"The Briefcase" by Rebecca Makkai

I started reading this short story two weeks ago.  I finished a couple of pages, loved it, and then set the book down.  Two weeks passed.  This is not a reflection of Rebecca Makkai's cool and inventive story, but of the time management challenges faced by writers and readers everywhere.  My son must be fed.  My body must be cleaned.  My work must be done.  As essential as writing and reading are in my life, sadly, sometimes they get pushed to the side.  The good news is that I always manage to course correct.  I sit down with my planner in front of me and I make time like some people make cookies.  I can't make cookies to save my life, but I can turn my daily planner into a living and breathing thing with nothing more than the force of my will and a perfectly sharpened pencil.  Yesterday writing was pushed aside.  Today, I write.  There's always today.

Now for the story.  I pulled out the 2009 version of The Best American Short Stories a couple of weeks ago with the intention of picking a story whose title jumped out at me.  To begin, Alice Sebold edited that year's collection and I adore what I've read of hers, including Lucky and The Lovely Bones.  Sebold's memoir, Lucky, which details her sexual assault in college and its aftermath, took place at my own alma mater, Syracuse University.  Years after Seebold's attack, I played frisbee and had picnics in the park where she was raped, never knowing the sad legacy that park held in its history.  If you've only read The Lovely Bones and haven't yet made it to Lucky, do read it.

I chose Rebecca Makkia's story, "The Briefcase," because a briefcase seems like something that almost always holds a secret.  Today, they also feel like a bit of an anachronism, like the businessperson's version of Blockbuster Video, as more offices go paperless and iPads or netbooks replace our thick stacks of papers and reports.

I've been thinking in terms of Goal, Motivation, and Conflict in my writing lately so I'm going to approach my reading of this story with those concepts in mind.

Goal: The unnamed prisoner escapes his bondage in what I read as a dystopian future, though I suppose it could have also been in a not-so distant past, or even in the present.  When the guards see that a man is missing from their line, rather than taking the time to hunt him down, they replace him with the first man they see on the street: a professor carrying a briefcase.  When the line marches on, the protagonist steals the briefcase and decides to steal the professor's identity as well.  His goal: weave himself into his new life without getting caught.

Motivation: The prisoner's goal is survival.  We can only assume that his replacement, the professor, and the other 199 men in that line are dead.  Should he be revealed as a fraud, death will be his final sentence too.

Conflict: Using the generosity of the professor's friends and a post-office box, the prisoner lives in safety for a year.  He deals with the guilt of knowing that his own escape directly caused the death of another man by telling himself that in living, he is living for both himself and the professor.  But his plan fails when the professor's widow seeks him out and exposes him as an impostor.

My favorite part of this story is that Makkai manages to pull "it" off without identifying her main character's name, the location, or the time in which "The Briefcase" takes place.  Even without those details, we are still drawn into the world and the protag's journey.  I don't know how Makkai pulled that off exactly, but she does.

"ReMem" by Amy Brill

I'm back to my blog after a month of nonstop editing on my manuscript and I'm happy to be here to share a great story with you.  I'm particularly excited about this week's author because I got to hear the lovely Ms. Brill speak about her latest novel, The Movement of Stars, at the recent Boston Book Festival.  Full disclosure, I haven't read the book (yet) but it's about a 19th century lady astronomer on Nantucket.  I'm going to read it back to back with Liz Gilbert's The Signature of All Things, which is, of course, about  a 19th century lady botanist.  I will get so in touch with my dormant lady scientist that I might just be able to perform some amazing feat like changing a light bulb.

One last fascinating tidbit about Amy Brill: her Twitter page says that she had a baby in a car, so she's clearly some sort of superhero, considering the fact that I could barely have a baby in a hospital.

On to the story...

"ReMem" was published in this month's One Story, otherwise known as the lit journal you can fit into your pant's pocket.  And long story short (pun intended), I loved it.  It's this really cool sci-fi-ish, futuristic, dystopian....family saga?  YEAH IT IS.  You've all read George Saunders Tenth of December by now right?  Assuming you have, because you must, imagine Saunders with a bit less self-awareness and a smidge more emotional connection to his characters (no judgment--- I clearly adored his book, like he cares anyway).

"ReMem" tells the story of Alfred and his daughter Lauria, and his dead wife Elleni is in there too, because Alfred and Lauria live in a world where all of their memories are recorded and can be accessed at any time through various fancy technological interfaces.  The only problem is that Alfred's been getting these nasty headaches...oh and one other problem: humanity is contemplating the possibility of going body-less.  Just upload your memories to the server and you can be released from that pesky physical existence of yours.

A sign of a great short story is that it satisfies while also leaving you wanting more.  ReMem fits the bill.

"Milk" by Ron Carlson

I need to ramble a bit today.  May I?  Yes, it's your blog and it's a blog.  Ramble.

I love short stories and I love the idea of the people that write them.  Even if they are evil or otherwise unfit as humans, and they probably aren't but even if they are, I think if you write short stories you get a free pass.  When I thought Alice Munro was actually on Twitter last night I was so excited, and then felt sort of sad and shamed when it wasn't her.

One of the reasons I love short stories is because you can be in a bad mood, then you read a short story, and it makes everything just a little bit better.  It shifts your perspective just enough to make you realize that, like the story itself, your mood won't last forever.  Your mood, you realize, is a short story.  I'm generally a happy person but yesterday, well yesterday I didn't want to read a short story but I needed to, and I picked a great one: Ron Carlson's "Milk."

Do you know his work?  I didn't but I'm a fan now.  Not only did I enjoy his writing but he's got a great head of hair and I'm a sucker for any guy that can rock a jean jacket.  I think he would be fun to take to a dive bar on the Jersey Shore.  We could play pool and drink beer and talk about the writing life.  Ron, if you're reading, call me.

Back to "Milk." As you know I'm always looking for lessons in the short stories I blog about and there's a doozy in this one.  If you've been struggling with the issue of scale, read this story, the story of a father named Jim.  Here's the grand theme: being a parent is terrifying.  How does Carlson approach his theme?  By zeroing in on the story of one father.

There are the twins, and their generic adorability that cloaks their true purpose in life: to create a sense of fear in their dad that is so profound that it makes even milk cartons seem ominous.  I try not to let myself think of the unique pseudo-death that I would experience if anyone took my child, but that terror creeps in at times.  It hits me when bad things happen in the world, but yes, it also catches me unexpectedly, not in the moments of sadness but in the moments of joy.  What if I ever lost those moments?

