Book Chase

>YouTube continues to impress and amaze me.  The service makes it possible for all of us to enjoy things like this Joyce Carol Oates appearance no matter where we live.  This reading took place in Boston, a city I haven’t visited in two decades, but thanks to YouTube and Forum Network, I feel like I was there (and I suspect that I had a better view than those who saw the event live).

This is the keynote address at the Boston Book Festival,  on October 15, 2010, during which Ms. Oates reads “Pumpkin Head,” one of the short stories from her latest story collection, Sourland.  After the reading, Ms. Oates engages in “conversation” with an interviewer and takes questions from the audience.

I have not read Sourland yet but, from what Ms. Oates says in her introduction to the reading, it appears that many of the stories in the book share the common theme of sudden widowhood that she so frankly addresses in her recent memoir, A Widow’s Life.

>I’m having one of those weekends where I just cannot focus in long enough on any one activity to get it done.  That has been particularly frustrating since this was a rare three-day weekend for me because I have to use my last three vacation days before December 31 or lose them.  I really thought I would be able to do some catching up with that extra day – instead, I’ve accomplished less than I do in a normal weekend.

 I see now that my intentions were unrealistic from the start, but I didn’t expect to be so overwhelmed by what seems to be an unlimited list of little tasks that have to be done by the end of today.  Throw in all of life’s little unexpected bonuses and, well, you know what happens.  My wife has been away since October 1 and she is returning for the day on Tuesday.  Of course, I will be in Tulsa on Tuesday.  And, you guys can only imagine the amount of housecleaning I need to do today in order to get anywhere near a passing grade on my housekeeping efforts since she’s been away helping out at her mother’s. 

I’ve done some editing for a family member, flitted around between three or four books, spent some real quality time with two of my grandchildren, made a run to the cleaners, the bank, the rent-a-car location, the library, etc., but still have to get to the grocery store so that I don’t have to do that when I get home on Wednesday night.

But I do want to share a couple of bookish things with everyone before I start on the dreaded housecleaning routine:

Sean Scapellato sends word that Pat Conroy signed extra copies of My Reading Life when he was at Charleston’s Blue Bicycle Books -  and that signed copies are still available if anyone wants to order one by mail.  Here’s the link Sean provided for those interested (I certainly am).  Sean also mentioned that there’s a new Pat Conroy book in the mix for the fall of 2011.  As Sean said, three Pat Conroy books in three years is a new world’s record for Mr. Conroy.  I can’t wait, as this one sounds like another very personal memoir about the fascinating Conroy family.

…

I know that some of you are really into short stories and I’ve been meaning to mention that Library of America sends a classic short story each week (via direct email) to those who sign up for the service.The current “Story of the Week,” number 50 in the series, is All Parrots Speak, by Paul Bowles.  Last week it was I’ll Be Waiting, by Raymond Chandler.  I think you can sign up for the free emails here. 

 That’s it for the moment.  I’m hoping that my relatively quick toilet-scrubbing skills (and general lack of attention to the details of housecleaning) will allow me to get back here before I have to leave tomorrow morning for my drive to Tulsa.  Read on, guys.

Pat Conroy and Sean Scapellato

>When it comes to reputation and popularity, modern day short story writers seem to get the short end of the stick. Novels are more popular than shorter works; there is no doubt about that. Readers seem to prefer immersing themselves in complicated, detailed plots housed in 500 pages novels over experiencing spare short stories of a dozen pages or so. I tend to be that way myself, despite the fact that I have come to believe that it might be more difficult to write a quality short story than it is to write a longer work. Nik Perring’s Not So Perfect has pretty much convinced me that I am correct about that opinion. It must really be hard to make it look this easy.

Not So Perfect is Perring’s collection of 22 short stories, several of which have been previously published in British (I think) literary magazines. The collection gives new definition to short story because these little tales are best characterized as short short stories. These are stories of a few hundred words and just three or four pages, on average, but do not let their brevity fool you because each of the stories packs a little kick of its own. Perring has such an uncanny ability to create believable characters and unusual situations in very few words that I found myself always looking forward to the next story to see if he could pull it off again. He did.

None of Perring’s characters are perfect, and what we see of their lives is not even close to being perfect, but they are interesting and fun to get to know. Among my favorite stories is one about a library patron that comes to the disapproving notice of the librarian who suspects he is up to no good. There is one about a young woman’s obsessive use of Post-It notes, another about two birdwatchers that come out only at night, and one about a woman who literally vomits small animals. There may be no perfect characters and no perfect lives in Perring’s stories but I defy the reader to forget them.

Not So Perfect is fun and I will long remember it because of a unique experience I had while reading it. I always keep a book in my car, just for those little unexpected delays that so often happen during my daily commute or when I have to queue up someplace for a few minutes of what would, otherwise, be wasted time. Not So Perfect rode along in my passenger seat for several days and, while waiting for an exceptionally long traffic light to turn green in my direction (a wait of almost three minutes), I was able to read an entire short (short) story on the way to work. How cool is that?

Rated at: 4.0

(Review Copy provided by Publisher)

>Boston Noir is, by my count, the thirty-fourth book in a series of darkish short story collections set in major cities around the world. Each of the featured cities has distinct enough a personality to set a unique tone for its particular volume, even, at times becoming as much a character in the stories as the chief protagonists themselves.

This particular volume is home to eleven short stories, some of which have been written by authors already well known to genre readers and others by lesser known writers. Dennis Lehane contributes both the book’s introduction and a story entitled “Animal Rescue” about a seemingly simple man with an unexpected hard edge to him. Other contributors include: Stewart O’Nan, Lynne Heitman, Jim Fusilli, Patricia Powell and John Dufresne.

The stories have a tough, sometimes depressing, tone to them but they are kept lighter than they otherwise would have been by the bits of ironic humor that sneak into them when least expected. Even readers unfamiliar with the term “noir,” will be tempted to explore the collection after reading Lehane’s definition of what it takes to be a “noir hero” –

“In Shakespeare, tragic heroes fall from mountaintops; in noir, they fall from curbs. Tragic heroes die in a blaze of their own ill-advised conflation. Noir heroes die clutching fences or crumpled in trunks or, in the case of poor Eddie Coyle, they simply doze off drunkenly in a car and take one in the back of the head before they have a chance to wake up again. No wise words, no music swelling on the soundtrack.”

These are stories about white collar people who finally reach their breaking point; people who see an opportunity to stick it to the system and grab the chance to do so; people eager to profit from the deaths of others; hard people that suffer because of soft hearts; inept criminals who somehow manage to bluff their way through; and the worst kind of sex predator – something for everyone.

Stories collected from so many different writers will, of course, vary in quality, and those gathered in Boston Noir are no exception to that rule. What is rather unusual, unfortunately, is that the quality of these stories range all the way from very effective to almost incomprehensible, meaning that most readers are likely to consider Boston Noir to be, at best, an average collection of short stories.

Rated at: 3.0

>I read a whole lot of science fiction as a young teen and, in fact, I credit that genre for turning me into the avid reader that I am. The fifties and sixties were a nice period for science fiction writers, a couple of decades during which some of the real masters were reaching their peak or first appearing on the scene, and it was exciting to see what they would come up with next.

Alternate history is sometimes considered to be part of the science fiction world but that assumption can be misleading because so much alternate history is a rewrite of military history or other major world events. Of course, lots of alternate history does involve time travel and, as Harry Turtledove points out in his introduction to The Best Alternate History Stories of the 2oth Century, so many well known science fiction writers have very successfully written alternate history that it seems natural to lump the two genres together.

I dipped into Turtledove’s anthology this morning to read “The Winterberry” by Nicholas A. DiChario – and I wish I could tell you more about this little gem but whatever I tell you might ruin its impact. So I’ll be very careful. “The Winterberry” is a bit unusual as alternate history goes in that the author leaves it up to the reader to figure out exactly what piece of history is being rewritten.

The clues DiChario offers are more and more obvious until suddenly everything becomes clear. The story is only ten pages long and, honestly, not much happens. But when that little light goes off in your head, “The Winterberry” becomes a story you will remember and think about for a while because what the story’s mentally handicapped narrator tells you about his life in his big house takes on a whole new meaning. Enough said.

Fuzzy as all of this must be, I hope it manages to influence a few people to find and read the story. I think you will like it – and you might develop a taste for alternate history in the process.

>Remember this review of Doubleback I posted last Wednesday?

You might also recall that I mentioned in the comments after the review that I might have a surprise this week regarding the book and its two main characters.

Well, here goes: Libby Fischer Hellmann has very graciously provided me with several copies of a specially written, limited edition short story in which PI Georgia Davis and video producer Ellie Foreman meet for the first time. Fans of Hellmann’s novels will know that the two women are featured in novels of their own and, most recently, in a new novel that sees them working together for the second time.

The short story is in the form of a little 15-page paperback and each copy is numbered to indicate its place in the limited edition. I’ll be honest – I received four copies of the story (numbers 31-34) but I am only giving away three of them as prizes. This time I can’t resist keeping one for my own collection.

I really want the three giveaway copies to go to the readers who will most appreciate them. All you need to do is post a comment to this announcement telling me why you want one of the three copies Libby is allowing me to give away here on Book Chase. I will judge strictly on what I perceive your level of interest to be and, if I end up with more than three entries in a tie, I will use my magic random number generator to break the tie.

Don’t be intimidated or embarrassed about expressing yourselves. I don’t want to discourage any entries; I only want to place these stories in “good homes.” (That last bit is another of my lame attempts at making a joke – sorry about that.)

>Since my wife’s out-of-town this weekend, I read another John Cheever short story with my lunch. I’m reading from a collection of all of Cheever’s stories and choosing stories based entirely on my reaction to his titles; if the title makes me curious, or gives me a particular image, I read the story to see how closely my imagined plot fits the actual story.

Some titles, like “The Worm in the Apple,” don’t tell me much about a story’s content but give pointed clues to its tone. As it happens, “The Worm in the Apple” was difficult to predict from its title but, as I suspected, it is another version of Cheever’s generally low opinion of life in the suburbs. One has to suspect that Cheever was not exactly a fan of “Leave It to Beaver.”

“The Worm in the Apple” is about the Crutchmans, a family that seems too perfect to some to be real. The neighbors believe that the Crutchmans cannot possibly be as successful or happy as they appear and that the family is working doubly hard to hide its problems and failures. Friends and neighbors are not about to let them get away with that little charade.

A few “worms” did show up in the Crutchman apple over the course of the years, of course, as they always will. However, much to the disappointment of those keeping score, the Crutchmans always manage to get past any family setback or misstep and to remain as happy and successful as ever. As Cheever put it, near the end of this little five-page story, “one might wonder if the worm was not in the eye of the observer…”

“The Worm in the Apple” is a reminder that some people are insulated by their enthusiasm for life and that, almost by habit, they make the most of what each day brings them. On the flip side, it also reminds that others are so unhappy with life that they desperately want to believe that everyone else feels the same. Sadly, I have to believe that Cheever himself falls in the latter camp.

>I am steadily making my way through the Library of America’s Cheever: Collected Stories & Other Writings and I remain impressed by how much detail John Cheever could pack into a ten-or-twelve-page short story. Many of his short story characters are as fleshed out and memorable as those from his five novels.

One of the first stories in the collection is “The Hartleys,” the story of a young couple who, along with their little girl, have decided to revisit the places that once made them happy. One of those places is the Pemaquoddy Inn at a little upstate New York ski resort they had last visited some eight years earlier.

Other guests of the inn note how attached the little girl is to her father, even to the point of preferring his company to that of her mother, and how when her parents are on the ski slope she never takes her eyes off them as they work their way back down to where she waits.

As the story progresses, the reader begins to get a growing sense that all is not well with this little family despite their best efforts to blend into the community they have temporarily joined. Cheever turns that sense of unease into one of true dread as the story approaches its unforgettable ending.

“The Hartleys” may only be nine pages long but no one reading the story will soon forget it.

>Nine of the thirteen stories in this first Christopher Meeks short story collection were first published in journals and literary magazines around the country, and anyone reading this little book will certainly understand why that happened. Meeks has a particular talent for getting into the heads of his characters and taking their doubts and concerns as seriously as the characters themselves take them. As a result, readers of Chris Meeks stories do the same.

