"The Rest of Her Life" by Steve Yarbrough

I picked up one of my short story anthologies tonight, cracked a cold beer, and started scanning names and titles.  I went with a Steve Yarbrough story because I saw him speak a couple of months ago at the Newburyport Literary Festival, and he was a trip.  He's this immediately noticeable man with flowing blonde hair and a deep Southern drawl.  Since I always like to Biff, aka BFF, aka make best friends with, famous people, I made a point to ask him about his comment on Truman Capote short stories after  his talk.  He, like me, loves Capote's ghost story, "Miriam".  All of this gave me high hopes for his story.

As I move through the short story literature, I've been coming across, or perhaps I've been draw to, very literary, and sometimes abstract, short stories.  These stories teach me a lot about craft, pacing, language, and what it takes to create a character that can live off of the page.

Yarbrough does all of that in TROHL, but there's more here that I connected with.  Teenage Dee Ann should be worrying about nothing other than sneaking around with her boyfriend Chuckie, but her mother's murder turns her world upside down.  But it's also a story about what the men in her life do to Dee Ann, or what they will always fail to do.  Yarbrough's sensitivity to his female protagonist impressed me.  Yarbrough could be the spawn of Raymond Carver and Ann Hood.  Emotion is salvaged, even highlighted, within his sparing, realist approach.

I'll look for more Yarbrough after this.  If you've read this story, I'd love to know what you think of Dee Ann's final decision.  Why did she lie?  I'm chewing on that question after the story's put down---always a good sign.