. Spinning .

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.

This time I’ve placed the author in the post title rather than the title of his story, and if I could festoon it with flowers and candles in a semblance of altar I would; I would indeed honor him.

Sometimes there’s a sentence, a phrase, a single story in an anthology that rings true and pure, and this story is it: Where Will You Go When Your Skin Cannot Contain You?  The title alone tells you that this is going to be different–and not scratch your head, what the hell was that? different.

By the first couple paragraphs I was hooked by the writing as much as the story; by mid-point I had to check if the author used a pseudonym, for it sounded more like Cormac McCarthy than McCarthy has in some of his books.  The writing is that beautiful:

He listened to the brook muttering to itself.  Night birds called from the bowered darkness of summer trees.  He drank again and past the gleaming ellipse of the upraised bottle the sky bloomed with blood-red fire and after a moment thunder rumbled like voices in a dream and a wind was at the trees. (p. 121)

Or this:

A woven-wire fence drowning in honeysuckle went tripping toward the horizon where it vanished in mist like the palest of smoke  (p. 119)

And I’ve read it first from McCarthy and admittedly likely used it myself, but the repetition for effect works for Gay as if he’d come up with it first:

"…until the little lights flickered dim and dimmer and died."

"The rutted road wound down and down."

The story is there, as we follow a well-developed protagonist called "The Jeepster" and see him as a hardass with a vulnerability  that evokes our sympathy in the loss of his first love.  The ending is as weird as any and yet beautifully poignant and tastefully handled to the point of gaining our understanding.

One thing that’s come of this is that I’ve discovered a storyteller who also writes lyrical sentences full of impact and imagery.  I’ve already checked Amazon and have added Gay’s first two novels to my "To Buy" list.