Not all of these stories are about middle-aged people; some of the main characters are in their twenties, some in their thirties, but they have all reached a place where uneasiness about the future dominates their lives.

The stories are about relationships – between marriage partners, between couples choosing to live together rather than marry, between daters, and between family members of different generations. There are men and women unhappy about what their marriages have become, older men being pressured into marriage by younger women who are becoming more and more desperate to get it done, and older people simply trying to die with a little dignity. Some of the stories are funny, some are touching and sad, and one of them has a Hitchcock-like ending. What all the stories have in common, though, is the ease with which the reader slips into and out of them, along the way learning something about himself and his own state of mind.

My personal favorite, “Nike Had Nothing to Do with It,” is an ironic tale about a man who heads out on a run to relieve his anger after the mother of his newborn daughter announces that their relationship is no longer working. What happens next is not what either of them expected when the day began.

Particularly touching are the stories about dying, “Dear Ma,” in which an old woman hides more and more in her past as her days run out, and “The Rotary,” in which a loyal and loving grandson receives an unexpected gift at his grandfather’s deathbed. Meeks, however, manages to make serious points even when he uses humor in his stories. “Divining” is about a man who has become so “Californicated” that, even in all of his weirdness, he believes that he is the normal one and the rest of the world is out of step. And, in “Shooting Funerals,” another of my favorites, a 38-year-old woman tries to reinvent herself by becoming the world’s first “funeral photographer” – and is honestly surprised by the reaction she gets on her first job.

The Middle-Aged Man & the Sea is a very fine short story collection and I highly recommend it, especially to those readers who might be dipping seriously into the short story genre for the first time.

This modern day collection is an excellent place to start.

Rated at: 5.0

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>Stephen King’s short story, The Gingerbread Girl, appeared in Esquire magazine in July 2007 and was published this year as one of the stories in King’s Just After Sunset collection. It has also been released as a standalone two-disc, roughly two-hour, audio book narrated by Mare Winningham, the version of the story that I recently experienced.

Emily, a young woman whose marriage has begun to fall apart after the crib death of her only baby, is the “Gingerbread Girl” of the book’s title. Searching for a way to maintain her sanity after the tragic loss of her child, she soon becomes obsessed with her daily runs, extends them to longer and longer distances and, in the process, convinces her husband that she has become mentally unstable. When a minor spat with her husband suddenly flares into something more serious, Emily hits the door and literally runs right out of her husband’s life.

Taking a page from the fairy tale Gingerbread Man’s book (“Run, run as fast as you can! You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.”), Emily depends on her legs to outrun her troubles and conflicts. She will soon learn, however, that running in the wrong direction can be more dangerous than not running at all.

Emily retreats to her father’s little beach house on Florida’s remote Vermillion Key where she is content in her aloneness and continues to add to the mileage she is capable of running. All goes well and one day she is surprised to find herself ready to invite her father to join her in the Keys for a few days. But then, despite having been warned by her only friend on the island that one of the wealthy homeowners has arrived with another of his “nieces” and that she should avoid the man, Emily lets curiosity get the best of her and practically runs into the arms of a serial killer.

At this point, The Gingerbread Girl can only hope that her legs will be able to save her from becoming the killer’s next victim. Since she is trapped on a very small island, that might not be as easy as it sounds even for a trained runner like Emily.

Mare Winningham’s presentation helps make Emily into a comfortably believable character, a woman suffering terribly and unable to express that pain to anyone who might be able to help her grieve. She is by far the most complete character in the story, especially when contrasted with the man chasing her, a character that remains a stereotypical villain to the end. It could be that the limitations of the short story format kept King from more fully developing his killer, but that failure kept me from reaching the tension level that I have come to expect from a Stephen King thriller. I suspect that this one would have made a better novel than short story.

Rated at: 2.5

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=boocha01-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=0743571185&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

>With the publication of Collected Stories and Other Writings, Katherine Anne Porter, author of Ship of Fools, some twenty-six short stories, numerous essays, sketches, speeches and reviews, becomes part of the remarkable Library of America series (its 186th volume) honoring the work of America’s greatest and most important writers.

This one-volume collection, edited by Porter biographer Darlene Unrue, includes all of Porter’s short stories (including the three that Porter herself preferred to call “short novels”) and eighty nonfiction pieces, most of which have been out-of-print for years. Of particular interest among the nonfiction pieces selected for this volume by Unrue are two previously unpublished autobiographical essays written in 1933 and 1974 in which Porter discusses her early life and the influences on her writing. And, of course, readers searching for more information about Porter’s long life and career will appreciate the 21-page “Chronology” placed at the end of this 1100-page book that details her ninety-year lifetime.

Porter was often a critic of her times, but she took her criticism a step or two further by her general criticism of society and even of human nature itself. She was most certainly a keen observer of people, and some of her best stories are the often deceptively simple ones that focus on the unique relationship between husbands and wives. These are largely conversational presentations that clearly illustrate just how much is left unsaid in a marriage, stories in which real feelings are shown inside the heads of her main characters but never expressed out loud in the long conversations between husband and wife. Two particularly fine examples of this type are Porter’s “Rope” and “The Cracked Looking Glass,” both of which were included in her first short story collection, Flowering Judas and Other Stories.

Porter, born in Indian Creek, Texas, near San Antonio, had the familiarity and love for Mexico shared by so many Texans. Her earliest published short stories are set during the Mexican Revolution years between 1910 and 1920, and her nonfiction pieces include more than two dozen essays on her love for that country and what she experienced there during such a dramatic period of its history. That Porter felt as much at home in Mexico as in Texas is obvious because of the depth to which she captured these times and Mexico’s people.

The last publication of Porter’s lifetime, 1977’s “The Never-Ending Wrong,” her reaction to the famous Sacco-Vanzetti case, is perhaps one of the most powerful pieces she ever wrote. Porter, who stood with hundreds of others outside the prison while the two were executed for their crime, admits that she could not determine for herself their actual guilt or innocence. But she makes a strong argument that their trial was one of those “in which the victim was already condemned to death before the trial took place.” She likens their trial to the trials of Jesus, Joan of Arc, those tried in Salem during the infamous witchcraft trials of 1692, and those condemned to death by Stalin in his 1937 Moscow show trials.

Collected Stories and Other Writings should help solidify Katherine Anne Porter’s literary reputation for generations to come, something that was becoming more and more difficult to do because so much of her work was out-of-print prior to this publication. Darlene Unrue has placed a wide range of Porter’s best work in one volume, a book that will prove to be a must-have for Porter fans and an important book for anyone who appreciates the best short fiction produced in the twentieth century.

Rated at: 5.0

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=boocha01-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1598530291&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

With the publication of Collected Stories and Other Writings, Katherine Anne Porter, author of Ship of Fools, some twenty-six short stories, numerous essays, sketches, speeches and reviews, becomes part of the remarkable Library of America series (its 186th volume) honoring the work of America’s greatest and most important writers.

This one-volume collection, edited by Porter biographer Darlene Unrue, includes all of Porter’s short stories (including the three that Porter herself preferred to call “short novels”) and eighty nonfiction pieces, most of which have been out-of-print for years. Of particular interest among the nonfiction pieces selected for this volume by Unrue are two previously unpublished autobiographical essays written in 1933 and 1974 in which Porter discusses her early life and the influences on her writing. And, of course, readers searching for more information about Porter’s long life and career will appreciate the 21-page “Chronology” placed at the end of this 1100-page book that details her ninety-year lifetime.

Porter was often a critic of her times, but she took her criticism a step or two further by her general criticism of society and even of human nature itself. She was most certainly a keen observer of people, and some of her best stories are the often deceptively simple ones that focus on the unique relationship between husbands and wives. These are largely conversational presentations that clearly illustrate just how much is left unsaid in a marriage, stories in which real feelings are shown inside the heads of her main characters but never expressed out loud in the long conversations between husband and wife. Two particularly fine examples of this type are Porter’s “Rope” and “The Cracked Looking Glass,” both of which were included in her first short story collection, Flowering Judas and Other Stories.

Porter, born in Indian Creek, Texas, near San Antonio, had the familiarity and love for Mexico shared by so many Texans. Her earliest published short stories are set during the Mexican Revolution years between 1910 and 1920, and her nonfiction pieces include more than two dozen essays on her love for that country and what she experienced there during such a dramatic period of its history. That Porter felt as much at home in Mexico as in Texas is obvious because of the depth to which she captured these times and Mexico’s people.

The last publication of Porter’s lifetime, 1977’s “The Never-Ending Wrong,” her reaction to the famous Sacco-Vanzetti case, is perhaps one of the most powerful pieces she ever wrote. Porter, who stood with hundreds of others outside the prison while the two were executed for their crime, admits that she could not determine for herself their actual guilt or innocence. But she makes a strong argument that their trial was one of those “in which the victim was already condemned to death before the trial took place.” She likens their trial to the trials of Jesus, Joan of Arc, those tried in Salem during the infamous witchcraft trials of 1692, and those condemned to death by Stalin in his 1937 Moscow show trials.

Collected Stories and Other Writings should help solidify Katherine Anne Porter’s literary reputation for generations to come, something that was becoming more and more difficult to do because so much of her work was out-of-print prior to this publication. Darlene Unrue has placed a wide range of Porter’s best work in one volume, a book that will prove to be a must-have for Porter fans and an important book for anyone who appreciates the best short fiction produced in the twentieth century.

Rated at: 5.0

>Flowering Judas and Other Stories is a collection of Katherine Anne Porter’s twelve earliest short stories (written in the 1920s and 1930s), many of which are set in Mexico, and all of which are memorable for their realistic insights into the human condition. These stories were all included in 1965′s The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, the book that won her both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award and marked the apex of her reputation.

Several of the stories are set in Mexico during its revolutionary period from 1910 to the early 1920s, stories told largely from the points-of-view of ordinary Mexicans and American expatriates who find themselves caught up in the struggle. These include “Virgin Violetta,” “The Martyr” and the book’s first story, “ Maria Concepcion.”

“Maria Concepcion” is typical of the “Mexico stories” in the sense that the revolution serves as the backdrop for a story that does not delve into the politics of that fight. Rather, this is the story of a young Mexican peasant woman who temporarily loses her husband to an even younger woman who is willing to follow him into battle. Maria’s story is that of a woman fierce enough to reclaim what his hers when the opportunity finally offers itself, a woman so fierce that even the authorities respect her passion enough to allow her to get away with what she does.

But my favorite stories from this collection are not the Mexico stories. The ones that appeal to me the most are the deceptively simple ones that focus on the relationship between husbands and wives. These are largely conversational presentations that wonderfully illustrate how much is left unsaid between husband and wife, stories in which inner thoughts are detailed inside the heads of her characters but never expressed out loud to each other during their long conversations.

Two stories of this type particularly stand out for me: “Rope” and “The Cracked Looking Glass.” “Rope” tells of the tensions between a woman and her husband that have been exaggerated by his decision to move them deep into the country to begin a new life, one which neither of them is prepared to live in that kind of isolation. When her husband returns from town one afternoon with a long length of rope coiled on his back, she is outraged to see that he has used their almost nonexistent savings to buy something they do not need. Their conversation is revealing; what they think but do not say to each other offers the real truth in their relationship.

“The Cracked Looking Glass” explores another marriage, this one between an older man and a woman not yet prepared to settle into the lifestyle that his age demands. As in “Rope,” what these two people say to each other is only part of their story. Their real character and the truths of their marriage are not generally expressed out loud by either of them, and the reader, for a while, comes to know more about the health of that marriage than do either of the parties involved.

Katherine Anne Porter does not seem to be as appreciated today as she once was and that is a shame because, as this collection so aptly illustrates, she is one of the finest short story writers in the history of American literature.

Rated at: 4.0

Flowering Judas and Other Stories is a collection of Katherine Anne Porter’s twelve earliest short stories (written in the 1920s and 1930s), many of which are set in Mexico, and all of which are memorable for their realistic insights into the human condition. These stories were all included in 1965′s The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, the book that won her both a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award and marked the apex of her reputation.

