. Spinning .

The final selection, Do Something by Kate Walbert finishes up one of the best BASS anthologies I’ve read.  Not a head-scratcher among them and so I get the feeling that Stephen King and I may share some similar taste in reading contemporary fiction.  I felt as satisfied with this issue as I had with Michael Chabon’s editorship of BASS 2005.

Do Something is extremely well written and has an excellent sense of voice and tone that complements the topic of a middle-aged woman standing up for something she believes in doing, risking not only her own reputation and incarceration but the embarrassment of her grown daughter and husband by her actions.  It brings her face to face with herself and with things in her life and the way she has handled them, such as the death of her grown son by cancer.There is great depth of character here in the fine literary tradition, without sacrificing story and movement of story.

It was indeed a pleasure to read this compilation, and while I haven’t read Stephen King lately (after his first twenty or so novels), I remember why I liked his style.

Jim Shepard gives us a narrator who serves as executioner during the French Revolution–no wonder Stephen King included this one in the anthology!  I’m sure Mr. King was just twitching with delight at Shepard’s fine delivery, realistically presented in the language style of the era, and in a deadpan acceptance of the character’s place in his time and his state. 

Nicely done, with enough gore and grit to satisfy those of us who enjoy severed heads that may still express dissatisfaction at their plight after separation.  But it is more a story of history and a society that is in transition and yet more violent than its prior oppressors had established as fact. 

The narrator is an executioner following family tradition, which it would seem, has its own place in society.  His wife is a gentle, sweet, caring individual who loves her husband and her family, despite their occupational choice–which is almost a non-choice because of its inherent traits that inhibit if not prohibit much expansion into more favorable and tasteful employment.  Shepard uses this relationship between husband and wife as the underlying conflict to the one of the ongoing Revolution itself and I would believe that while it resolves itself when she finally leaves him, we are left to wonder exactly if it was her choice to do so and how permanent that leaving becomes.

Well written in the voice of the era; how easily one falls back into the language and tone in the reading, and then in the speaking. I pity the next customer who enters my shoppe for the elegance of framing for my mind and tongue are still in the eighteenth century.

Nice work, completely absorbing and I found that I read it eagerly and quickly, pauses taken only be insistence of reality rather than the laying aside as a trial.  (See, I told ya.)

This one by Richard Russo didn’t quite draw me in.  A graduate student teaching at a college and finding one of her students plagiarizing a paper is interwoven with her dealings with two difference professors–one a brilliant man she admires and one a has-been alcoholic–and with some personal problems thrown in for effect; a husband who doesn’t have a full time job and a son who sounds perhaps autistic (though I hesitate as this seems to be the new hot diagnosis thrown around far too much lately).

A bit of head-hopping and I wrote about that in my Creative Writing weblog, that may or may not be as well done or necessary to the story.  Some confusing italicized segments that are backstory and supposedly show us how the main character got to this state of mind, though it seems that a decade later, she is more screwed up than ever.  While I had no real problem with the writing style and use of language, there seemed to be a shallowness of character that didn’t get me to look deeper into the problem or care enough about it. 

However, there was a particular gem that struck me:

When it was Bellamy’s turn, he’d recited "Windy Nights," a children’s poem everyone but Janet remembered.  He emphasized its childish iambic downbeat by slapping the table so hard the water glasses jumped, and by the time he finished the entire group was weak with laughter  "Okay, okay, okay.  Now the explanation," someone insisted.  "Tell us why that’s the greatest poem ever in the English language." 
"Because," Bellamy said, suddenly serious, his eyes full, "when I speak those words aloud, my father is alive again."  (p. 363)

And I totally missed the "Horseman" symbolic meaning of the title and its mention in the story. 

Absolutely loved this one by Karen Russell, and for two reasons: it was a bit off the wall–a convent school run by nuns for, well, girls who have been raised by wolves, and secondly, because it was well done.

Normally I dislike some of these great concepts because they’re simply unbelievable and not well enough constructed to overcome any reticence about suspending disbelief.  Karen Russell makes it easy.  I have absolutely no problem with her characters growling at each other and spraying to mark their territory–as a matter of fact, the one thing that almost stopped me was the spraying, in that I thought it was just males that did that.  How’s that for total trust in a writer?

It’s written pretty tongue-in-cheek, and once you’re in the groove it all works according to story plan: conflicts between the girls, the girls and the nuns, the girls and learning to be human girls, all pace the story.  For me, the grounding was in the attitude of the nuns–personal memory confirming their behavior.  The transition for the students–and there’s a school for boys as well so that a dance becomes a proving ground or trial for them–is hysterical in its fallbacks to learned behavior and instinct.