I appreciated that Carlson told this story from a father's point of view, because in my experience worrying is often seen as the purview of women.  It made me look twice at his fears and see them more clearly.  If you are interested in stories about parenthood, if you want to study the use of scale, or if you are in a wicked mood, read "Milk."

"Pilgrims" by Elizabeth Gilbert

Yes, that Elizabeth Gilbert, of the Eat, Pray, Love fame and the recent new release of a novel, The Signature of All Things, which is getting great reviews, that Elizabeth Gilbert has a sordid past as an acclaimed short story writer.  Oh how I loved the recent Times story that glimpses the young Gilbert, hawking her fictional wares in the big city, refusing to accept no for an answer.  Then this---"Pilgrims," gets published in Esquire when Gilbert is just a wee lass.  

For the writers in my readers, the lesson Gilbert has to share is to Go There, Go Everywhere, Go at Once, but Go.  You won't write dialogue like that spoken between Martha and Buck, the two horse-wrangling main characters, if you don't Go and Listen to the voices of the lost seekers.  Or you will, because there are no rules, and if you follow the first lesson Gilbert taught us, the one in persistence, then you can live under a rock and still write pitch-perfect dialogue, because that's your way to get there and that's another rule: the only way there is the one you take.

The victory of "Pilgims" is the life infused in Martha and Buck through their own words.  What talent it took for Gilbert to stand back and let them speak their drunken memories and falsehoods, as if she's not really there at all.  The best writing is invisible, of course, and this is a perfect example of that.

The gift that I'll carry with me in my writing bag of tricks is how specificity breeds generality.  You don't get to grand themes by writing grand themes (unless you do, and that's your rule) but rather by zeroing in on two humans next to a campfire.  If you can capture those two humans then this magical thing happens: they become any two young people who are seeking a thing they don't know and can't name, who decide that riding bareback in a dark meadow is as good an answer as any.

"Gazebo" by Raymond Carver

My urge is to copy and paste the story here, because nothing I can say about it can do it justice, and because it's so....I haven't eaten meat since I was twelve years old, but I imagine that when you take a bite of a perfectly cooked hamburger, fresh off the grill, it's something like my experience reading "Gazebo."

There is, of course, the opening:

That morning she pours Teacher's over my belly and licks it off.  That afternoon she tries to jump out the window.

There are these people trying to end something, Duane and Holly, trying to end it but they can't end it.  This way of honoring that our bad choices are runaway trains, as unavoidable as gravity....it's beautiful.

I'd open my eyes and look at the ceiling and listen to it ring and wonder what was happening to us.

But maybe I should be looking at the floor.  

I'll never forget that line.  This isn't a story; it's a tattoo.

My writer friend Kathy and I have been emailing back and forth about short stories, talking about this idea of whether something "happens" or not.  And I think a lot of readers are looking for that moment in the stories they read.  I think they want the stoning scene in The Lottery, if I'm being honest.  Great story, but in some ways that scene is the least interesting part of it.  Just sayin'.

And that's not Carver.  He doesn't zoom back and spoon feed you a climax.  He puts a target on the backs of two or three people and lets you witness the hunt.

I get down on my knees and start to beg.  But I am thinking of Juanita.  This is awful.  I don't know what's going to happen to me or to anyone else in the world.

Do you clap or cry after a line like that?  Maybe both.

So okay, it's happened.  I'm a Carver fan.  What should I read next?

"Karma" by Rishi Reddi

This week I read, "Karma," which was recently selected for One City, One Story in Boston.  Copies of the story are being made available all over the city and you can also access it for free online HERE.  And for my New England friends who weren't already planning to attend the Boston Book Festival, consider this blog post your sign from the universe.  Rishi Reddi will be on hand to give a talk about her story, along with lots of other yummy, juicy author types.  Let's show Boston and Copley Square some love.

"Karma" is the story of Shankar Balareddy.  I like Shankar.  I do.  He saves the dead birds that are landing on the streets of Boston, confused by the lure of city lights at night.  He cooks his wife a nice dinner.  And though I was left feeling like I wished Shankar could treat himself with the same persistence and care as his beloved birds, Reddi has certainly crafted a wholly believable character, the kind of person that can't get out of his own way.  There is a Shankar in all of us.

Shankar has some help in staying downtrodden though, in the form of his successful brother, Dr. Prakash Balareddy.  Prakash is....Prakash is.....Prakash is an asshole.  There's just no other way to say it.  He kicks his brother and his sister-in-law out onto the street.  He hangs out with a real hoity-toity crowd.  He's entirely unlikeable.  Except that he's not.  I empathized with Prakash and I'm curious if other readers felt the same.  We all like Shankar.  We all want to point him in the right direction, away from the deceptive lights that cause him to smack against metaphorical skyscrapers.  But because of the honesty in Reddi's story, we also have to admit to ourselves that if Shankar was our brother, we'd have probably tossed him out too.  "Shankar!" we'd yell.  "Get it together!"  Watching Shankar circle the drain of victimhood would be, well, draining.  Because there's a little bit of Prakash in us too.

Boston is a minor character in the story so if you love the city you'll love this read.  And anyone who has any sibling issues will surely connect too.

"Stickmen" by Andrew C. Gottlieb...plus Thoughts on Publishing Short Stories

Today I'm going to give you my usual thoughts on my experience reading a selected short story, in this case "Stickmen" by Andrew C. Gottlieb.  But because of where I discovered this story, you're also going to get my newbie musings on the submission and publication process of short stories.

"Stickmen" won the American Fiction, Vol. 11 contest for best previously unpublished short story.  As someone with an infinitesimal amount of publishing creds, I was compelled to add this particular anthology to my short story collection when I saw it in the lovely Jabberwocky Bookshop, while I was attending the Newburyport Literary Festival in the spring.  The idea that some kind publishing souls would actively seek out homeless short stories, these little orphans holding out their soup cups, all dirty-cheeked and hollow, spoke to my soul.  I have short stories like that, stories I believe deserve a real home, a family to call their own, a decent meal and a warm bed.

I emailed Andrew Gottlieb to see if I could get the lowdown on his story's journey to publication.  He was kind enough to reply.