Several of the stories are set in Mexico during its revolutionary period from 1910 to the early 1920s, stories told largely from the points-of-view of ordinary Mexicans and American expatriates who find themselves caught up in the struggle. These include “Virgin Violetta,” “The Martyr” and the book’s first story, “ Maria Concepcion.”

“Maria Concepcion” is typical of the “Mexico stories” in the sense that the revolution serves as the backdrop for a story that does not delve into the politics of that fight. Rather, this is the story of a young Mexican peasant woman who temporarily loses her husband to an even younger woman who is willing to follow him into battle. Maria’s story is that of a woman fierce enough to reclaim what his hers when the opportunity finally offers itself, a woman so fierce that even the authorities respect her passion enough to allow her to get away with what she does.

But my favorite stories from this collection are not the Mexico stories. The ones that appeal to me the most are the deceptively simple ones that focus on the relationship between husbands and wives. These are largely conversational presentations that wonderfully illustrate how much is left unsaid between husband and wife, stories in which inner thoughts are detailed inside the heads of her characters but never expressed out loud to each other during their long conversations.

Two stories of this type particularly stand out for me: “Rope” and “The Cracked Looking Glass.” “Rope” tells of the tensions between a woman and her husband that have been exaggerated by his decision to move them deep into the country to begin a new life, one which neither of them is prepared to live in that kind of isolation. When her husband returns from town one afternoon with a long length of rope coiled on his back, she is outraged to see that he has used their almost nonexistent savings to buy something they do not need. Their conversation is revealing; what they think but do not say to each other offers the real truth in their relationship.

“The Cracked Looking Glass” explores another marriage, this one between an older man and a woman not yet prepared to settle into the lifestyle that his age demands. As in “Rope,” what these two people say to each other is only part of their story. Their real character and the truths of their marriage are not generally expressed out loud by either of them, and the reader, for a while, comes to know more about the health of that marriage than do either of the parties involved.

Katherine Anne Porter does not seem to be as appreciated today as she once was and that is a shame because, as this collection so aptly illustrates, she is one of the finest short story writers in the history of American literature.

Rated at: 4.0

I find short stories to be like snapshots, quick peeks into worlds and situations I would otherwise never have experienced. The best of them have an easy rhythm that lends itself to an almost effortless reading experience and allows me to lose myself in the stories for the whole time it takes me to read their fifteen or twenty pages. But all too often these days, short story collections are similar to the CDs being produced by the major record labels: great title track, one or two other catchy tunes, plus a whole lot of filler material needed to bring the whole thing to the required twelve tracks. I am pleased to report that if Months and Seasons, the new collection from Christopher Meeks, was a music album, many of its twelve pieces would be destined for the charts – no filler here.

As suggested by the book’s title, the stories offer short looks into the lives of characters that are experiencing the various seasons of a lifetime. There are stories about children, about young singles and couples, about couples closer to middle age, and about men even closer to the ends of their lives. But whatever their age, all of these characters are coping as best they can with the problems and situations that life is throwing at them at that moment. Some of their conflicts are of the life-changing variety and others are of the everyday type similar to what most readers will have experienced for themselves at some point in their own lives. The particular beauty of this story collection is how Meeks is able to make his reader care as much about the little girl trying to get over her fear of water as for the aged writer who is about to lose a lifetime’s accumulation of memories to an out-of-control brush fire.

I find it difficult to choose a favorite Months and Seasons story from those that strike me as being exceptionally memorable. If pressed to choose just one, I would likely end up with “The Wind Just Right,” the story of a little girl who is lulled into losing her fear of water, and actually learns to swim, in the hands of a young teacher who herself learns that she is exactly the teacher this little girl needs, someone the little girl will probably remember for the rest of her life. The way that both girls gain self-confidence and the ability to trust their instincts makes this a beautiful story.

In “The Sun Is a Billiard Ball,” one of the longer stories in the book, a couple fearing they have been exposed to AIDS and a man exhibiting symptoms of a deadly cancer find their lives intersecting in a way that could have not been foreseen by any of them even a split second before it happened. The courage, love and humor of this story make it one destined to be remembered. But, because I don’t want to mislead anyone, I should note that Meeks handles humor and absurd situations as well as he handles serious topics. In fact, he opens the book with the humorous “Dracula Sinks into the Night,” about what starts out as the costume party from hell for one man but turns into an unexpected blessing for him and his wife.

There is even a “bonus track” at the end of the collection, a preview of the book that Mr. Meeks is working on now, The Brightest Moon of the Century, a novel that will, in short story form, cover thirty years in the life of its central character, Edward. “The Hand,” which closes Months and Seasons, is actually the first chapter of that new book, a chapter in which young Edward and his father are both forced to do a bit of growing up. I can’t decide whether to call “The Hand” a trailer or a teaser but its inclusion in this collection was a brilliant idea because it has left me so intrigued to learn the rest of Edward’s story that I will jump at the chance to read The Brightest Moon of the Century when it is available. Trailer, teaser and very fine short story all rolled into one, it worked well.

Rated at: 5.0

>I find short stories to be like snapshots, quick peeks into worlds and situations I would otherwise never have experienced. The best of them have an easy rhythm that lends itself to an almost effortless reading experience and allows me to lose myself in the stories for the whole time it takes me to read their fifteen or twenty pages. But all too often these days, short story collections are similar to the CDs being produced by the major record labels: great title track, one or two other catchy tunes, plus a whole lot of filler material needed to bring the whole thing to the required twelve tracks. I am pleased to report that if Months and Seasons, the new collection from Christopher Meeks, was a music album, many of its twelve pieces would be destined for the charts – no filler here.

As suggested by the book’s title, the stories offer short looks into the lives of characters that are experiencing the various seasons of a lifetime. There are stories about children, about young singles and couples, about couples closer to middle age, and about men even closer to the ends of their lives. But whatever their age, all of these characters are coping as best they can with the problems and situations that life is throwing at them at that moment. Some of their conflicts are of the life-changing variety and others are of the everyday type similar to what most readers will have experienced for themselves at some point in their own lives. The particular beauty of this story collection is how Meeks is able to make his reader care as much about the little girl trying to get over her fear of water as for the aged writer who is about to lose a lifetime’s accumulation of memories to an out-of-control brush fire.

I find it difficult to choose a favorite Months and Seasons story from those that strike me as being exceptionally memorable. If pressed to choose just one, I would likely end up with “The Wind Just Right,” the story of a little girl who is lulled into losing her fear of water, and actually learns to swim, in the hands of a young teacher who herself learns that she is exactly the teacher this little girl needs, someone the little girl will probably remember for the rest of her life. The way that both girls gain self-confidence and the ability to trust their instincts makes this a beautiful story.

In “The Sun Is a Billiard Ball,” one of the longer stories in the book, a couple fearing they have been exposed to AIDS and a man exhibiting symptoms of a deadly cancer find their lives intersecting in a way that could have not been foreseen by any of them even a split second before it happened. The courage, love and humor of this story make it one destined to be remembered. But, because I don’t want to mislead anyone, I should note that Meeks handles humor and absurd situations as well as he handles serious topics. In fact, he opens the book with the humorous “Dracula Sinks into the Night,” about what starts out as the costume party from hell for one man but turns into an unexpected blessing for him and his wife.

There is even a “bonus track” at the end of the collection, a preview of the book that Mr. Meeks is working on now, The Brightest Moon of the Century, a novel that will, in short story form, cover thirty years in the life of its central character, Edward. “The Hand,” which closes Months and Seasons, is actually the first chapter of that new book, a chapter in which young Edward and his father are both forced to do a bit of growing up. I can’t decide whether to call “The Hand” a trailer or a teaser but its inclusion in this collection was a brilliant idea because it has left me so intrigued to learn the rest of Edward’s story that I will jump at the chance to read The Brightest Moon of the Century when it is available. Trailer, teaser and very fine short story all rolled into one, it worked well.

Rated at: 5.0

“Martin Misunderstood” is my first exposure to Karen Slaughter’s writing so I came to this audio CD not knowing what to expect as to her writing style and tone. Slaughter is certainly a popular author, having appeared on the New York Times bestseller list and having been successfully published in 26 different languages, so I expected at the very least, to be entertained for a couple of hours as I drove between Houston and northwestern Kentucky.

And, for the most part, I was.

Martin Reed, a grossly overweight schmuck who would probably be unattractive even if his weight was under control, lives with his witch of a mother and is still being tormented by some of the same people who made him miserable in high school. He holds a senior accounting job with Southern Toilet Supply but is such a wimp that even the company’s worst employees mouth off to him with no fear of reprisal. Simply put, the man is a mess. He has no friends, especially female friends, suffers constant verbal abuse from his mother, and his only escape is to lose himself in the countless mysteries, thrillers, and sci-fi novels he reads on a continuous basis.

When some of Martin’s co-workers become victims of a gruesome murderer, and blood is found on the bumper of his car, others in the office seem almost eager to help the police pin the murders on him. And for lots of weirdly personal reasons, Martin seems almost content to let it happen even if he winds up on Death Row as a result.

“Martin Misunderstood” is a jarring combination of comedy and violence, something by itself that would probably earn it an “R” rating, so parents of young children should be warned to listen to this one without the kids around. The “F-word” makes an appearance or two, the sex scenes tend to be extremely graphic (and, on occasion, borderline disgusting), and the murders are detailed in all of their gruesome glory.

Wayne Knight, of Seinfeld fame, does the reading of the story in a largely straight-ahead fashion, not making much of an effort to give each of the characters a distinct voice or accent. For example, the voice and accent that Knight uses for Martin is almost exactly the same one that he uses for the female police officer trying to prove that he is a killer. Those who prefer that their audio books be “read” rather than “acted” will likely appreciate Knight’s approach, but those who prefer more of a “presentation” than a “reading” might be a little disappointed.

“Martin Misunderstood” is interesting enough that I will probably take a look at Karin Slaughter’s books next time I visit a bookstore…might even buy one if they aren’t all along the lines of “Martin Misunderstood.” I’m not ready for a steady diet of guys like Martin Reed.

Rated at: 3.0

“Martin Misunderstood” is my first exposure to Karen Slaughter’s writing so I came to this audio CD not knowing what to expect as to her writing style and tone. Slaughter is certainly a popular author, having appeared on the New York Times bestseller list and having been successfully published in 26 different languages, so I expected at the very least, to be entertained for a couple of hours as I drove between Houston and northwestern Kentucky.

And, for the most part, I was.

Martin Reed, a grossly overweight schmuck who would probably be unattractive even if his weight was under control, lives with his witch of a mother and is still being tormented by some of the same people who made him miserable in high school. He holds a senior accounting job with Southern Toilet Supply but is such a wimp that even the company’s worst employees mouth off to him with no fear of reprisal. Simply put, the man is a mess. He has no friends, especially female friends, suffers constant verbal abuse from his mother, and his only escape is to lose himself in the countless mysteries, thrillers, and sci-fi novels he reads on a continuous basis.

When some of Martin’s co-workers become victims of a gruesome murderer, and blood is found on the bumper of his car, others in the office seem almost eager to help the police pin the murders on him. And for lots of weirdly personal reasons, Martin seems almost content to let it happen even if he winds up on Death Row as a result.

“Martin Misunderstood” is a jarring combination of comedy and violence, something by itself that would probably earn it an “R” rating, so parents of young children should be warned to listen to this one without the kids around. The “F-word” makes an appearance or two, the sex scenes tend to be extremely graphic (and, on occasion, borderline disgusting), and the murders are detailed in all of their gruesome glory.

Wayne Knight, of Seinfeld fame, does the reading of the story in a largely straight-ahead fashion, not making much of an effort to give each of the characters a distinct voice or accent. For example, the voice and accent that Knight uses for Martin is almost exactly the same one that he uses for the female police officer trying to prove that he is a killer. Those who prefer that their audio books be “read” rather than “acted” will likely appreciate Knight’s approach, but those who prefer more of a “presentation” than a “reading” might be a little disappointed.

“Martin Misunderstood” is interesting enough that I will probably take a look at Karin Slaughter’s books next time I visit a bookstore…might even buy one if they aren’t all along the lines of “Martin Misunderstood.” I’m not ready for a steady diet of guys like Martin Reed.