The brothers didn’t smell like our brothers anymore.  They smelled like pomade and cold, sterile sweat.  They looked like little boys.  Someone had washed behind their ears and made them wear suspendered dungarees.  Kyle used to be the blustery alpha male BTWWWR!, chewing through rattlesnakes, spooking badgers, snatching a live trout out of a grizzly’s mouth.  He stood by the punch bowl, looking pained and out of place.

"My stars!" I growled.  "What lovely weather we’ve been having!."  (p. 336)

By playing on the typically awkwardness of teenage interaction, Russell has compounded a scenario of conflict while making it very familiar to the reader.  I mean, these are just kids at their first dance, and instead of being cautious not to speak too loud or dance on somebody’s toes, they need to be careful to rein in their instincts to attack and eat the nuns who are chaperoning.

Altogether a most delightful read.  Even some more serious contemplation by a final statement, in case the reader missed some of the more subtle references to human nature.

I’ve not finished this story yet, but it is truly delightful and with no further explanation but the title (above) let me share this, a scenario in which Claudette, the narrator is paired with Mirabella, a younger girl to feed the ducks down at the pond to practice compassion:

It wasn’t fair.  They knew Mirabella couldn’t make bread balls yet.  She couldn’t even undo the twist tie of the bag.  She was sure to eat the birds; Mirabella didn’t even try to curb her desire to kill things–and then who would get blamed for the dark spots of duck blood on our Peter Pan collars?  Who would get penalized with negative Skill Points?  Exactly.  (p. 331)

The voice in particular is so consistently endearing in this story–I really wish I could say I’d written this one–by Karen Russell.  More in a bit.

This would likely qualify as horror story for many male readers, this story by Eileen Pollack–who seems to understand well the fear getting a circumcision as an adult would inspire.

We certainly have the wanting and how far someone would go to satisfy that want; though it is of the antagonist, an old man dying who put off the complete conversion to Judaism out of the natural fear of what a circumcision entails, who lived his life as a Jew and facing death, is finally willing to overcome his fear and have this done so he can be buried next to his wife in the conservative Jewish cemetery.  He tells his grown son his wishes and this is where some of the conflicts arise.  He is met, of course, with reluctance and failure to compassionately fulfill an old man’s wish. The son himself must face the fact that his father was not who he thought he was, and that this seemingly minor operation was something his father was not willing to do for his wife and family.  Or, it would seem, for himself as following the early death of his wife, he likely remained celibate rather than let another woman in on his secret.

A bit long, a bit too much ‘telling’ of story, and a bit less dramatic than such a plight might otherwise inspire, the concept of the story is still quite engrossing and with the additional deadline of imminent death, it’s still a bit more than the usual make-a-wish foundation type of quandry to resolve. 

Nicely done, though I would feel that once the problem is revealed, it might be a bit more hurried along in story, and while other characters introduced that spread this narrative out a bit added a little to the fullness of the story, the process may have also diluted the overall drama.

Alice Munro has been one of my favorite short story writers yet this story–while very compelling a topic–was not as brilliantly executed as what I’ve read of hers before.

The subject is of course very touchy; an older man seduces and marries a young girl, keeps her under his thumb and pregnant, his overbearing nature pushes her to the edge one day and she walks out in an argument only to return to find that he has killed their three children.

Munro has excelled at stories that delve into the many sides of human nature to discover and reveal what we exhibit as normal behavior and what influences and allows for variance, or deviance perhaps. What Munro is most interested seems to be the aftermath of violence.  What happens to Doree, the wife and mother, how is she going to handle the horror and will she be able to cope with life; and her husband, Lloyd…how will he justify to himself the murdering of his children? 

Munro finds the logical resolution as the two cling to each other, the only two people who could possibly understand what they’ve been through. 

While the writing is not really a standout, the story is compellling in its subject and its handling and presentation. 

First published in Fantasy and Science Fiction, this story by Bruce McAllister would qualify as mystery, adventure as easily as sci fi.  Oddly enough, though it is written in first person pov, there is a subtitle of The Retired Operative Speaks to a Class. What this indicates to me is that the ending may be happy or sad, but the protagonist definitely is alive at the end of the story.

The concept is not new, but it is handled in a unique manner in that the narrator is supposedly a good guy whose patriotism leads him to accept a government position that involves germ warfare.  It’s a rather dry and factual accounting of his job performance, as one would expect of anyone in this line of work.  There is the conflict not of the danger he holds within his responsibility, nor of getting caught or endangering himself or his family.  The conflict switches from man against society to man against his own nature, again, not that odd considering the topic.