Gottleib wrote "Stickmen" in 2001.  It received first prize in the AF contest in 2009.  As Denzel said, "This shit's chess, it ain't checkers."  Take a wild guess what my new online friend was doing in those eight years?  Submitting and editing.  Editing and submitting.  By Gottleib's own estimate, though "Stickmen" was a finalist in several contests and received other promising feedback, it was passed over for publication 64 times in those eight years.

I would love for someone to write a book that tracks the journey of this story, from journal to journal to contest to journal.  I would drool over interviews with first readers and editors giving us insight into their rejections of a great story.

In Clint McCown's introduction to AF, Vol. 11, he takes a stab at one of the reasons why:

"While it may be simple to select the best apple from a barrel of apples, the process is more daunting when one is faced with comparing a first-rate apple to a first-rate orange, and a first-rate pomegranate, and a first-rate kumquat.  Taste invariably enters the decision." 

But 64?  The mind reels.

"Stickmen" is the story of Jimmy Remler and his father, and though Jimmy is our narrator, he gives such a powerful voice to a man who is losing his that his father became an honorary main character.  Jimmy's father is dying and has been for a very long time.  He has things taken from him that we healthy people toss mindlessly amongst each other, like frisbees on a July beach.  I see that here, in Gottleib's story, this passing of life from the dying to the living.  It is one of the many sensitivities that pulled me into this story.

I lost a friend a couple of weeks ago to ALS.  His struggles and his bravery were captured in "Stickmen."  When Jimmy's mother tells him that the end could come any day, that he must be ready for it, I knew that Jimmy would never be ready.  That even when we know it's coming, death shocks us.

Jimmy recounts a memory from his youth, when his father, forced to sit in the car because of his disease, watches young Jimmy fall from the jungle gym.

I knew that's what made the memory special for me.  You have to admire a man who could do that every day, who could sit there missing out and knowing it.  

Yes, that's it, exactly.

This story will stick with me (pun somewhat intended) for a long time, because Jimmy felt particularly alive to me.  He is out there in the world somewhere now, still grieving, but no longer drawing stickmen.

If you get a chance to read "Stickmen," send Andrew Gottleib a quick note.  Wicked nice guy.

"A Platonic Relationship" & "Eric Clapton's Lover" by Ann Beattie

I found Ann Beattie (not that she was lost) through Dan Kois, who went on a mass-market paperback binge this summer for Slate Magazine.  My copy arrived from the street drug known as "Amazon Prime" two days later, smelling like an old person's shoes.  Note the stains of unknown origin on the cover.

The pages are that perfect burnt gold color of old paperbacks and I have to hold it ever so gently so that it doesn't disintegrate in my hands.

I chose my first story by its title, "Eric Clapton's Lover."  I went through an intense period of obsession with an Eric Clapton Greatest Hits Album in my late teens.

Writer's Note: How great is Spotify?  I am now listening to the exact album I used to play on repeat while driving around my one-horse town with my best friend. "After Midnight" was our favorite song.

The second story, "A Platonic Relationship," was Beattie's first to be published in The New Yorker.  She was 26 at the time.

I have swallowed the jealous bile in the back of my throat.  On to the stories...

Opening lines: 
(ECL) Franklin Fisher and his wife, Beth, were born on the same day of March, two years apart.
(APR) When Ellen was told that she would be hired as a music teacher at the high school, she decided that it did not mean that she would have to look like the other people on the faculty.

Gonna cause talk and suspicion, we gonna give an exhibition....

Inciting incidents:
(ECL): Franklin Junior leaves home with his new bride, a tractor-trailer driver.
(APR): Ellen gets a new roommate named Sam.

Surface problems:
(ECL): Franklin is fired from his magazine job and has to work at a movie theater that has rats in the soda machine.  Beth can't get out of bed.  Franklin starts to drink and seeks out women in parking lots.  Beth gets out of bed and becomes a feminist, but still dates a man who tries to name her cat for her.
(APR): Ellen spends inordinate amounts of time cleaning Sam's room for him, replacing one albatross (her ex-husband) for another.  She drinks too much beer.  Sam hightails it out of town on a hot, new motorcycle, leaving Ellen behind to reconcile with her ex-husband.

I desperately want Taylor Swift and John Mayer to cover Clapton's "Promises."  

Story-worthy problems:
(ECL & APR): Beattie's stories is understated.  They are not the fireworks; they are the uncomfortable barbeque where your divorced parents each bring their new partner and you sit watching your mother devour the crudite and your father stare at his much younger girlfriend's ass.  They aren't the murder in the dark of night; They are the days created the motive.

I love this line from ECL: "Being born on the same day seemed a very good thing to go on," he said.  And this: "I realized there was nothing I wanted to say to you and there was nothing I wanted to hear," she said.  Isn't that just the perfect two-line summary for a divorce that goes out as a whimper instead of a bang?

I found Ellen much less sympathetic than Beth.  At least Beth shows a little verve by getting transferred out of the lingerie department at her new job for talking too much to the customers.  Ellen just circles back to where she began.  Having gathered the courage to leave her husband and pursue her own dreams, she lets Sam use her like a gas station and ride off into his own sunset.  I want to visit her in another ten years and if she's still with her husband, or cleaning for another tenant, I'm staging an intervention.

Click HERE to read ECL on the VQR website.  Gotta buy the book or snag an old New Yorker for APR.  And go listen to "Lay Down Sally" while you're at it.

"The Messenger Who Did Not Become a Hero" by Douglas Watson

One of my most recent writing goals was to subscribe to a lit mag.  After months of vacillating, I finally settled on One Story.  Only the rocket scientists among you will figure this out but the gist is that you receive one story every three to four weeks.  I love that I know I'll read the entire thing and it's also pint-sized cute.  Note comparison size with equally esteemed literary magazine in picture below.  

 

Now on with the story.  It should go without saying that lovers of literature should have the patience to give stories a minute to form before we make any rash decisions.  That being said, aspiring writers are berated and barraged with the lament that WE MUST GET TO IT! or terrible things, things much worse than eternal oblivion, will befall us.  Who can blame me if I've become part of that culture where something must explode or die or cheat or implode in the first sentence, lest we should become momentarily bored?  

If, and I still think it's a big if, an immediate inciting incident is one of the rules, then Watson breaks that rule.  We have (gasp) about a page and a half of backstory before the proverbial crap hits the fan and everything changes for our new friend, the unnamed messenger.  