Rated at: 3.0

>
“Martin Misunderstood” is my first exposure to Karen Slaughter’s writing so I came to this audio CD not knowing what to expect as to her writing style and tone. Slaughter is certainly a popular author, having appeared on the New York Times bestseller list and having been successfully published in 26 different languages, so I expected at the very least, to be entertained for a couple of hours as I drove between Houston and northwestern Kentucky.

And, for the most part, I was.

Martin Reed, a grossly overweight schmuck who would probably be unattractive even if his weight was under control, lives with his witch of a mother and is still being tormented by some of the same people who made him miserable in high school. He holds a senior accounting job with Southern Toilet Supply but is such a wimp that even the company’s worst employees mouth off to him with no fear of reprisal. Simply put, the man is a mess. He has no friends, especially female friends, suffers constant verbal abuse from his mother, and his only escape is to lose himself in the countless mysteries, thrillers, and sci-fi novels he reads on a continuous basis.

When some of Martin’s co-workers become victims of a gruesome murderer, and blood is found on the bumper of his car, others in the office seem almost eager to help the police pin the murders on him. And for lots of weirdly personal reasons, Martin seems almost content to let it happen even if he winds up on Death Row as a result.

“Martin Misunderstood” is a jarring combination of comedy and violence, something by itself that would probably earn it an “R” rating, so parents of young children should be warned to listen to this one without the kids around. The “F-word” makes an appearance or two, the sex scenes tend to be extremely graphic (and, on occasion, borderline disgusting), and the murders are detailed in all of their gruesome glory.

Wayne Knight, of Seinfeld fame, does the reading of the story in a largely straight-ahead fashion, not making much of an effort to give each of the characters a distinct voice or accent. For example, the voice and accent that Knight uses for Martin is almost exactly the same one that he uses for the female police officer trying to prove that he is a killer. Those who prefer that their audio books be “read” rather than “acted” will likely appreciate Knight’s approach, but those who prefer more of a “presentation” than a “reading” might be a little disappointed.

“Martin Misunderstood” is interesting enough that I will probably take a look at Karin Slaughter’s books next time I visit a bookstore…might even buy one if they aren’t all along the lines of “Martin Misunderstood.” I’m not ready for a steady diet of guys like Martin Reed.

Rated at: 3.0

Wild Nights, the latest from Joyce Carol Oates, is a collection of five longish short-stories, each of which fantasizes about the end days of one of America’s best known and most respected writers. As indicated by the book’s complete title, there are stories about Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemmingway, in that order. And strangely enough, at least to me, the stories seem to have been ordered in such a way that each tops the previous one in degree of sadness the reader will feel on behalf of the author being featured.

Edgar Allan Poe, grateful for having been given the job of lighthouse keeper on Vina de Mar and looking forward to the complete isolation promised by his employer, comes to find that sanity is not an easy thing to hold onto when one’s only companion is an independent little dog. Emily Dickinson’s end days, as envisioned by author Oates, come in the twenty-first century, not in the nineteenth, and are bought and paid for by a couple who decide to make their home more intellectually interesting by purchasing a robotic replicate of Dickinson’s talents, emotions, and memories. The very fact that “Dickinson” would face similar end days numerous times in different homes marks the story as an even greater tragedy than the one faced by Poe.

Next comes the story of Sam Clemens, forced to “perform” as the character Mark Twain in order to make a living because his royalties will not sustain his lifestyle any longer, and desperately unhappy since the deaths of his favorite daughter and his wife. His only comfort is the friendships he so desperately seeks with little girls between the ages of ten and fifteen, something that drives his daughter Clara crazy and that, even in early twentieth century America, had to be a little suspect. This story is more realistic than the first two and it more directly reflects the actual lifestyle of its subject, rating it an even higher notch on the “sadness meter,” as a result.

But things get worse because of the way that Henry James, up next, has his days as a London hospital volunteer during World War I so bleakly imagined by Oates. Himself desperately suffering from a heart condition that made physical work dangerous, James, when not debasing himself allows another to do it for him in a most shocking way, a scene that will stick in my mind longer than I really want it to (and, no, it is not the one between James and his favorite male patient).

Ernest Hemingway is saved for last and, although his final days are more familiar to most readers than those of the other four authors, his story seems saddest of all. Oates manages to place the reader into Hemingway’s mind in such a way that his ultimate suicide seems almost justifiable due to the man’s inability to face the loss of both his physical and his mental powers. It is heartbreaking to see this lion of a man go down with only the slightest of whimpers.

Wild Nights is one of those rare collections of which I will easily remember each of its stories for a long time to come. Joyce Carol Oates has, in a sense, “humanized” each of her subjects by emphasizing their weaknesses, the same weaknesses that, in combination with their particular strengths, made these writers the geniuses they were. Each of her stories mimics the writing style of the author being featured, part of the fun, and yet, part of the sadness that blankets the entire book. I’m not sure what motivated this particular book, nor what Ms. Oates hoped to accomplish by writing it, and I hesitate to recommend it to others because I don’t know how other readers will react to the extreme “realism” at its heart. Those afraid to have the images they carry of these authors in their heads changed might best avoid the book because change they certainly will. But those willing to take a chance on it will likely find it to be a book they will always remember in great detail.

This one won’t cheer you up, but I guarantee you that this time next year you won’t have a hard time remembering what it was about.

Rated at: 5.0

Wild Nights, the latest from Joyce Carol Oates, is a collection of five longish short-stories, each of which fantasizes about the end days of one of America’s best known and most respected writers. As indicated by the book’s complete title, there are stories about Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemmingway, in that order. And strangely enough, at least to me, the stories seem to have been ordered in such a way that each tops the previous one in degree of sadness the reader will feel on behalf of the author being featured.

Edgar Allan Poe, grateful for having been given the job of lighthouse keeper on Vina de Mar and looking forward to the complete isolation promised by his employer, comes to find that sanity is not an easy thing to hold onto when one’s only companion is an independent little dog. Emily Dickinson’s end days, as envisioned by author Oates, come in the twenty-first century, not in the nineteenth, and are bought and paid for by a couple who decide to make their home more intellectually interesting by purchasing a robotic replicate of Dickinson’s talents, emotions, and memories. The very fact that “Dickinson” would face similar end days numerous times in different homes marks the story as an even greater tragedy than the one faced by Poe.

Next comes the story of Sam Clemens, forced to “perform” as the character Mark Twain in order to make a living because his royalties will not sustain his lifestyle any longer, and desperately unhappy since the deaths of his favorite daughter and his wife. His only comfort is the friendships he so desperately seeks with little girls between the ages of ten and fifteen, something that drives his daughter Clara crazy and that, even in early twentieth century America, had to be a little suspect. This story is more realistic than the first two and it more directly reflects the actual lifestyle of its subject, rating it an even higher notch on the “sadness meter,” as a result.

But things get worse because of the way that Henry James, up next, has his days as a London hospital volunteer during World War I so bleakly imagined by Oates. Himself desperately suffering from a heart condition that made physical work dangerous, James, when not debasing himself allows another to do it for him in a most shocking way, a scene that will stick in my mind longer than I really want it to (and, no, it is not the one between James and his favorite male patient).

Ernest Hemingway is saved for last and, although his final days are more familiar to most readers than those of the other four authors, his story seems saddest of all. Oates manages to place the reader into Hemingway’s mind in such a way that his ultimate suicide seems almost justifiable due to the man’s inability to face the loss of both his physical and his mental powers. It is heartbreaking to see this lion of a man go down with only the slightest of whimpers.

Wild Nights is one of those rare collections of which I will easily remember each of its stories for a long time to come. Joyce Carol Oates has, in a sense, “humanized” each of her subjects by emphasizing their weaknesses, the same weaknesses that, in combination with their particular strengths, made these writers the geniuses they were. Each of her stories mimics the writing style of the author being featured, part of the fun, and yet, part of the sadness that blankets the entire book. I’m not sure what motivated this particular book, nor what Ms. Oates hoped to accomplish by writing it, and I hesitate to recommend it to others because I don’t know how other readers will react to the extreme “realism” at its heart. Those afraid to have the images they carry of these authors in their heads changed might best avoid the book because change they certainly will. But those willing to take a chance on it will likely find it to be a book they will always remember in great detail.

This one won’t cheer you up, but I guarantee you that this time next year you won’t have a hard time remembering what it was about.

Rated at: 5.0

>Wild Nights, the latest from Joyce Carol Oates, is a collection of five longish short-stories, each of which fantasizes about the end days of one of America’s best known and most respected writers. As indicated by the book’s complete title, there are stories about Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James, and Hemmingway, in that order. And strangely enough, at least to me, the stories seem to have been ordered in such a way that each tops the previous one in degree of sadness the reader will feel on behalf of the author being featured.

Edgar Allan Poe, grateful for having been given the job of lighthouse keeper on Vina de Mar and looking forward to the complete isolation promised by his employer, comes to find that sanity is not an easy thing to hold onto when one’s only companion is an independent little dog. Emily Dickinson’s end days, as envisioned by author Oates, come in the twenty-first century, not in the nineteenth, and are bought and paid for by a couple who decide to make their home more intellectually interesting by purchasing a robotic replicate of Dickinson’s talents, emotions, and memories. The very fact that “Dickinson” would face similar end days numerous times in different homes marks the story as an even greater tragedy than the one faced by Poe.

Next comes the story of Sam Clemens, forced to “perform” as the character Mark Twain in order to make a living because his royalties will not sustain his lifestyle any longer, and desperately unhappy since the deaths of his favorite daughter and his wife. His only comfort is the friendships he so desperately seeks with little girls between the ages of ten and fifteen, something that drives his daughter Clara crazy and that, even in early twentieth century America, had to be a little suspect. This story is more realistic than the first two and it more directly reflects the actual lifestyle of its subject, rating it an even higher notch on the “sadness meter,” as a result.

But things get worse because of the way that Henry James, up next, has his days as a London hospital volunteer during World War I so bleakly imagined by Oates. Himself desperately suffering from a heart condition that made physical work dangerous, James, when not debasing himself allows another to do it for him in a most shocking way, a scene that will stick in my mind longer than I really want it to (and, no, it is not the one between James and his favorite male patient).

Ernest Hemingway is saved for last and, although his final days are more familiar to most readers than those of the other four authors, his story seems saddest of all. Oates manages to place the reader into Hemingway’s mind in such a way that his ultimate suicide seems almost justifiable due to the man’s inability to face the loss of both his physical and his mental powers. It is heartbreaking to see this lion of a man go down with only the slightest of whimpers.

Wild Nights is one of those rare collections of which I will easily remember each of its stories for a long time to come. Joyce Carol Oates has, in a sense, “humanized” each of her subjects by emphasizing their weaknesses, the same weaknesses that, in combination with their particular strengths, made these writers the geniuses they were. Each of her stories mimics the writing style of the author being featured, part of the fun, and yet, part of the sadness that blankets the entire book. I’m not sure what motivated this particular book, nor what Ms. Oates hoped to accomplish by writing it, and I hesitate to recommend it to others because I don’t know how other readers will react to the extreme “realism” at its heart. Those afraid to have the images they carry of these authors in their heads changed might best avoid the book because change they certainly will. But those willing to take a chance on it will likely find it to be a book they will always remember in great detail.

This one won’t cheer you up, but I guarantee you that this time next year you won’t have a hard time remembering what it was about.

Rated at: 5.0

I reviewed A Guitar and a Pen back on April 28 and I well remember the short story that is causing author Robert Hicks a few problems this week. It was one called “He Always Knew Who He Was” and featured a real life visit that Bluegrass music originator Bill Monroe made to the White House. The story was attributed to country music journalist Hazel Smith who has now come forward to say that she did not write the piece. Robert Hicks admits to having ghost written the story and is apologizing for some apparent inaccuracies contained in it according to the Country Hound website.

The story is presented as a true account, first-person narrative in which Smith accompanied Bluegrass great Bill Monroe on a trip to the White House. Monroe performed and received an honor from former President Bill Clinton. Smith maintains she was not present for the event, and that the only person who was with Monroe on the trip was his agent, Tony Conway.

