. Spinning .

What is good about reading let’s say, short story collections continuously for example, is that the reading mind adjusts to a certain set of points that are consistently sought, noted as present or lacking.  New things come up, as in the story "Crossing with Sassafras" where the time play within the narrative structure was skillfully manipulated so that the flow was easily read and comprehended.

In another story in this same issue, "Berlin Station" by Laurence DeLooze, the time segments are not, I feel, so well manipulated because they are stories of several generations, different episodes broken into segments, and while the author seemed aware of this, the solution of titling and numbering the series hit me not as guideposts but as stop signs, or perhaps a better analogy might be streetsigns in a major big city while I’m toting around three suitcases and an umbrella.

The story is wonderful, and the potential power of it is reduced by the too narratival approach to all that’s going on (lotta tell, little show) and perhaps a more linear line would help to lessen the push-pull of the reader through the story. 

Aside from this, I also was a bit surprised by the ending, but surprised not by the story ending but how the writer chose to reveal it almost as a spiritual or ghostly visit that spurred a tough decision.   

My, my, aren’t I the picky one lately.

Absolutely beautiful story is this issue by Lisa Graley, "Crossing with Sassafras."

The story is in the first person pov, the narrator an old man repairing a fence because he sees the ghost of his goat, Sassafras flying freely about him.  In a series of cleverly intertwined flashbacks, the story reveals one of loneliness and love for his wife, now dead for ten years (the goat, for three).  He is aware that they are gone, and wonders why Sassafras appears to him, but it brings memories of his wife, Emma, and their time together, and ties the narrative structure of present interspersed with episodic past together as well by stringbeans that Emma grew in her garden, canned and served him almost daily for their dinners.  He still has some of the canned beans left, and eats them that night for his dinner, and saves a bit for Sassafras.  The goat teases him and just as he did when it was alive, he spends much time trying to coax her back into the pen he must constantly repair from her escapes.  Eventually, the man does follow the goat into its own world where he hopes to be with loves lost.

The language used is  simple, real.  The flashbacks  come just as memories do to us when we spot something that reminds us sadly of our loss, while giving us something to savor.  It is a poignant image of an old man left behind, and while we suspect the outcome, we are as glad as the man himself because we have come to care for and understand the characters.

Good story, great writing techniques.  With no use of "I remember when…", or "that year…" or even white space, Grayley moves us smoothly back and forth between times and spaces with ease in transitioning and no confusion about the multiple timelines running through the story.  Loved it and hope Grayley continues her work.

I have only started the stories in this issue, but they seem to be relationship-oriented and so the characters’ reactions to current events are what establishes the themes as well as the voice. 

While relying upon the past, The Exile of Calvin Wu by Chieh Chieng, First Place Winner in the Short Story Award for New Writers, flows along with a steady pace, absorbing past conflicts in flashback that follow the gradual buildup of a man’s resentment yet love towards his parents who have refused to acknowledge his choice of a wife.  There is a tension between all the characters that is something I can see I don’t adequately arrange in my own writing. 

There is just enough dialogue within the piece to inform on the characters and feelings towards each other, so that there is plenty of show rather than tell to lay the background well enough to understand the present.

No, I haven’t pulled out the theme yet. 

Done with Glimmertrain Issue #44, and found a wonderful, wonderful piece by Mary Relindes Ellis called "A Dirty Woman."  It is the best in the issue as far as I am concerned, and the one that stands out for its story, imagery, handling of time and giving character to three woman when only two exist in the present of the story.

First person pov, a woman who is visiting with her grandmother in a nursing home.  The timeline is linear over a period of probably a little over a week–one visit to the next, and then her grandmother dies.  It is background filled with flashbacks that present the narrator as a child, her grandmother as a strong independent, self-righteous but good woman and the narrator’s mother, a willful beauty who brings up her three children–two girls and a boy–alone after her philandering abusive husband leaves them.  But it is the narrator’s mother who sits as a battleground between the old woman and her granddaughter.  It is the mother who is "a dirty woman."

The warmth and personalities of each of them come alive in the reflections of the narrator, and the contrast between not only the mother and grandmother in their wild natural versus prim and proper pasts is made evident as well in the span of time that has changed them.  The mother has died, and the grandmother is dying.  This too, the old woman seems to hold against her daughter–that a child should not die before its mother–along with the knowledge of past indiscretions that she refuses, until the very end, to understand and forgive. 

The hardness of the grandmother is a shell that toughened with time, one that her daughter could not penetrate, and one that her granddaughter has never struck out of respect.  At this late stage, angered by the old woman’s stubbornness, she does lash out in defense.  It still seems useless, until the last visit, when the woman’s physical decline is matched by the fraility of her determination and she breaks down in tearful regret. 

There is strength, there is joy, there is humor and sadness within this short story, all wonderfully brought together in an expose of three women who have each been powerful in themselves, yet soft in their love of each other in a way that shields were not so much for self protection, but to protect each other.

Well written, a good story, and I’m glad I read through the issue to reach it at the very end.  Mary Relindes Ellis has a debut novel out and available at Amazon, titled "The Turtle Warrior."

While I realize I’m coming down off a McCarthy and Parker high, and I knew that withdrawal would be hard, I’m really missing the jolt of a well turned phrase. 

This issue has major contest winners, and some pretty credentialed writers, including an editor of a major literary journal.  Of the stories I have read so far, one is about a divorced father and his trying to redeem himself in the eyes of his two kids over a four-day visit, one is about two brothers, their dead grandfather, and bitterness over family script, one is about an ex-drunk and his looking back over his marital problems and saving the man who was sleeping with his ex-wife, one is rather strange about a man’s feelings for a lake and his parents abandonment of him, one is about a fat man who decides to commit suicide by fasting but his plans are foiled when he dies in an automobile accident.  Each of these five stories has the same premise, that of the story being dependent upon past baggage (brought up in flashback) to explain the current situation of story. The one I’m reading now is very near Push The Bully in context, a blonde boy brought into an  environment of a game among the poorer servant’s boys of India, and while I cannot really say much else about the story yet, I admit I peeked to the end and it clearly states that the character has accomplished the required change.  I mean, clearly states the fact. 

But something else is missing.  A lot is missing.  There are no awe-inspiring techniques, nothing that moves the needle on my WOW meter.  They are well enough written (look who’s talking!) and I wonder if I perhaps have become spoiled.

About a week or two ago, The Cusp of Something blogged about the 2004 Best American Short Stories anthology and I saved the link without reading the post because I wanted to judge for myself by reading this issue (it’s on the hearth, about midway in the lineup).  I think that I will pull it out and read it immediately following this issue of Glimmertrain, note down my impressions, and do some comparison thinking.