First line: There was a messenger who was stuck working for a no-good king.  

Inciting incident: The messenger lays eyes upon the woman of his dreams, she of the wispy-hair and revolutionary predilection.  It is love at first sight.

Surface problems (spoiler alert): His true love is shot and dies in his arms.  He is captured by the king who he betrayed and banished to Sumatra.  His ship wrecks.  He has his Tom Hanks moment in the sun.  Like Tom, he seeks salvation and travels over harsh lands until he comes upon the city of Our Zurich.  I realize that this all sounds very morose but it's actually hilarious if you get this kind of humor.  I laughed out loud in several places.  

Story-worthy problem: In the messengers's own words to the people of Our Zurich, "Are you misspending your life?"  It is, I think, probably the question of our time.  I love that Watson put this SWP into the context of a different era because it wouldn't have been as effective if the messenger was some poor 21st century office worker trapped in a cubicle.  The resolution is satisfying because it is not entirely fulfilling for the protag.  His life was not wholly misspent.  He had awoken.  He had escaped.  The flip side of this is that he waited too long and was old, so he soon dies, but not before he realizes that, "Life thrummed in all things."  

It's an unexpected, poignant, funny and weird story that I hope everyone will check out.  

"After Rosa Parks" by Janet Desaulniers

I mentioned last week how influential Hooked by Les Edgerton has been in my reading and writing.  This week, I edited three short stories and watched as the inciting incidents connected to the surface problems which both led organically to the story-worthy problem.  I finally get cause and effect and can feel my story-worthy problem guiding my way.  Pun intended: I'm hooked.  Not only has this approach changed how I write and edit, but it has changed how I read.  I'm picking up books at random and seeking out the inciting incident.  I'm barraging my husband with plot summaries and talk of the all-encompassing "SWP."  On tap this week: "After Rosa Parks" by Janet Desaulniers.

Opening Line

Ellie found her son in the school nurse's office, laid out on a leatherette fainting couch like some child gothic, his shoes off, his arms crossed over his chest, his face turned to the wall.  

Inciting Incident

You know when you were a kid and your mom used to respond to some generic childhood crisis with the wise question, "Wouldn't life be boring if we were all the same?"  After reading this story I'll pose a question to you, dear obscure short story blog readers.  Wouldn't life be boring if the inciting incident was obvious?  If we all saw the same inciting incident in a story?  When we read, don't we want to delve into the dance of creation along with the author?  

I'm going out on a limb but I'm going to argue that Desaulniers breaks some rules here and begins with some significant backstory.  The inciting incident, the disruption to Ellie and Cody's stability, comes later with her brother Frank's cancer diagnosis.  That's what changes everything.  

Surface Problems

Oh there's a lot to pick from here.  Ellie is a struggling single mom to young Cody, a child with a nervous stomach and a sensitivity to the sharp edges of the world that let's us know the future and all of its blemishes will be hard on Cody, and Ellie in turn.  Cody's an old soul, and what's worse for an old soul than a cookie-cutter public education?  Uncle Frank has come to help since the divorce went through, but his belly hurts too, for more nefarious reasons.

Story-Worthy Problem

If you haven't read anything by Parker Palmer, who writes about education but who really writes about life and justice and courage, please give him a try.  He changes the shape of your brain and heart.  He refers in his work to something called "The Rosa Parks Decision."  To paraphrase, it is the moment in your life when you decide to live on your own terms, at whatever the cost, because the cost of living under someone else's thumb will forever be too great once you see your world through your new eyes. 

This is the story-worthy problem for Ellie.  She's not the child quivering on the diving board, afraid to jump in.  She's the kid that won't even get off the bench, too resigned to the certainty that she'll fail to even stand up.  I imagine, though don't know for sure, that this moment of diving into the deep end, of reclaiming one's tenacity and hope, is common after divorce.  Ellie decides that if she can find her own terms, and then live by them, she and Cody will find their place in the world.  They'll both be free.

"A Real Doll" by A.M. Homes

I took a little time off from the blog because my "vacation" has been chock-full of family, writing, mini-golf, and bay swims.  But my fingers have been getting twitchy.

Today I'm going to share my reading through the lens of the book Hooked by Les Edgerton.  The talented and lovely Ms. Lori Goldstein was kind enough to read the first five pages of my WIP and referenced some key concepts from Hooked.  I can't thank her enough.  

I'm sure this will come as a shock to the seven people that read this blog, but I'm an untrained writer.  I took one creative nonfiction course in college and I'm quite sure the professor hated me.  Us Type A people make the worst creative writing students.  Alas, I'm trying to learn as much as a I can the old-fashioned way: by reading tons of books on craft.  Hooked makes it simple.  Well that's not quite right.  If it was simple I would be on my book tour instead of writing this blog for you seven people.  Better put, Hooked points you in the direction of Mt. Everest and says, "Go climb that." But at least I have a better idea of which way I'm walking now.  

In an attempt to put these ideas to use I'm trying to find the elements discussed in Hooked in the books and short stories I'm reading.  These include the inciting incident, the surface problems, and the story-worthy problem.  I'm also going to highlight opening lines of the stories I read.

It's ironic that the first time I'm doing this on the blog is with "A Real Doll" because this story is so off-the-charts unique that to try to reign it into my neat boxes feels like lassoing a wild stallion.  But lasso I will.

Opening lines:

"I'm dating Barbie.  Three afternoons a week, while my sister is at dance class, I take Barbie away from Ken.  I'm practicing for the future."

Inciting incident:

The story begins when the narrator, Jenny's brother, notices that his sister's Barbie has come to life.  

Surface problems:

Where do I begin?  In any intense sexual relationship between two young people, problems are expected.  When one of those young people is a Barbie, things can get really complicated.  You might give Barbie too much Valium, overestimating her tolerance.  You have to decide what romantic gift to buy her.  Do you get her the pool, snowmobile, or grand piano?  And of course, you have to compete with the anatomically incorrect Ken.  