Conway argues the story itself is incorrect. The trip Monroe took as described in “He Always Knew Who He Was” actually took place in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was President. In today’s Tennessean.com story, Conway said, “I think this guy (Hicks) had heard the story at some point in his life and just kind of embellished it from there. He might have heard it four or five times from different sources, but he got the story wrong.”

Hicks and his publisher, Center Street, will make corrections to future printings of the book and current electronic copies. Said Hicks, “I regret it and I take full responsibility for it. It turns out that the story’s point of view isn’t correct. It’s a story I have told personally for many years, and I was wrong.”

Either way, it has the makings of a fine tale.

I reviewed A Guitar and a Pen back on April 28 and I well remember the short story that is causing author Robert Hicks a few problems this week. It was one called “He Always Knew Who He Was” and featured a real life visit that Bluegrass music originator Bill Monroe made to the White House. The story was attributed to country music journalist Hazel Smith who has now come forward to say that she did not write the piece. Robert Hicks admits to having ghost written the story and is apologizing for some apparent inaccuracies contained in it according to the Country Hound website.

The story is presented as a true account, first-person narrative in which Smith accompanied Bluegrass great Bill Monroe on a trip to the White House. Monroe performed and received an honor from former President Bill Clinton. Smith maintains she was not present for the event, and that the only person who was with Monroe on the trip was his agent, Tony Conway.

Conway argues the story itself is incorrect. The trip Monroe took as described in “He Always Knew Who He Was” actually took place in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was President. In today’s Tennessean.com story, Conway said, “I think this guy (Hicks) had heard the story at some point in his life and just kind of embellished it from there. He might have heard it four or five times from different sources, but he got the story wrong.”

Hicks and his publisher, Center Street, will make corrections to future printings of the book and current electronic copies. Said Hicks, “I regret it and I take full responsibility for it. It turns out that the story’s point of view isn’t correct. It’s a story I have told personally for many years, and I was wrong.”

Either way, it has the makings of a fine tale.

>I reviewed A Guitar and a Pen back on April 28 and I well remember the short story that is causing author Robert Hicks a few problems this week. It was one called “He Always Knew Who He Was” and featured a real life visit that Bluegrass music originator Bill Monroe made to the White House. The story was attributed to country music journalist Hazel Smith who has now come forward to say that she did not write the piece. Robert Hicks admits to having ghost written the story and is apologizing for some apparent inaccuracies contained in it according to the Country Hound website.

The story is presented as a true account, first-person narrative in which Smith accompanied Bluegrass great Bill Monroe on a trip to the White House. Monroe performed and received an honor from former President Bill Clinton. Smith maintains she was not present for the event, and that the only person who was with Monroe on the trip was his agent, Tony Conway.

Conway argues the story itself is incorrect. The trip Monroe took as described in “He Always Knew Who He Was” actually took place in the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was President. In today’s Tennessean.com story, Conway said, “I think this guy (Hicks) had heard the story at some point in his life and just kind of embellished it from there. He might have heard it four or five times from different sources, but he got the story wrong.”

Hicks and his publisher, Center Street, will make corrections to future printings of the book and current electronic copies. Said Hicks, “I regret it and I take full responsibility for it. It turns out that the story’s point of view isn’t correct. It’s a story I have told personally for many years, and I was wrong.”

Either way, it has the makings of a fine tale.

As a decades-long fan of country music, I can vouch for Vince Gill when he says in his foreword to A Guitar and a Pen, “…some of the greatest songwriters around are also some of the best storytellers.” Heck, whole movies can be, and have been, made from a three-minute country song without requiring much of a rewrite. Now, finally, with A Guitar and a Pen, arrives a collection of short stories from a group of songwriters responsible for some of the biggest hits and, much more importantly, some of the best songs, to come out of Nashville in the history of country music.

The collection includes stories from Tom T. Hall, Kris Kristofferson, Bobby Braddock, Hal Ketchum, Janis Ian, Mark D. Sanders, Robbie Fulks, Marshall Chapman and Charlie Daniels, among others.

The twenty-five stories encompass a wide range of themes and writing styles. Among them are exaggerated tales of humor; stories of good love gone bad; some about growing up poor, or just growing up; one about the old West; some offering insights into the life of a songwriter; a few about early influences of musicians; even one about terrorism. I won’t claim that all of the stories worked for me, but this collection did have one of the better “hit” to “miss” ratios of any short story collection I’ve read in a while.

Among my favorites is Bob McDill’s “The Care and Treatment of Camp Cooks,” a story about a hunting club’s temperamental, but extremely talented, camp cook who goes on strike after one of the club members mistakenly offers an honest opinion on that evening’s meal when pressed to do so by the cook. Lesson learned by all but the cook. Another is “The Elk Hunters,” Tim Johnson’s story about a Nashville songwriter’s annual return to Oregon to bow-hunt elk with his brother and father and the shocking truths he learns about his father on one of the hunts.

There are also stories like the unforgettable “Gathering Together” by Robert Hicks, the story of Aunt Willie and her unique contribution to one family’s Thanksgiving meal and Monty Powell’s “The Point,” a touching account of how a man’s retirement dreams are ruined when he returns to the scene of his best childhood memories.

But the stories I found most interesting were the ones directly related to the country music business. The collection leads off with Robbie Fulks’ frank look at what life is like for those who do music “on a lower-than-celebrity level” as part of the presentation his story narrator makes at a local high school “Career Day” event, and it ends with “Will It Ever Happen Again,” a Michael Kosser story about a one-time hugely successful songwriter who hasn’t had a hit song in ten years and who might be forced to finally give up his dream. These are perfect bookend stories for a very fine short story collection.

Rated at: 4.0

>As a decades-long fan of country music, I can vouch for Vince Gill when he says in his foreword to A Guitar and a Pen, “…some of the greatest songwriters around are also some of the best storytellers.” Heck, whole movies can be, and have been, made from a three-minute country song without requiring much of a rewrite. Now, finally, with A Guitar and a Pen, arrives a collection of short stories from a group of songwriters responsible for some of the biggest hits and, much more importantly, some of the best songs, to come out of Nashville in the history of country music.

The collection includes stories from Tom T. Hall, Kris Kristofferson, Bobby Braddock, Hal Ketchum, Janis Ian, Mark D. Sanders, Robbie Fulks, Marshall Chapman and Charlie Daniels, among others.

The twenty-five stories encompass a wide range of themes and writing styles. Among them are exaggerated tales of humor; stories of good love gone bad; some about growing up poor, or just growing up; one about the old West; some offering insights into the life of a songwriter; a few about early influences of musicians; even one about terrorism. I won’t claim that all of the stories worked for me, but this collection did have one of the better “hit” to “miss” ratios of any short story collection I’ve read in a while.

Among my favorites is Bob McDill’s “The Care and Treatment of Camp Cooks,” a story about a hunting club’s temperamental, but extremely talented, camp cook who goes on strike after one of the club members mistakenly offers an honest opinion on that evening’s meal when pressed to do so by the cook. Lesson learned by all but the cook. Another is “The Elk Hunters,” Tim Johnson’s story about a Nashville songwriter’s annual return to Oregon to bow-hunt elk with his brother and father and the shocking truths he learns about his father on one of the hunts.

There are also stories like the unforgettable “Gathering Together” by Robert Hicks, the story of Aunt Willie and her unique contribution to one family’s Thanksgiving meal and Monty Powell’s “The Point,” a touching account of how a man’s retirement dreams are ruined when he returns to the scene of his best childhood memories.

But the stories I found most interesting were the ones directly related to the country music business. The collection leads off with Robbie Fulks’ frank look at what life is like for those who do music “on a lower-than-celebrity level” as part of the presentation his story narrator makes at a local high school “Career Day” event, and it ends with “Will It Ever Happen Again,” a Michael Kosser story about a one-time hugely successful songwriter who hasn’t had a hit song in ten years and who might be forced to finally give up his dream. These are perfect bookend stories for a very fine short story collection.

Rated at: 4.0

As a decades-long fan of country music, I can vouch for Vince Gill when he says in his foreword to A Guitar and a Pen, “…some of the greatest songwriters around are also some of the best storytellers.” Heck, whole movies can be, and have been, made from a three-minute country song without requiring much of a rewrite. Now, finally, with A Guitar and a Pen, arrives a collection of short stories from a group of songwriters responsible for some of the biggest hits and, much more importantly, some of the best songs, to come out of Nashville in the history of country music.

The collection includes stories from Tom T. Hall, Kris Kristofferson, Bobby Braddock, Hal Ketchum, Janis Ian, Mark D. Sanders, Robbie Fulks, Marshall Chapman and Charlie Daniels, among others.

The twenty-five stories encompass a wide range of themes and writing styles. Among them are exaggerated tales of humor; stories of good love gone bad; some about growing up poor, or just growing up; one about the old West; some offering insights into the life of a songwriter; a few about early influences of musicians; even one about terrorism. I won’t claim that all of the stories worked for me, but this collection did have one of the better “hit” to “miss” ratios of any short story collection I’ve read in a while.

Among my favorites is Bob McDill’s “The Care and Treatment of Camp Cooks,” a story about a hunting club’s temperamental, but extremely talented, camp cook who goes on strike after one of the club members mistakenly offers an honest opinion on that evening’s meal when pressed to do so by the cook. Lesson learned by all but the cook. Another is “The Elk Hunters,” Tim Johnson’s story about a Nashville songwriter’s annual return to Oregon to bow-hunt elk with his brother and father and the shocking truths he learns about his father on one of the hunts.

There are also stories like the unforgettable “Gathering Together” by Robert Hicks, the story of Aunt Willie and her unique contribution to one family’s Thanksgiving meal and Monty Powell’s “The Point,” a touching account of how a man’s retirement dreams are ruined when he returns to the scene of his best childhood memories.

But the stories I found most interesting were the ones directly related to the country music business. The collection leads off with Robbie Fulks’ frank look at what life is like for those who do music “on a lower-than-celebrity level” as part of the presentation his story narrator makes at a local high school “Career Day” event, and it ends with “Will It Ever Happen Again,” a Michael Kosser story about a one-time hugely successful songwriter who hasn’t had a hit song in ten years and who might be forced to finally give up his dream. These are perfect bookend stories for a very fine short story collection.

Rated at: 4.0

When is a short story not a short story? I’ve been a big fan of Ellen Ghilchrist’s writing for several years and decided to read one of her short stories today as a change of pace from the string of Joyce Carol Oates stories I’ve been featuring…and I absolutely love the cover of The Courts of Love, so that book was an easy choice from which to choose a story. But after reading “Perhaps a Miracle” I discovered that the first 180 pages of the book are an assortment of stories featuring Nora Jane Whittington, former hippie, mother of twins, who is now returning to college.

It’s not so much that the first nine stories are about one person that makes me wonder what to call this one. It’s that these nine seem to be in chronological order and that, taken together, they tell one story. Does that make these stories into nine chapters of a novella? Did I read a short story this afternoon or chapter one of a book? All that aside, this is a good story and it does make me want to read more of the stories to see what will happen next, so Ms. Gilchrist was successful whatever the format this should be called.

“Perhaps a Miracle” is the story of a very much in love couple, parents of ten-year-old twin girls and doing quite well for themselves. But things do tend to get complicated don’t they? One evening, sensing that something is desperately wrong, Nora Jean rushes naked to the family swimming pool just in time to keep a small neighbor boy from drowning. What Nora Jean doesn’t know about her neighbor, the little boy’s grandmother, promises to complicate her life in a way she can’t even begin to imagine: the boy’s mother is living with a former lover of Nora Jean’s, a man who fathered one of the twins. I’ll bite…can’t wait to hear the conversation between Nora Jean’s husband (who has already conceded to himself that he might not be the father of the girls) and the ex-lover when/if they come face-to-face after more than ten years of not having seen each other. There’s a novel in there for sure.

