnings, but, like, slowly revealed so you're thinking, well, there's no reason to suspect anything sinister just yet. Then, you know, boom. (I'm thinking of the story "The Fabled Lighthouse at Viña del Mar," which I wrote about here.) Not that there's anything wrong if she is all sci-fi, it's just, I didn't know. I liked this story. Felt bad for the kid. His usual teen awkwardness being supplemented and reinforced by a feel that he doesn't quite fit in. I saw the twist coming a mile away, but hey.
I bought The Atlantic's Fiction Issue 2005 at Borders. I went to the highly regarded Bookhaven (22nd and Fairmount, in Philly) for the first time ever. Now I too hold it in high regard (even though the short story comp section is small and a little too close to the cat's food dish) because I got George Saunders' Pastoralia, which I'd been looking for forever. I also got, gasp, two books by David Eggers. Since they're books, I'm not sure I'll actually read them, but I've been thinking about it. Just experimenting. I'll still read short stories. It's not cheating. It's not.
Who dropped all those atomic bombs on America at the same time?
(from The Worlds of A.E. Van Vogt)
Van Vogt wrote this in 1951, pretty much his heyday. It's set way in the future (1979) and got that free-thinking paranoia and nearly-reasonable technology I have come to love about this cult favorite author. Unfortunately, this one was a little too much poli-sci and not enough sci-fi. Really dragged for a while. But, it did have that classic man-is-the-real-monster they-tampered-in-God's-domain conclusion. (Or as MST3K would say, "They peppered in God's lo mein.")
An American couple bickers on a tour stop in Ireland.
(from In/Vision)
Well, I didn’t much care for this story, but I don’t believe my going all negative on a young writer is going to do anybody any good, so I’m going to say three nice things: 1. The dialogue, of which there was plenty, was realistically rendered. 2. The description of the setting presented me with a clear mental picture. 3. The story did not choose a favorite among its bickering pro/antagonists.
A really cool story. Had a lot of the things I like: Interesting setting. Ambiguous era. Mostly meaningless tangents. Enormous distastrophe/loss of life (so sue me, I like disastrophe movies too). Hints of everyday menace. Touch of sci-fi (or sci-freaky). Yeah, I liked this one. Had no idea where it was going, and didn't agreee with a lot of the choices the author or the narrator made along the way, but whatever. I bought it.
I'd been meaning to read this for a while, rode around with it in my backpack for at least a week. (One Storys are so lightweight and compact!) On Friday I biked up to the Art Museum to check out the Live8 soundchecks (heard "Pour Some Sugar On Me" and wandered around backstage where I saw Def Leppard's drums). On the way back it poured, like a flashflood disastrophe. The story was warped and soaked (as was I), but was dry enough today for me to read it. Later on, Lori and I hauled ass to Camden to see Def Lep on some sort of lost childhood pilgrimage, and damn if the flashflood I biked in, the one which could not destroy this story, didn't cancel the show. Heck of a thing to find out once you're already in Camden. Rain or shine, my ass. Armageddon it, my ass also. Did see Def Lep the next day at Live8. I don't think I'd thought about Def Leppard in about 15 years, so whatever. Kanye West and Will Smith kicked ass. So did the weather. Jennifer O'Connor, "Hopeful"
A homeless drunk goes on a mission to scrape together a thousand bucks and buy his grandmother's headdress from a pawn shop.
(from The O. Henry Prize Stories 2005)
A sweet and sour allegory-type thing about a guy who can't help himself. His situation would be grim (rather than nearly bearable) if there weren't smily happy people of different classes and races to help him out once in a while. In this sense, this story is a fantasy, because it seems like everybody's looking out for each other, which, you know, if only, and this Indian's only real adversaries seem to be himself and another Indian or two. I liked the way the action is propelled by wandering. The narrator is a smart guy whose methods are suspect and shoddy. So he's got this one sincere, sudden goal, and he can't even hold on to what little money he does stumble across during the day. It's heartbreaking but totally sympathetic. And up to and including the end, you know you're being messed with by the author, that this reality — gritty and rough though it was — was actually a bit sugarcoated for the telling.
A warm and smart little number about coping. Made me think of “Love, Love, Love” by The Mountain Goats, a song about people bending their morals and behaviors as a way to deal with impossible situations, or ones that seem that way. “Five and Dime” is really excellent at making its narrator sympathetic even at a low point, and more remarkable in her imperfection. Great story. Here's a link. Go to it. Read it.