Story-worthy problem:

It seems reasonable, as someone who has only known and never been a teenage boy, that all sorts of strange things must go through boys' minds on the topic of sex.  I think that if we are all being honest with ourselves, it isn't what this boy does to Barbie (and Ken for that matter) that is strange, but rather Homes's ability to so vividly enter the mind of a pubescent teenager and to capture the force of his infatuation.  As I read, the question that drew me forward was: What is wrong with this kid?  That's the story-worthy problem that engaged me.  When he callously dumps a recently deformed Barbie at the end of the story, I think the answer is revealed: nothing.  He's just a teenage boy.  It's A.M Homes that is the exceptional one.

Click HERE for a full-text version of "A Real Doll." 

"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.

"The Faery Handbag" by Kelly Link

"The Faery Handbag" is the first story in Kelly Link's collection entitled Magic for Beginners and was a gift from my husband for Mother's Day.  I had never heard of this book and I've heard of every book in the known world, so big ups to Andrew for surprising me.  It's covered in rave reviews and my first thought upon seeing it is that it looks incredibly weird.  Right up my alley.

We're talking magic realism, fantasy, make-believe here, which makes my brain go a little wiggly because isn't all fiction make-believe?  Well, you say, fiction consists of stories that could happen.  This story is about a grandmother who carries a purse that can hold an entire village of Baldeziwurlekistanians.  That could never happen.  The fact that I think that technically it could, or might, demonstrates that I'm also weird, and therefore a great fit for this genre.

I can't help but compare "Faery" to last week's reading of Alice Munro.  I can't help it.  Forgive me if I offend anyone.  

Here's the thing.  Munro, as I told you, is like a Picasso.  I could never have a Picasso in my house.  I spill things constantly.  The poor Picasso would be covered in Diet Coke or ketchup within a week.  But I appreciate great art.  I know a Picasso is genius which is why I would respect it enough to keep it away from me (aside from the obvious financial constraints). 

Link's writing is not Picasso, but I mean that as a compliment.  Link's stories are like the fun vintage painting of a door with handles that look like hands that I'm seeing right now above my computer screen, or the cute owl picture I got at Ikea last year.  They make me feel warm and happy and like it's okay to be myself around them.

Faery is a great story with tremendous depth.  It follows Genevieve (coincidentally the name I chose for myself in 7th grade French class) and her grandmother Zofia in their quest to protect a very special purse filled with hundreds of people.  As you can imagine, hijinks ensue and questions linger at the end of this wonderfully weird story.  What I loved about it, aside from the bizarre plot, was how Link writes in such a way that what is completely insane and unfathomable feels like it is also happening at this very moment in your own backyard.  

Ms. Link apparently likes to share, so I found the story free on her website.  All of my fellow weirdos, enjoy.

"Runaway" by Alice Munro

I'm almost ashamed to admit that this was my first Alice Munro experience, and I choose that term with purpose.  I didn't read Munro; I experienced it.  Because the entire time you are reading her, you are also set alight with the flames of awe and jealousy.

How did she do this?  How did she do all of this in the first two pages? How did she make me feel so mournful and tired as I sit at my lovely pub table with a glass of hot coffee?  How did she transport me to this horse farm and make me love a goat?  How does she manage to maintain effortless control over not only the characters and her perfectly paced plot, but also the weather, the quirks of various animals, the details of mobile home carpeting, and the particular smell of apple-scented soap?  How does she switch narrators without so much as flinching?  How does she manifest Clark, Carla, and Sylvia in an alternate universe in which they continue to exist after you are done reading?  How does she make you keep thinking about Carla's hair, or Clark's cruelty, or the damn goat?

I am the granddaughter of a frugal, Depression-raised Polish grandmother who saves the other half of her pickles and ginger ales.  Opulence makes me uncomfortable.  I can't say I enjoyed this story because it was just too good.  Munro's mastery is distracting.  Imagine trying to get dressed in the morning with a Picasso hanging on your wall or a 10-carat Kardashian-sized diamond on your ring finger.

Munro 101: She is not to be read; she is to be experienced.

"A Father's Story" by Andre Dubus

Last weekend I attended a short story session at the Newburyport Literary Festival where the speakers were, of course, asked to name some of their favorite short stories and authors.  

"A Father's Story," by Andre Dubus, was discussed because of the advice Dubus had given to one of the speakers: write toward the surprise.  

I love a good surprise and I've never read a thing by Dubus, I'm ashamed to admit.  

I read and I read.  I read till the end.  I looked around me in the silent library.  Where was the surprise?  It is a quiet story, as peaceful as a lullaby.  There are beautiful moments and a profound discussion of faith.  But surprise?  Shock?  Not for me.

As I told my husband about the story this evening, he asked me when the story had first been published (1987 I believe).  Would the surprise have been shocking then?  Am I unshockable?  Are we all?

I compared the climax of the story with my new favorite TV show, Pretty Little Liars.  What took place in the Dubus story is a day at the beach for those characters.  They've seen that level of surprise and stress a million times over, as have I, as a loyal fan.  My best friend and I refer to it as TV crack.

I admit this with a fair amount of chagrin because this story is a work of art.  

"It is not hard to live through a day, if you can live through a moment.  What creates despair is the imagination, which pretends there is a future, and insists on predicting millions of moments, thousands of days, and so drains you that you cannot live in the moment at hand."  True.  Relevant.  Precise.  

My advice?  Read Dubus to return to a simpler time.  Read it to meditate on faith and family, on courage and great writing.  Take a break from addictive stimulation and ponder the simplicity of 1987.

Why I Love Short Stories

I love short stories because because every one always talks about them like they are a dying grandmother, like they aren't in the room, and that endears them to me.

I love short stories because the last time my father was at my house he picked up one of my short story anthologies, turned to Jack London's, "To Build a Fire," and started to read.

I love short stories because I can read them before bed and they give my mind a thought project that lulls me safely to sleep, protected from my various other potential perseverations.

I love short stories like I used to love washing the dishes at the Blinker Cafe in college, because I can  hold the task of reading them in my hand and see the beginning and end of it.

I love short stories because when I started this blog I actually wondered if I would run out of stories to write about and the stories that keep accumulating in my life are laughing with me about my foolishness.

I love short stories because they make me feel closer to authors whose novels distanced them from me.

I love short stories because they're the underdog, but they don't think of themselves that way (at least not the good ones).

I love short stories because they can form in your mind in an instant and then pour out of you like a confession.

I love short stories because they are almost perfectly timed to the enjoyment of one bottle of beer.

I love short stories because I'm weird.

I love short stories because they connect me with other weird people who love short stories.