>When is a short story not a short story? I’ve been a big fan of Ellen Ghilchrist’s writing for several years and decided to read one of her short stories today as a change of pace from the string of Joyce Carol Oates stories I’ve been featuring…and I absolutely love the cover of The Courts of Love, so that book was an easy choice from which to choose a story. But after reading “Perhaps a Miracle” I discovered that the first 180 pages of the book are an assortment of stories featuring Nora Jane Whittington, former hippie, mother of twins, who is now returning to college.

It’s not so much that the first nine stories are about one person that makes me wonder what to call this one. It’s that these nine seem to be in chronological order and that, taken together, they tell one story. Does that make these stories into nine chapters of a novella? Did I read a short story this afternoon or chapter one of a book? All that aside, this is a good story and it does make me want to read more of the stories to see what will happen next, so Ms. Gilchrist was successful whatever the format this should be called.

“Perhaps a Miracle” is the story of a very much in love couple, parents of ten-year-old twin girls and doing quite well for themselves. But things do tend to get complicated don’t they? One evening, sensing that something is desperately wrong, Nora Jean rushes naked to the family swimming pool just in time to keep a small neighbor boy from drowning. What Nora Jean doesn’t know about her neighbor, the little boy’s grandmother, promises to complicate her life in a way she can’t even begin to imagine: the boy’s mother is living with a former lover of Nora Jean’s, a man who fathered one of the twins. I’ll bite…can’t wait to hear the conversation between Nora Jean’s husband (who has already conceded to himself that he might not be the father of the girls) and the ex-lover when/if they come face-to-face after more than ten years of not having seen each other. There’s a novel in there for sure.

When is a short story not a short story? I’ve been a big fan of Ellen Ghilchrist’s writing for several years and decided to read one of her short stories today as a change of pace from the string of Joyce Carol Oates stories I’ve been featuring…and I absolutely love the cover of The Courts of Love, so that book was an easy choice from which to choose a story. But after reading “Perhaps a Miracle” I discovered that the first 180 pages of the book are an assortment of stories featuring Nora Jane Whittington, former hippie, mother of twins, who is now returning to college.

It’s not so much that the first nine stories are about one person that makes me wonder what to call this one. It’s that these nine seem to be in chronological order and that, taken together, they tell one story. Does that make these stories into nine chapters of a novella? Did I read a short story this afternoon or chapter one of a book? All that aside, this is a good story and it does make me want to read more of the stories to see what will happen next, so Ms. Gilchrist was successful whatever the format this should be called.

“Perhaps a Miracle” is the story of a very much in love couple, parents of ten-year-old twin girls and doing quite well for themselves. But things do tend to get complicated don’t they? One evening, sensing that something is desperately wrong, Nora Jean rushes naked to the family swimming pool just in time to keep a small neighbor boy from drowning. What Nora Jean doesn’t know about her neighbor, the little boy’s grandmother, promises to complicate her life in a way she can’t even begin to imagine: the boy’s mother is living with a former lover of Nora Jean’s, a man who fathered one of the twins. I’ll bite…can’t wait to hear the conversation between Nora Jean’s husband (who has already conceded to himself that he might not be the father of the girls) and the ex-lover when/if they come face-to-face after more than ten years of not having seen each other. There’s a novel in there for sure.

I’m starting to believe that I should just go ahead and change the title to this series of short story postings to “Joyce Carol Oates Monday” since I’ve become so hooked on a regular reading of her short work. This week I’m adding another story from her Small Avalanches collection: “Bad Girls.”

“Bad Girls” is narrated by Orchid, the middle sister of a single-parent household. She and her two sisters have local reputations as “bad girls,” although as Orchid observes that really is more a reflection on the lifestyle that their mother can afford for the four of them than on anything they have done. As she puts it, “Bad girls you could almost hear them thinking. Bad girls! some old pain-in-the-ass aunt of Momma’s once hissed at us ’cause we were doing something she didn’t like. Which is what adults mean by bad - you’re doing something they don’t like.”

Of course, the girls learned to enjoy the attention they got and they tried to “shock” the adults around them by things like nose piercing and adding purple streaks to their hair…and it worked. It made them feel alive and special despite the cynics that their mother was turning them into by bringing a succession of “losers” into their lives for weeks or months at a time.

Before long, the girls came to believe that no man was to be trusted and that their mother was humbling herself to these losers out of some desperate need of her own for love and security. They swore never to be like her and they wanted to shake her out of her complacency. Granted, their mother must be sexy they figured, but they came to equate sexiness with hypocrisy, firmly believing it impossible to be sexy without also being a hypocrite.

It is when these teenage cynics decide that they need to expose their mother’s latest boyfriend as a fraud that things get out of hand and change five lives forever. Were they really bad girls, after all? Orchid still wonders.

As is so often the case with a Joyce Carol Oates story, “Bad Girls” has been produced on stage here and in Europe. The sad little world lived in by Orchid and her sisters, and so aptly described by her in a mere thirty-five pages, is enough to give any single-parent second thoughts about haphazardly bringing strangers into the lives of children who often soak up the wrong lessons from the experience. The dangers are real and the consequences not easily foreseen.

“Bad Girls” is another memorable story from the Small Avalanches collection, a collection that I appreciate more with each story.

Rated at: 5.0

>I’m starting to believe that I should just go ahead and change the title to this series of short story postings to “Joyce Carol Oates Monday” since I’ve become so hooked on a regular reading of her short work. This week I’m adding another story from her Small Avalanches collection: “Bad Girls.”

“Bad Girls” is narrated by Orchid, the middle sister of a single-parent household. She and her two sisters have local reputations as “bad girls,” although as Orchid observes that really is more a reflection on the lifestyle that their mother can afford for the four of them than on anything they have done. As she puts it, “Bad girls you could almost hear them thinking. Bad girls! some old pain-in-the-ass aunt of Momma’s once hissed at us ’cause we were doing something she didn’t like. Which is what adults mean by bad - you’re doing something they don’t like.”

Of course, the girls learned to enjoy the attention they got and they tried to “shock” the adults around them by things like nose piercing and adding purple streaks to their hair…and it worked. It made them feel alive and special despite the cynics that their mother was turning them into by bringing a succession of “losers” into their lives for weeks or months at a time.

Before long, the girls came to believe that no man was to be trusted and that their mother was humbling herself to these losers out of some desperate need of her own for love and security. They swore never to be like her and they wanted to shake her out of her complacency. Granted, their mother must be sexy they figured, but they came to equate sexiness with hypocrisy, firmly believing it impossible to be sexy without also being a hypocrite.

It is when these teenage cynics decide that they need to expose their mother’s latest boyfriend as a fraud that things get out of hand and change five lives forever. Were they really bad girls, after all? Orchid still wonders.

As is so often the case with a Joyce Carol Oates story, “Bad Girls” has been produced on stage here and in Europe. The sad little world lived in by Orchid and her sisters, and so aptly described by her in a mere thirty-five pages, is enough to give any single-parent second thoughts about haphazardly bringing strangers into the lives of children who often soak up the wrong lessons from the experience. The dangers are real and the consequences not easily foreseen.

“Bad Girls” is another memorable story from the Small Avalanches collection, a collection that I appreciate more with each story.

Rated at: 5.0

I’m starting to believe that I should just go ahead and change the title to this series of short story postings to “Joyce Carol Oates Monday” since I’ve become so hooked on a regular reading of her short work. This week I’m adding another story from her Small Avalanches collection: “Bad Girls.”

“Bad Girls” is narrated by Orchid, the middle sister of a single-parent household. She and her two sisters have local reputations as “bad girls,” although as Orchid observes that really is more a reflection on the lifestyle that their mother can afford for the four of them than on anything they have done. As she puts it, “Bad girls you could almost hear them thinking. Bad girls! some old pain-in-the-ass aunt of Momma’s once hissed at us ’cause we were doing something she didn’t like. Which is what adults mean by bad - you’re doing something they don’t like.”

Of course, the girls learned to enjoy the attention they got and they tried to “shock” the adults around them by things like nose piercing and adding purple streaks to their hair…and it worked. It made them feel alive and special despite the cynics that their mother was turning them into by bringing a succession of “losers” into their lives for weeks or months at a time.

Before long, the girls came to believe that no man was to be trusted and that their mother was humbling herself to these losers out of some desperate need of her own for love and security. They swore never to be like her and they wanted to shake her out of her complacency. Granted, their mother must be sexy they figured, but they came to equate sexiness with hypocrisy, firmly believing it impossible to be sexy without also being a hypocrite.

It is when these teenage cynics decide that they need to expose their mother’s latest boyfriend as a fraud that things get out of hand and change five lives forever. Were they really bad girls, after all? Orchid still wonders.

As is so often the case with a Joyce Carol Oates story, “Bad Girls” has been produced on stage here and in Europe. The sad little world lived in by Orchid and her sisters, and so aptly described by her in a mere thirty-five pages, is enough to give any single-parent second thoughts about haphazardly bringing strangers into the lives of children who often soak up the wrong lessons from the experience. The dangers are real and the consequences not easily foreseen.

“Bad Girls” is another memorable story from the Small Avalanches collection, a collection that I appreciate more with each story.

Rated at: 5.0

I read two more stories from Small Avalanches this afternoon and one of those stories, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” had, I think, as big an impact on me as any story or novel I have ever read…period. It is the story of a fifteen-year-old girl, a real beauty, who is at that age where rebellion and keeping secrets from her parents are second nature, tendencies that often combine with a sense of excitement about the opposite sex to make that time one of the most dangerous that a female will ever face.

Adolescence is tough on both sexes, of course, but girls rapidly approaching womanhood, usually with the feelings and emotions of women but with the emotional maturity of girls, are particularly vulnerable to the types of dangers that can end in major catastrophe for themselves and their families.

That is the kind of story that Joyce Carol Oates tells in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been.” Connie, a young girl just starting to explore life on her own and in the company of her best friend, manages to be left alone at home for an entire Sunday while her parents and older sister attend a family barbeque. When a man she vaguely remembers seeing at a teen dining spot the night before shows up at her door, knowing everything about her and her family, she is completely unprepared to defend herself, emotionally or otherwise.

Watching this man manipulate and confuse her is like watching a snake trap and eat a little mouse. It is horrifying and fascinating at the same time. Hard as it is to watch, it feels like one of life’s lessons: the weak have to be prepared and constantly on guard if they are to survive in a world of predators only too eager to take advantage of their weakness and naiveté. Ms. Oates is sending a message, teaching a lesson, to the Young Adult readers for whom this short story collection was created. Perhaps this one had a particularly strong impact on me because I am the father of two daughters and I feel blessed that they made it through those teenage years with no real damage done. But stories like this one remind me that even the best parenting skills are no guarantee that young women will survive those dangerous years. Blind luck has to be on your side as well.

This is one story that I will be thinking about for a long, long time. I will not soon forget the young girl caught in a trap she barely recognizes, nor the creep who had so obviously used the exact same trap on others before her.

Rated at: 5.0

(About the photo) The photo is of a very young Laura Dern who has become a very fine actress. Laura made her film debut, from what I understand, in the role of “Connie” from this Oates short story which was renamed “Smooth Talk” by Hollywood. Also, from what I have read, Ms. Oates was not exactly thrilled with the ending that Hollywood tacked onto her story, completely changing the whole mood of the piece probably out of some misdirected notion that her ending may be too much for the film audience.

>I read two more stories from Small Avalanches this afternoon and one of those stories, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” had, I think, as big an impact on me as any story or novel I have ever read…period. It is the story of a fifteen-year-old girl, a real beauty, who is at that age where rebellion and keeping secrets from her parents are second nature, tendencies that often combine with a sense of excitement about the opposite sex to make that time one of the most dangerous that a female will ever face.

Adolescence is tough on both sexes, of course, but girls rapidly approaching womanhood, usually with the feelings and emotions of women but with the emotional maturity of girls, are particularly vulnerable to the types of dangers that can end in major catastrophe for themselves and their families.

That is the kind of story that Joyce Carol Oates tells in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been.” Connie, a young girl just starting to explore life on her own and in the company of her best friend, manages to be left alone at home for an entire Sunday while her parents and older sister attend a family barbeque. When a man she vaguely remembers seeing at a teen dining spot the night before shows up at her door, knowing everything about her and her family, she is completely unprepared to defend herself, emotionally or otherwise.