There’s a low-key resolution in his leaving this line of work after a spasm of conscience leads him to save a small boy and his family in a small village where he is scheduled to do his thing.  But there is a lack of drama in the retelling, and the story comes off with that vague sense of otherworldliness that one gets when listening to someone relate life experiences that are so foreign to our own lives.

Interesting premise, handled in an interesting way.

This short story by Aryn Kyle starts out with immediate tension, one that is well known and understood in some form by most readers: change, leaving the comfort of the known to be the new member of an already established group.  There is more at work here though for Glynnis, in getting used to a new school; she is from England and the switch to American ways compounds the necessary adjustments.  And there is something more insidious in the strained relationship between her parents.  Her mother is pretty much a whack job and Glynnis is heavily influenced by her.

Kyle draws a very compelling picture of Glynnis’ unstable mother, the relationships between friends and lovers, and the manipulative people in our lives who we too often compromise our values to please.  This is the case with Glynnis as she turns on a weaker classmate in order to salvage her own status.  We truly hope that at the last minute she will realize what she is doing and in fact as she realizes her mother’s problems are deeper and damaging than imagined, Glynnis makes some unexpected choices.

Very nicely written, enough action and tension to hold our interest even as the main theme of pleasing others and crossing that line between what we know is right and wrong is the focus of the story.

Written by Stellar Kim, this short story is also written in a different style format, in the naming of incidents to separate the paragraphs into a more aloof, documentary told story.  This mimics in fact the first person narrator’s need to separate himself from a woman he meets who has terminal cancer.

This method also enables the story to go back into the explanation of his own state of mind, the death of his wife, and his coping and caring for their young son by himself.  There is a determination to the voice to transcend any situation that threatens him again.  I got this sensation from the story and it falls beautifully into place by the end.  As a radiologist, he is the first to notice the mass in a patient’s breast, follows her through her radiation therapy, and without really dating–avoiding it as she seems to seek his companionship  and would like it to develop into a relationship–he does care for her and acts in the capacity of a friend.

Stellar Kim does have a nice way of tying things together, the little details; newly single, the narrator dated an underwear model. The patient, Alycia, is a bit overweight and a far cry from a model, and while she has a good attitude and fights the disease as best she can, she does hold some hurts inside from never feeling pretty.  After her death, the narrators is asked to bring her clothes to the funeral home and realizing there is no underwear, goes to Victoria’s Secret and buys her something special.  For as she struggled against the disease that wasted her, he found her to be beautiful.

Whether he kept himself closed to her for his son’s sake, as he finally admits to her, or for his own, the reader cannot help but be sympathetic to his decision.  It is a tough place to be, to protect yourself and your son from the pain of another tragic loss, or to help someone better enjoy the last months of their own life.

Nicely done, well written, a very intense story without any overdone emotion.

This one’s edgy.  Roy Kesey has written a story about passengers in an airport forced to wait what turns out to be days while a lot of strange stuff goes on.  The writing style, short, quick, action-paced sentences get us through the story with a quick look around at who’s doing what, who’s coping, who’s going off the deep end. 

Clearning a linear timeline meant to focus us totally on what is happening here and now.  There is nothing from any of the character’s pasts that have impact on the events except in the normal way that anyone, at X time in their life, is so because of what came before.

As children play, people fight, set their territories with taped lines and in game play, separate into teams by nationality.  The ridiculous becomes expected: the constant assurances by the airport personnel that the fog holding them there is about to disperse and the flight will leave any moment.  This, despite days, raiding of all the restaurants and stands, soldiers outside, etc.  Eventually there is a rebellion and people are killed,some have escaped but likely not made it safely out.  I went back to an earlier passage which give us a micro version of the situation.

Lunch is worrisome: restaurant prices have trebled and there is no ham to be found. Afterwards, children remove toys from bags.  The boys have plastic soldiers, the girls have Barbie dolls, and they all play together at war.  The dolls wear stiletto heels, are ten times the size of the soldiers, leave death and destruction in their wakes. (p. 198)

The writing style is boom, boom, boom; not necessarily quick, but something is always happening–or so it seems.  Even the descriptions are presented in this factual manner and it takes away any sense of emotional drama and replaces it with two things: anticipation and realization that this story is not just of these particular characters–and that is why they are nameless.  It is a peek inside the mind and heart of every man put into a trying situation.

Another of my favorites here, this story by Beverly Jensen is an excellent example of insight into a family script via dialogue in particular, and brought out by a dramatic change in the lives of the characters via the death of the patriarch.  It is an obvious time for such revelation of secrets and hidden thoughts; a wake, especially one where the body is in transit to reach the event, is always a time for mumblings and gossip and emotional confrontation.  Jensen does an exquisite job of gradually exposing the family members in their strengths and weaknesses as they face this change, this loss of their father, and face their childhood and hidden resentments.