"The Thing in the Forest" by A.S. Byatt

As a world-famous chronicler of the short story form, I should probably proceed to write with great confidence and authority about A.S. Byatt's long short story (or is is short long story?) entitled, "The Thing in the Forest."  If you, like me, are of average intelligence, you will know that this is not possible; it's A.S. Byatt after all.  I believe she may be an alien sent here to make humans feel stupid which will ultimately allow her to lead her alien race in assimilating us.

"The Thing in the Forest" is the first story in Byatt's collection, "Little Black Book of Short Stories."  Many of you may know her as the author of the lovely, difficult, world-renowned novel Possession.  Every time my husband talks about his experience reading that book he shivers and gets a far away look in his eyes as if he needs to be held for a few minutes before he can go on living.  My advice on Possession: once you make it through the first 200 pages you're golden.

"The Thing in the Forest" is the story of Penny and Primrose, two little girls turned neurotic middle-aged women, who see a giant worm in the forest when they are evacuated from their homes during the height of WWII.  The image of the worm splitting itself in two to wrap around a tree, then coming together again whole on the other side is forever imprinted on my mind.  The alien Byatt uses her magic to create a full-on sensory experience.  The worm's odor leaks of the pages.  I can hear it slurping and slapping as it makes its way across the forest's floor.  I kept picturing a less jovial Jaba the Hut.  Through Byatt's masterful imagery, we are transported to the forest, both in Penny's and Primrose's childhood, and again when they return to the forest as grown women, seeking some closure from their frightful hike in the woods.

Did the girls really see the worm or did the worm represent the horrors that war inflicts on children?  Is the worm Hitler?  Did Primrose, who later becomes a storyteller by trade, create the worm for herself and Penny?  And who or what is Alys, the little girl the worm ate?  Is Alys the girls' last, tenuous grasp on innocence?  

I have no idea, but sometimes that's the best part of short stories.

Double Feature: "Why China?" and "The Stylist" by Jennifer Egan

I feel bad for Jennifer Egan.  "Black Box" is one of the best short stories of all time.  It's the Hope Diamond of short stories.  It's a powerhouse.  It's like nothing else you've ever read.  What's it like to write something like that I wonder?  I really liked the two short stories I read for this post, but they'll never be "Black Box."  Odds are nothing will.  I have a feeling she's not too broken up about it though.

"Why China?" begins with the inciting incident of running into a nefarious person from the past in a foreign country.  Egan's talent for using her setting as a character unto itself is evident here.  As the yuppie Lafferty family moves further into the Chinese countryside, to what feels to the reader must be the ends of the Earth, I couldn't help but wonder if a scene from Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" was about to be reenacted.  Writers: you want a master class in setting?  Start here.

I chose the second story from Egan's Emerald City collection because of the title: "The Stylist."  I sort of covet the entire fashion world.  Bernadette is a 36-year old woman who travels the world with a circulating cast of photographers and nubile young models.  She is, in some ways, a supporting character in her own life, not at all memorable, not at all special.  Watching her connect to a man is sad and fleeting.  In Bernadette's tryst, in her closeness to another person, her true loneliness is revealed.

While no "Black Box," Egan still pulled me completely into the lives of her characters and created a fully-realized world in the span of only a dozen pages.  Powerhouse or not, that is always an amazing thing.

Double Feature: "Deer in the Works" and "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut

Discovering the short stories of writers best known for their novels is one of my favorite parts of writing this blog.  I feel like I'm being let into a secret club.  I've read several Vonnegut novels, giddily spooning the satire down my world-weary throat.  The two stories from this week were like taking a bite of chocolate ice cream when what you really want to do is bury your face in the entire half-gallon, but both are sticking with me and have kept my wheels turning, two of my criterion for excellent short stories.

I chose "Deer in the Works" from the collection because of its workplace focus.  Office Space is one of my favorite movies and I have a loosely-formed idea for a connected short story collection set in a dysfunctional office, so I figured it would be useful research.

To my fellow writers, it's worth tracking this story down.  David Potter is a writer seeking out more stable employment in the field of industry.  Sound familiar?  The only problem is that his creative mind makes him unsuitable for the bureaucratic nightmare Vonnegut imagines at the Illium Works of the Federal Apparatus Corporation where he applies for a job in the publicity department.

"Harrison Bergeron" is a little bit of a story about a world where the government imposes handicaps on its citizens in order to make everyone average.  The beautiful wear masks, the gifted are blasted with annoying audio clips at regular intervals to disrupt their thought patterns, and the strongest are forced to carry weighted bags to ensure that everything remains peacefully even.  Harrison, as you can guess, is so exceptional that he is able to burst free from these confines to rule the world, if only for one beautiful moment (that unfortunately no one will remember thanks to the evil Diana Moon Glampers).

If you're a Vonnegut fan, if you love Office Space, if you are a writer, or if you question our "everybody gets a trophy" culture, you'll love these stories.

"A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You" by Amy Bloom

This story is the first in Bloom's award-winning collection with the same title and in some ways felt like it could stand alone.  There are a lot of comparisons made between short fiction and novels, and the most common refrain is that the story will come to life in whichever form it is best suited to present itself.  This story is a great example of a piece that not only stands beautifully in its brevity, but also demands expansion.

Jane Spencer, the mother and main character, has a transgendered child named Jess.  Jess began life as Jessie, a little girl who makes it clear, almost from the start, that she was born in the wrong body.  What I loved about this story is how Bloom manages to highlight the unique struggles of transgendered kids and their parents while at the same time making them seem incredibly ordinary.  Jane is a rich character and I fell in love with her practical approach to dealing with Jess's decision to undergo gender reassignment surgery.  Jane's love for Jess, the special love of a single mother, kindly blinds her to pains that could've easily brought her to her knees.

For writers interested in point of view shifts, Bloom writes the majority of the story in third-person over Jane's shoulder, but shifts a couple of times (I'm sure not randomly) to step behind Jess.  I noticed it, which made me see the writing, but the story is wonderful all the same.

"Buoyancy" by Richard Russo

This week's story is pulled from Richard Russo's short story collection, The Whore's Child, and was selected by my husband, who wanted a piece of the fame and fortune I have generated from my blog.