Watching this man manipulate and confuse her is like watching a snake trap and eat a little mouse. It is horrifying and fascinating at the same time. Hard as it is to watch, it feels like one of life’s lessons: the weak have to be prepared and constantly on guard if they are to survive in a world of predators only too eager to take advantage of their weakness and naiveté. Ms. Oates is sending a message, teaching a lesson, to the Young Adult readers for whom this short story collection was created. Perhaps this one had a particularly strong impact on me because I am the father of two daughters and I feel blessed that they made it through those teenage years with no real damage done. But stories like this one remind me that even the best parenting skills are no guarantee that young women will survive those dangerous years. Blind luck has to be on your side as well.

This is one story that I will be thinking about for a long, long time. I will not soon forget the young girl caught in a trap she barely recognizes, nor the creep who had so obviously used the exact same trap on others before her.

Rated at: 5.0

(About the photo) The photo is of a very young Laura Dern who has become a very fine actress. Laura made her film debut, from what I understand, in the role of “Connie” from this Oates short story which was renamed “Smooth Talk” by Hollywood. Also, from what I have read, Ms. Oates was not exactly thrilled with the ending that Hollywood tacked onto her story, completely changing the whole mood of the piece probably out of some misdirected notion that her ending may be too much for the film audience.

I read two more stories from Small Avalanches this afternoon and one of those stories, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been,” had, I think, as big an impact on me as any story or novel I have ever read…period. It is the story of a fifteen-year-old girl, a real beauty, who is at that age where rebellion and keeping secrets from her parents are second nature, tendencies that often combine with a sense of excitement about the opposite sex to make that time one of the most dangerous that a female will ever face.

Adolescence is tough on both sexes, of course, but girls rapidly approaching womanhood, usually with the feelings and emotions of women but with the emotional maturity of girls, are particularly vulnerable to the types of dangers that can end in major catastrophe for themselves and their families.

That is the kind of story that Joyce Carol Oates tells in “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been.” Connie, a young girl just starting to explore life on her own and in the company of her best friend, manages to be left alone at home for an entire Sunday while her parents and older sister attend a family barbeque. When a man she vaguely remembers seeing at a teen dining spot the night before shows up at her door, knowing everything about her and her family, she is completely unprepared to defend herself, emotionally or otherwise.

Watching this man manipulate and confuse her is like watching a snake trap and eat a little mouse. It is horrifying and fascinating at the same time. Hard as it is to watch, it feels like one of life’s lessons: the weak have to be prepared and constantly on guard if they are to survive in a world of predators only too eager to take advantage of their weakness and naiveté. Ms. Oates is sending a message, teaching a lesson, to the Young Adult readers for whom this short story collection was created. Perhaps this one had a particularly strong impact on me because I am the father of two daughters and I feel blessed that they made it through those teenage years with no real damage done. But stories like this one remind me that even the best parenting skills are no guarantee that young women will survive those dangerous years. Blind luck has to be on your side as well.

This is one story that I will be thinking about for a long, long time. I will not soon forget the young girl caught in a trap she barely recognizes, nor the creep who had so obviously used the exact same trap on others before her.

Rated at: 5.0

(About the photo) The photo is of a very young Laura Dern who has become a very fine actress. Laura made her film debut, from what I understand, in the role of “Connie” from this Oates short story which was renamed “Smooth Talk” by Hollywood. Also, from what I have read, Ms. Oates was not exactly thrilled with the ending that Hollywood tacked onto her story, completely changing the whole mood of the piece probably out of some misdirected notion that her ending may be too much for the film audience.

I read the title story from the Joyce Carol Oates Small Avalanches short story collection over a sandwich this noon. About two-thirds of the way through it I started to wonder if I had already read this one, and it was only on the drive home that I figured out why it gave me that impression. It is all because of a film clip based on the story that I stumbled upon on YouTube a while back. The clip is not very long but it does involve the beginning of the story’s key scene, so I’ve attached it here.

Nancy, a thirteen-year-old small-town Colorado girl is bored and desperate to find something interesting with which to occupy herself. It is on her way back home from a visit to her uncle’s service station that her life takes a strange twist when a man at least her father’s age offers her a ride home. Nancy is not the most sophisticated of young girls and she makes the mistake of responding to the man’s questions after he parks his car and begins to walk behind her.

Both Nancy and the unnamed man make decisions that lead to much more than either could have expected when Nancy recognizes a way to escape the man’s attentions.

The young actress is not much as described in the story but is very believable in this clip. I’m going to have to find the whole adaptation to see how it holds up to the original.

Story Rated at: 4.0

>I read the title story from the Joyce Carol Oates Small Avalanches short story collection over a sandwich this noon. About two-thirds of the way through it I started to wonder if I had already read this one, and it was only on the drive home that I figured out why it gave me that impression. It is all because of a film clip based on the story that I stumbled upon on YouTube a while back. The clip is not very long but it does involve the beginning of the story’s key scene, so I’ve attached it here.

Nancy, a thirteen-year-old small-town Colorado girl is bored and desperate to find something interesting with which to occupy herself. It is on her way back home from a visit to her uncle’s service station that her life takes a strange twist when a man at least her father’s age offers her a ride home. Nancy is not the most sophisticated of young girls and she makes the mistake of responding to the man’s questions after he parks his car and begins to walk behind her.

Both Nancy and the unnamed man make decisions that lead to much more than either could have expected when Nancy recognizes a way to escape the man’s attentions.

The young actress is not much as described in the story but is very believable in this clip. I’m going to have to find the whole adaptation to see how it holds up to the original.

Story Rated at: 4.0

I read the title story from the Joyce Carol Oates Small Avalanches short story collection over a sandwich this noon. About two-thirds of the way through it I started to wonder if I had already read this one, and it was only on the drive home that I figured out why it gave me that impression. It is all because of a film clip based on the story that I stumbled upon on YouTube a while back. The clip is not very long but it does involve the beginning of the story’s key scene, so I’ve attached it here.

Nancy, a thirteen-year-old small-town Colorado girl is bored and desperate to find something interesting with which to occupy herself. It is on her way back home from a visit to her uncle’s service station that her life takes a strange twist when a man at least her father’s age offers her a ride home. Nancy is not the most sophisticated of young girls and she makes the mistake of responding to the man’s questions after he parks his car and begins to walk behind her.

Both Nancy and the unnamed man make decisions that lead to much more than either could have expected when Nancy recognizes a way to escape the man’s attentions.

The young actress is not much as described in the story but is very believable in this clip. I’m going to have to find the whole adaptation to see how it holds up to the original.

Story Rated at: 4.0

“Haunted” is a short story that appears in at least two different Joyce Carol Oates short story collections. I read it this afternoon from 2003’s “Small Avalanches and other stories,” a collection that seems to be aimed at the Young Adult market since all of the stories “visit the dark psyche of the teenage years.” But Ms. Oates used the same story to kick-off her 1994 collection entitled “Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque,” a typically dark collection of her work.

“Haunted” is the story of two girls, sometimes friends, sometimes not, who grew up together on nearby farms during a time when farms were failing all around them. In fact, since both of them were in no small part tomboyish, the two spent a good deal of their free time exploring the abandoned farmhouses that neighbored their own. Despite the warnings of their parents to stay away from the falling down old houses and barns and their abandoned wells, and the rumor that many of the old places were haunted by the ghosts of previous owners, the two girls liked nothing better than to explore them.

Oates paints the picture of what seems to be a normal rural childhood, one in which the farm kids are bused to town for schooling and where the “townies” become the natural elite whose favor is courted by those from the country. Nothing could be more natural than that the two girls begin to drift apart as they enter their middle school years and one starts to be recognized for a natural beauty and sex appeal that the other does not have. About the only thing that the two still have in common, as one is drawn more and more into the orbit of the town kids, is their love for exploring the old home places, even the one where a bloody murder-suicide took place years earlier.

But even when things seem perfectly normal, Oates is building the reader’s suspicion that the story will not end well for the girls, throwing little hints, one-sentence flashbacks, and a change of perspective from a teenaged narrator to somber narration by that same person some decades later. Despite the numerous clues and disclosures provided by Oates, this one still reads like a train wreck that one can see coming from a mile up the tracks: it feels inevitable, but is still a shock.

Rated at: 4.0

>“Haunted” is a short story that appears in at least two different Joyce Carol Oates short story collections. I read it this afternoon from 2003’s “Small Avalanches and other stories,” a collection that seems to be aimed at the Young Adult market since all of the stories “visit the dark psyche of the teenage years.” But Ms. Oates used the same story to kick-off her 1994 collection entitled “Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque,” a typically dark collection of her work.

“Haunted” is the story of two girls, sometimes friends, sometimes not, who grew up together on nearby farms during a time when farms were failing all around them. In fact, since both of them were in no small part tomboyish, the two spent a good deal of their free time exploring the abandoned farmhouses that neighbored their own. Despite the warnings of their parents to stay away from the falling down old houses and barns and their abandoned wells, and the rumor that many of the old places were haunted by the ghosts of previous owners, the two girls liked nothing better than to explore them.

Oates paints the picture of what seems to be a normal rural childhood, one in which the farm kids are bused to town for schooling and where the “townies” become the natural elite whose favor is courted by those from the country. Nothing could be more natural than that the two girls begin to drift apart as they enter their middle school years and one starts to be recognized for a natural beauty and sex appeal that the other does not have. About the only thing that the two still have in common, as one is drawn more and more into the orbit of the town kids, is their love for exploring the old home places, even the one where a bloody murder-suicide took place years earlier.

But even when things seem perfectly normal, Oates is building the reader’s suspicion that the story will not end well for the girls, throwing little hints, one-sentence flashbacks, and a change of perspective from a teenaged narrator to somber narration by that same person some decades later. Despite the numerous clues and disclosures provided by Oates, this one still reads like a train wreck that one can see coming from a mile up the tracks: it feels inevitable, but is still a shock.

Rated at: 4.0

“Haunted” is a short story that appears in at least two different Joyce Carol Oates short story collections. I read it this afternoon from 2003’s “Small Avalanches and other stories,” a collection that seems to be aimed at the Young Adult market since all of the stories “visit the dark psyche of the teenage years.” But Ms. Oates used the same story to kick-off her 1994 collection entitled “Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque,” a typically dark collection of her work.

“Haunted” is the story of two girls, sometimes friends, sometimes not, who grew up together on nearby farms during a time when farms were failing all around them. In fact, since both of them were in no small part tomboyish, the two spent a good deal of their free time exploring the abandoned farmhouses that neighbored their own. Despite the warnings of their parents to stay away from the falling down old houses and barns and their abandoned wells, and the rumor that many of the old places were haunted by the ghosts of previous owners, the two girls liked nothing better than to explore them.

Oates paints the picture of what seems to be a normal rural childhood, one in which the farm kids are bused to town for schooling and where the “townies” become the natural elite whose favor is courted by those from the country. Nothing could be more natural than that the two girls begin to drift apart as they enter their middle school years and one starts to be recognized for a natural beauty and sex appeal that the other does not have. About the only thing that the two still have in common, as one is drawn more and more into the orbit of the town kids, is their love for exploring the old home places, even the one where a bloody murder-suicide took place years earlier.

But even when things seem perfectly normal, Oates is building the reader’s suspicion that the story will not end well for the girls, throwing little hints, one-sentence flashbacks, and a change of perspective from a teenaged narrator to somber narration by that same person some decades later. Despite the numerous clues and disclosures provided by Oates, this one still reads like a train wreck that one can see coming from a mile up the tracks: it feels inevitable, but is still a shock.

Rated at: 4.0

Everyone should have an “outside interest,” some activity or interest apart from their normal routine to keep them alert and enthusiastic about their lives, even more than one if they have the time. Everybody needs a hobby, right? Well, as Ruth Rendell points out in her short story, “An Outside Interest,” there are hobbies and then there are hobbies.

The unnamed narrator of Rendell’s story is a pretty ordinary guy, married, living paycheck-to-paycheck, and doing his bit to provide for his wife and son. But he’s unable to provide housing that his wife feels is safe enough for her to walk the neighborhood alone so she expects him to walk her to and from her errands. That is probably what gave him the idea for a new outside interest of his own.