Jensen follows a linear narrative–actually a parallel linear narrative as she switches back and forth between the brother and sister Avis and Dalton who are accompanying their father’s casket home to Canada from Connecticut, and the two sisters Emma and Idella who await their return up North.  I have posted on the nature of the two stories and the similarity to hypertext on the Creative Writing weblog, feeling it is a good point to make about weaving story.

There are plenty of complications that arise on the journey, the first obviously being the discovery that their father’s casket has remained behind in CT at the train station.  There is an ice storm that creates problems in both places of story, and in fact, is cleverly used by Jensen as an opening into further discovery of her characters, i.e., Idella’s squirrel coat that protects her from the icy cold yet raises questions of character by her family.  There is a tie among the family–a truly dysfunctional family–in the drinking that has caused problems for many of their generations and yet it is the one thing that serves to bind them together in times of stress.

Wonderfully written, entertaining and soulful, reminiscent of the days of Faulkner and Hemingway and a much less innocent era (they simply hid things instead of flaunting them as we tend to do now), this is surely one of the best of the best of 2007.

By Beverly Jensen, this short story starts out with a most interesting complication:

Boston, January 1956
"Good God Almighty.  We’ve lost the damned body."  Avis stood on the North Station train platform, her small leather suitcase pressed between her knees as though it, too, might be whisked away.  "Dalton, we’ve lost Dad.  What the hell are we going to do?"  (p. 166)

After so recently having read James Agee’s Death in the Family, this scenario is similar in that it is bringing home the body of a dead family member, but Jensen allows that this particular family is a bit dysfunctional at best.  Throw in an ice storm on the journey from Connecticut to Canada, a sister and brother who are basically the irresponsible members of the family and like to drink to boot, and we have a humorous yet terribly poignant slice of life here.

More later, though I must say that I’m impressed with editor Stephen King’s choice of the more traditional story setting and form, the focus on character and drama, with fine writing overall is a nice change from the what the hell was that? stories that have been overwhelming the contemporary short story scene.

Written by Lauren Groff, this story is one that contains all the elements of good narrative.  There is drama, there is conflict, there is a pace that keeps steady and builds and recedes with the plot points.  It also scored high with me because it reminded me a bit of Marquez’s style of stating facts, and had this accept it or not attitude that jeeps one reading.

The story is intriguing: An older man, a former Olympiad swimmer and poet, needing money, hired to give swimming lessons to a sixteen year-old girl, crippled by polio. She, determined to seduce him; he, at first repulsed by her withered legs and helplessness, eventually she succeeds and they successfully consummate their illicit love affair under the nose of her wealthy father and the hopeful nurse who has her own eyes and heart set on Dad. 

There is an underlying theme of misery and death set in the background of WW I and the epidemic that spread throughout Europe and into the U.S. and took thousands of lives.  There is a difference in the pain of these two lovers and their problems which are heightened when she becomes pregnant and they sneak away to live with his mother, knowing her father will prohibit any such relationship.

They are happy enough with their young son, but she never quite recovers from childbirth and he, in a show of true love, insists upon her returning home to her father where she can receive better care. The two are found out, kept separate, and live their lives never meeting again except in a small twist at the end well into their old age.

It is a well written story, much in the style of Gabriel Garcia Marquez where the impossible is possible and love somehow triumphs even while lovers are kept apart.  The sharp and clear-clipped sentences are determined to tell the story without overdramatizing the situation, in fact, keeping a highly emotional love story nearly emotionless in its earthy reality.

Truly enjoyed this one and look forward to reading further work from Lauren Groff.

Written by Mary Gordon, this short story also seems like it is of another era, or perhaps it just the lifestyle that seems foreign. There is a setting of a false sense of security and  affectation in a woman who at 51, has returned to live with her parents in an upscale apartment when her marriage of nine years ends amicably enough–though it had never been consumated.  In truth, her husband Billy discovers he is gay and leaves Eleanor to live with his new love.

Eleanor’s dependence upon her close circle of friends prevents her from sharing personal information about her past or present situation with current acquaintances.  She is considered a bit aloof with both students and other faculty at her school, and has kept her privacy within an opera group that she’s been a member of for twenty years.  Her former husband (though they’d never been officially divorced) is also involved as is his lover.

What’s interesting here is that while the above conditions might indeed call up many instances of conflict, the author chooses to ignore them and his protagonist is very accepting of all these rather unsettling events until they coagulate in the form of change–likely the one thing that Eleanor cannot as readily accept. 

Very nice writing, interesting enough in its introspective way of getting us into the main character’s head, and with enough of a twist at the end to make it another view into human nature.