"Buoyancy" follows Paul and June Snow, a couple in their retirement years, on a long-awaited trip to Martha's Vineyard.  Though I doubt it was his intention, it was a perfect story to discuss with my husband, because there are all sorts of interesting themes lurking beneath the surface: love, marriage, gender, and aging.

June once had a breakdown, one in which she revealed to Paul her "almost unbearable regret and sadness," but from my read, June has recovered quite nicely; it is Paul who seems most paranoid that every flinch of June's will result in her next hospitalization.  It is June who bravely peels off her bathing suit on the nude beach on Martha's Vineyard.  It is June who rescues Paul from his sunburn-induced hallucination.

Paul eventually realizes that, "it was foolish and arrogant...to think you could imagine the truth of another human life," even after decades of marriage.  The theme of nakedness runs throughout the story: how we reveal and cover ourselves, particularly from those closest to us.  It is a story about the counterintuitive moments of life, when what should get easier becomes harder, when the routes we should know best leave us lost, and how sometimes our own selves can betray us after something as seemingly innocuous as a little too much sun.

The title is worthy of conversation and had me asking whether human beings are buoyant.  After some googling I can leave you with this definitive answer: If we don't swim, we sink.

"The Kugelmass Episode" by Woody Allen

Woody Allen writes short stories...who knew?  

Thank you to my Fiction I Writing professor at Gotham, Season Harper-Fox, for sharing this story with my class as an example of plotting.  

There are three things I learned from/loved about this story:

1. I like to play the "Who would be cast in the leading role?" game when I read.  The only person on earth who should ever play Professor Kugelmass is Woody Allen himself.  That led me to realize that while I've been trying to "get less autobiographical" in my writing, I could do much worse in life than to emulate Woody Allen's approach.  Tell me that Girls is not autobiographical Lena Dunham.  Tell me that This is 40 is not pulled almost entirely from Judd Apatow's own marriage.  Write what you know or make up an entirely new world; just do what works for you.

2. Allen summarizes his entire backstory in his opening paragraph.

Kugelmass, a professor of humanities at City College, was unhappily married for the second time.  Daphne Kugelmass was an oaf.  He also had two dull sons by his first wife, Flo, and was up to his neck in alimony and support.  

Backstory is my arch nemesis and this was an example of how you can meet your backstory head on, shake its hand, and then move forward with your story.  The albatross of backstory must be shed!

3. Kugelmass enters the novel Madame Bovary with the help of a magician and proceeds to have a passionate and complicated love affair with Emma Bovary.  I had just finished reading Madame Bovary and felt very frustrated by Flaubert's treatment of her.  I think Flaubert was a big-time jerk and grade A misogynist; I hold him personally responsible for Emma's tragic death.  It was quite lovely to see her having a little fun with Kugelmass in modern day New York City, even though their love affair was doomed to fail in light of the professor's various neuroses and commitment issues, not to mention the pressures that time travel places on a relationship.  

You can access "The Kugelmass Episode" online.  

"A Perfect Day for Bananafish" by J.D. Salinger

If you follow me on Twitter, you know one of my new life goals is to own the most rockin' short story collection in all the land.  Because I'm trying to pull stories from various genres and time periods, I am relying a great deal on my library to support my short story habit, but I'm going to purchase a few books along the way to get my collection on point: Nine Stories seemed a great place to start.

"Bananafish" is the first story in Salinger's Nine Stories, a perfect little book. There are few things in life I love more than a book small enough to fit in my purse.

The story opens with a woman name Muriel: "She was a girl who for a ringing phone dropped exactly nothing."  If I had to cast her, I'd choose Scarlett Johansson at her most inaccessible.  Halfway through the story, the omniscient narrator shifts his focus to Seymour Glass, Muriel's husband.  We have learned from Muriel's phone conversation with her mother that Seymour is a ticking time bomb.  The scene where he takes little Sybil, a fellow tourist at their hotel, into the water for a swim, is ripe with portent.  I have already lost one Sybil this year via Downton Abbey and was not prepared to lose another.

The ending is unexpected and swift, so much so that you will find yourself reading it twice to be sure you got it right.

"Bananafish" was published in The New Yorker on January 31, 1948, three years before The Catcher and the Rye rose to fame.  The story is notable for its insight into Salinger's mind at work before his masterpiece, in its treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder before we called it that, and for its unique point of view and ability to build suspense without every delving inside of its characters' minds.

"Miriam" by Truman Capote

"Miriam" scared the bejesus out of me---the kind of scared where you feel something behind you and you want to look to prove yourself wrong but you can't-- what if Miriam's there?

I know Capote best for In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's, but "Miriam" won him the O. Henry award in 1946.  For anyone looking to enjoy a short story that will grab you by the neck and freak you the beep out until you beg for mercy, this is the story for you.

Mrs. H.T. Miller, widow extraordinaire, decides to take in a film at the local theater, and why not?  She's a single lady living alone with no one to answer to but herself.  No one, that is, until she meets Miriam, a little girl with long white hair, a plum coat, and a demanding temperament.

The writing here is impeccable.  It is a master course in suspense---building slowly, perhaps even innocently, luring you in and then, and then....shivers.  It's the best kind of writing: invisible.  You are in the story with Mrs. Miller: as she answers the door, as she runs downstairs, and as she opens her eyes to the sight of Miriam.

Since last night, I've read various interpretations of what Miriam is or what she represents, and I'm still undecided.  I know two things for sure: Miriam is scary as hell and I will be tracking down more Capote short stories.

"The Rememberer" by Aimee Bender

In a strange coincidence, I came upon Bender's story, a surreal exploration of reverse evolution, on the same day I read some Charlie Darwin for my Coursera Philosophy class.  I love coincidences; they make me feel like I'm the star of my very own movie.  

Bender is the author of numerous award-winning short stories and a novel, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, which is a lovely sounding title isn't it?  I was thinking about how lovely for about two seconds before I was overwhelmed with hunger.  

"The Rememberer" is the story of Annie and Ben.  Ben undergoes a curious metamorphosis one evening, transforming from a brooding boyfriend into a baboon.  When he finally becomes a salamander, Annie, like many women who came before her, realizes he can never meet her emotional and physical needs, and she promptly drops him into the ocean.

But maybe the joke's on Annie, because Ben gets the best dialogue in the story:

On his last human day, he said, "Annie, don't you see? We're all getting too smart. Our brains are just getting bigger and bigger, and the world dries up and dies when there's too much thought and not enough heart." 