The more he heard the horror stories told by his wife and her friends, the more powerful he felt and the more thankful that he was male. When he accidentally frightened a lone female walker one evening, the burst of excitement that he felt hooked him on his new interest and he began to regularly seek out lone women as targets of intimidation. Rendell does her usual worthy job of placing the reader right inside the head of even a deviant like this one, and the man’s rationalizations for his behavior almost start to make a perverted sort of sense as he repeats them to himself over and over.

But, of course, all good things must end and this is no exception. Rendell slowly builds the story’s suspense as her “stalker” becomes ever bolder in his confrontations and the reader’s sense of dread becomes stronger and stronger. Unfortunately, the ending is rather predictable, one that I could see coming about two-thirds of the way through the story, and detracts from its overall impact. This is not one of Ruth Rendell’s stronger efforts.

From the Ruth Rendell short story collection called The Fever Tree

Rated at: 2.5

Everyone should have an “outside interest,” some activity or interest apart from their normal routine to keep them alert and enthusiastic about their lives, even more than one if they have the time. Everybody needs a hobby, right? Well, as Ruth Rendell points out in her short story, “An Outside Interest,” there are hobbies and then there are hobbies.

The unnamed narrator of Rendell’s story is a pretty ordinary guy, married, living paycheck-to-paycheck, and doing his bit to provide for his wife and son. But he’s unable to provide housing that his wife feels is safe enough for her to walk the neighborhood alone so she expects him to walk her to and from her errands. That is probably what gave him the idea for a new outside interest of his own.

The more he heard the horror stories told by his wife and her friends, the more powerful he felt and the more thankful that he was male. When he accidentally frightened a lone female walker one evening, the burst of excitement that he felt hooked him on his new interest and he began to regularly seek out lone women as targets of intimidation. Rendell does her usual worthy job of placing the reader right inside the head of even a deviant like this one, and the man’s rationalizations for his behavior almost start to make a perverted sort of sense as he repeats them to himself over and over.

But, of course, all good things must end and this is no exception. Rendell slowly builds the story’s suspense as her “stalker” becomes ever bolder in his confrontations and the reader’s sense of dread becomes stronger and stronger. Unfortunately, the ending is rather predictable, one that I could see coming about two-thirds of the way through the story, and detracts from its overall impact. This is not one of Ruth Rendell’s stronger efforts.

From the Ruth Rendell short story collection called The Fever Tree

Rated at: 2.5

>Everyone should have an “outside interest,” some activity or interest apart from their normal routine to keep them alert and enthusiastic about their lives, even more than one if they have the time. Everybody needs a hobby, right? Well, as Ruth Rendell points out in her short story, “An Outside Interest,” there are hobbies and then there are hobbies.

The unnamed narrator of Rendell’s story is a pretty ordinary guy, married, living paycheck-to-paycheck, and doing his bit to provide for his wife and son. But he’s unable to provide housing that his wife feels is safe enough for her to walk the neighborhood alone so she expects him to walk her to and from her errands. That is probably what gave him the idea for a new outside interest of his own.

The more he heard the horror stories told by his wife and her friends, the more powerful he felt and the more thankful that he was male. When he accidentally frightened a lone female walker one evening, the burst of excitement that he felt hooked him on his new interest and he began to regularly seek out lone women as targets of intimidation. Rendell does her usual worthy job of placing the reader right inside the head of even a deviant like this one, and the man’s rationalizations for his behavior almost start to make a perverted sort of sense as he repeats them to himself over and over.

But, of course, all good things must end and this is no exception. Rendell slowly builds the story’s suspense as her “stalker” becomes ever bolder in his confrontations and the reader’s sense of dread becomes stronger and stronger. Unfortunately, the ending is rather predictable, one that I could see coming about two-thirds of the way through the story, and detracts from its overall impact. This is not one of Ruth Rendell’s stronger efforts.

From the Ruth Rendell short story collection called The Fever Tree

Rated at: 2.5

I’ve been a fan of Ruth Rendell’s novels for years and have read more than two dozen of them, including standalones, those featuring Inspector Wexford, and others penned as Barbara Vine. She seldom disappoints me but for some reason I can’t recall ever reading any of her short stories despite having many of them on my shelves. So, during my lunch break this afternoon, I picked up my copy of her Collected Stories and read one called “Front Seat” that was originally published as part of her The Fever Tree collection.

“Front Seat” is very much a Ruth Rendell story despite its length of just a dozen pages. Rendell specializes in building very believable characters, not all of them very likable or mentally healthy, as the basis for her stories of ordinary people who find themselves involved in crime either as victim or perpetrator. “Front Seat” is a little different in that the crime in question is some fifty years old when it strikes the interest of one Cecily Branksome, a woman on holiday with her husband at one of England’s communities on the sea that can be very uncomfortable and boring even in the middle of July.

Cecily’s personality can be trying even in the best of times but, when the wind and rain drives her indoors with nothing better to do then snoop into the doings of the locals, she does manage to make the acquaintance of a local hustler who feels that she and her husband might provide a little free food and drink for a few days. Cecily was intrigued by the commemorative inscription on one of the benches facing the sea because it indicated that it had been donated by a local man once accused of murder but who had been acquitted of the crime. Cecily’s new friend, the local “barfly,” was more than willing to fill in the details of the old case for her and to show her where everything had happened.

Never for a minute doubting her ability to solve a crime that the police had failed to sort out years earlier, Cecily researched the details for herself and began to look up the few remaining locals who might have some memory of the affair. Using perfectly sound logic, she solves the case and notifies the proper authorities so that the culprit can be arrested and made to pay. Or did she?

This is one of those stories with a nice little twist thrown in at the very end. At times that technique can be frustrating because writers sometimes do not play fair and fail to leave adequate clues with which the reader might have figured out the twist beforehand. I can’t claim to have seen this one coming, but a quick scan of the story’s earlier pages convinces me that I probably should have. I like that.

Rated at: 4.0

I’ve been a fan of Ruth Rendell’s novels for years and have read more than two dozen of them, including standalones, those featuring Inspector Wexford, and others penned as Barbara Vine. She seldom disappoints me but for some reason I can’t recall ever reading any of her short stories despite having many of them on my shelves. So, during my lunch break this afternoon, I picked up my copy of her Collected Stories and read one called “Front Seat” that was originally published as part of her The Fever Tree collection.

“Front Seat” is very much a Ruth Rendell story despite its length of just a dozen pages. Rendell specializes in building very believable characters, not all of them very likable or mentally healthy, as the basis for her stories of ordinary people who find themselves involved in crime either as victim or perpetrator. “Front Seat” is a little different in that the crime in question is some fifty years old when it strikes the interest of one Cecily Branksome, a woman on holiday with her husband at one of England’s communities on the sea that can be very uncomfortable and boring even in the middle of July.

Cecily’s personality can be trying even in the best of times but, when the wind and rain drives her indoors with nothing better to do then snoop into the doings of the locals, she does manage to make the acquaintance of a local hustler who feels that she and her husband might provide a little free food and drink for a few days. Cecily was intrigued by the commemorative inscription on one of the benches facing the sea because it indicated that it had been donated by a local man once accused of murder but who had been acquitted of the crime. Cecily’s new friend, the local “barfly,” was more than willing to fill in the details of the old case for her and to show her where everything had happened.

Never for a minute doubting her ability to solve a crime that the police had failed to sort out years earlier, Cecily researched the details for herself and began to look up the few remaining locals who might have some memory of the affair. Using perfectly sound logic, she solves the case and notifies the proper authorities so that the culprit can be arrested and made to pay. Or did she?

This is one of those stories with a nice little twist thrown in at the very end. At times that technique can be frustrating because writers sometimes do not play fair and fail to leave adequate clues with which the reader might have figured out the twist beforehand. I can’t claim to have seen this one coming, but a quick scan of the story’s earlier pages convinces me that I probably should have. I like that.

Rated at: 4.0

>I’ve been a fan of Ruth Rendell’s novels for years and have read more than two dozen of them, including standalones, those featuring Inspector Wexford, and others penned as Barbara Vine. She seldom disappoints me but for some reason I can’t recall ever reading any of her short stories despite having many of them on my shelves. So, during my lunch break this afternoon, I picked up my copy of her Collected Stories and read one called “Front Seat” that was originally published as part of her The Fever Tree collection.

“Front Seat” is very much a Ruth Rendell story despite its length of just a dozen pages. Rendell specializes in building very believable characters, not all of them very likable or mentally healthy, as the basis for her stories of ordinary people who find themselves involved in crime either as victim or perpetrator. “Front Seat” is a little different in that the crime in question is some fifty years old when it strikes the interest of one Cecily Branksome, a woman on holiday with her husband at one of England’s communities on the sea that can be very uncomfortable and boring even in the middle of July.

Cecily’s personality can be trying even in the best of times but, when the wind and rain drives her indoors with nothing better to do then snoop into the doings of the locals, she does manage to make the acquaintance of a local hustler who feels that she and her husband might provide a little free food and drink for a few days. Cecily was intrigued by the commemorative inscription on one of the benches facing the sea because it indicated that it had been donated by a local man once accused of murder but who had been acquitted of the crime. Cecily’s new friend, the local “barfly,” was more than willing to fill in the details of the old case for her and to show her where everything had happened.

Never for a minute doubting her ability to solve a crime that the police had failed to sort out years earlier, Cecily researched the details for herself and began to look up the few remaining locals who might have some memory of the affair. Using perfectly sound logic, she solves the case and notifies the proper authorities so that the culprit can be arrested and made to pay. Or did she?

This is one of those stories with a nice little twist thrown in at the very end. At times that technique can be frustrating because writers sometimes do not play fair and fail to leave adequate clues with which the reader might have figured out the twist beforehand. I can’t claim to have seen this one coming, but a quick scan of the story’s earlier pages convinces me that I probably should have. I like that.

Rated at: 4.0

Down to a Sunless Sea is one of the most unusual short story collections that I have ever read. What makes this collection different from most is the way that Matt Freese varies his writing style from story to story to match the mental state and speaking style of each of his main characters, a technique that does not allow his readers to get comfortable with a “Matt Freese writing style,” but one that definitely increases the impact of each of his stories.

Plot is secondary in the fifteen stories offered here. Instead, Freese has written stories that seek to give a clear picture of what it is like inside the mind of damaged individuals who are struggling to make their way in the world. Some have suffered physical damage or they are handicapped. Others, for multiple reasons, are the victims of mental illnesses of various sorts that make it impossible for them to fully function in the everyday world.

Make no mistake. This is a dark and disturbing series of stories. Some of Freese’s characters offer inspiration but, for the most part, the reader finds that their situations are unlikely to improve and that they will probably continue to experience life as misfits, outcasts, or worse. Freese knows of which he writes. These stories were written over the course of thirty years, twenty-five of which Freese spent in the practice of psychotherapy or as a clinical social worker. They are about people he knows, including even members of his own family.

What is most remarkable about the collection is how Freese is able to make the reader feel solid empathy for each of his characters. Their minds and bodies may be impaired but his characters come across as real, sympathetic human beings deserving to be understood and respected for the people they are. They want nothing more out of life than we all want, and they deserve no less.

Among my favorites of the stories is “Herbie,” in which a boy holds onto his ambition and dreams despite living with a father who seems determined to physically and verbally abuse the boy into believing that he is worthless. But, damaged as he is by fear of his father and the abuse he suffers at his hands, Herbie keeps his dreams alive at least for now. And then there is “Little Errands,” a story about a man with a phobia about the mail system. He can never be certain that he actually placed something in the mail and fears that he might have somehow misplaced it and only thinks that he mailed it. And, if he actually mailed it, what are the chances that it will slip into some crack inside the mailbox that is inaccessible to the postman when he comes to gather the box’s contents? He can hardly bear to think of all the things that can happen to a mailed item before it reaches the destination for which he intends it.

Not all fifteen of the stories work for me but Matt Freese has created so many unforgettable characters that I find his collection to be well worth reading. He offers insights into people and situations that only someone of his experience could possibly offer, and despite the nature of his stories readers coming to them with an open mind will be happy that they did.

Rated at: 4.0