I love when writers throw convention out the window, whether in form or in content, and Bender succeeds here by starting with a bizarre premise that she connects to very real and legitimate questions about self in society.  These are heavy questions that Bender presents lightly, like a piece of sweet lemon cake.  I prefer mine gluten-free.  

You can access a non-bootleg version of the story online, thanks to The Missouri Review.  Happy reading.  

"Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" & "Brownies" by ZZ Packer

Yes, ladies and gentleman, today we are showing a double feature!  Today's stories belong to ZZ Packer, a darling of the literary scene who was published by The New Yorker at the age of 27.  I will try not to let my insane jealousy impact my post.

In thinking about my reaction to these two stories, "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" and "Brownies", I found an interview Ms. Packer gave where she discussed how her identify impacts her writing.

They asked, "Would you consider yourself a black writer?" And I said, "Of course, because I’m black. And I am a writer." (laughs) There is no other way to say that. But what he meant to say was, did I consider myself a writer who writes solely for black people? Or, who is my audience? To that I would just say, "No, I am writing for black people, but I am also writing for whites, for Chinese, for Americans." So, it’s one of those things that, yeah, the stories are definitely going to be influenced by the fact that I am black.

Both stories deftly investigate how the personal lives of Packer's characters are influenced by race and class, and I'm sure there are a myriad of analyses you can seek out  that will more aptly discuss reading Packer thought that lens.  I'm most interested in the writing: characters, plot, exposition.

I read "Brownies" first, though Packer wrote it after "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere".  It tells the story of a little girl called Snot (an unfortunate childhood nickname) who is away at camp with her Brownie troop, brazenly led by the cruel and cutting Arnetta.  Arnetta is a young Regina George from the movie Mean Girls.  I loved every second of hating her.  I want an Arnetta movie, an Arnetta book, and an Arnetta t-shirt.  She's perfectly wicked.  Her plot for revenge against rival troop #909 fails in the most unexpectedly sad and funny way that will brand itself in your mind for days to come.  

"Brownies" looks at what happens to those who've been cast aside.  In some souls, kindness and compassion bloom.  In others, malignant forces take hold.  Snot realizes that, "When you've been made to feel bad for so long, you jump at the chance to do it to others." 

Dina, the main character in Packer's "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere," feels like Snot all grown up.  She's a self-described misanthrope who may or may not be struggling with her sexual identity as a freshman at Yale, and who is most definitely struggling to fit into the privileged world of the Ivy League.  I liked being inside Dina's head, but this, Packer's earlier story of the two, is certainly more raw and less controlled than the more self-assured "Brownies".  In "Brownies", Packer is so good that you don't see the writing.  You aren't sitting on your couch listening to your kid talk about his Legos in the background.  You are at Camp Crescendo as seen through the eyes of Snot.

I love Packer's style.  It flows effortlessly.  Both of these stories felt like I was reading someone's autobiography: true and alive.

You can access "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" on The New Yorker site for free. 

"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin

The first time I heard Le Guin's name was in the movie, "The Jane Austen Book Club."  If you haven't seen it, please do.  It's a lovely little movie and for those of you who don't already know, I'm strangely drawn to all movies starring Emily Blunt.  One weekend I think I unintentionally watched three in a row.  In the movie, the adorable Hugh Dancy plays Grigg, this strange little man who was raised in a home full of women.  He's a big Le Guin fan and described her work with contagious enthusiasm.

I took a stab at "The Left Hand of Darkness" but couldn't make it happen.  I think it was during the time in my life when my son still wasn't sleeping through the night and I had the attention span of a moth.  

I'm pleased to report that Le Guin is one of the few authors in the short story anthology I'm working through that seems to have lived a happy life.  

As I read through the bios in this book the other day, I said to my husband, "All of these people died young, after toiling in obscurity and suffering from severe depression."  He said, "Hemingway didn't toil in obscurity."  When Hemingway is your example of a happy ending, you're in trouble.

Which brings me to Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas."  It's a Hugo award winner (big shot science fiction award) and was written in 1975.

The story opens with two very long paragraphs filled with dense prose, but please, if you have the attention span of a moth, keep going.  There's something special here.  The people of Omelas are blessed.  It's a utopian society.  The realist in me was thinking, "You can't write a story about happy people, as proven by Matthew's recent murder on Downton Abbey."  Yes you read right.  He was murdered in cold blood.  Damn you Julian Fellowes!

Don't worry your cynical minds and hearts though, because of course there is a cost for their happiness.  If you are a fan of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" or of "The Hunger Games", you will connect with this story.  It uses the scapegoat device in an unexpected twist that had me struggling to fall asleep last night.  I recommend you read this immediately before happy hour so you can have a cocktail to drown your sorrows.

In the interview that follows the story, Le Guin talks about where she finds inspiration and the origin of the name Omelas.  Apparently, she enjoys reversing the letters in street signs.  Omelas was pulled from a sign she saw that said Salem, Oregon.  I love the lesson there: Find inspiration by turning the mundane upside down.

I've been struggling with whether I should post links to what are probably bootleg websites so that readers can access these stories on their own.  I realized that half of the fun of reading short stories comes from tracking them down on your own, whether through Google, a visit to your local library (my personal favorite), or by actually buying a book.  I'll leave you to it.

"Neighbors" by Raymond Carver

This is my second dive into Carver's waters, following my reading of "Cathedral" in the fall.  I have a strange reaction to Carver, in that his minimalism speaks to my frugal heart but it still leaves me feeling cold.  There are few things that turn me off more than dense prose.  Carver shoots straight to the heart of the matter.

The challenge for me as a reader is that when I finish a Carver story, I'm always left thinking, and rarely left feeling.  A good Ann Hood story can leave me melted like hot butter, but Carver?  Reading his stories is sort of like when you would stick a pin under the top layer of finger flesh as a kid and marvel at how you felt no pain.  He's a master, few would deny that, but I don't connect with his characters.  

Neighbors tells the story of a couple, Bill and Arlene, who are asked (or who offers perhaps) to housesit for their neighbors, Harriet and Jim.  Bill and Arlene are compelled to make themselves a little too much at home in Harriet and Jim's apartment, and proceed to drink their booze, wear their skirts (Bill, not Arlene) and borrow their prescription pills.  Carver tells us that Bill and Arlene are disillusioned with their own lives, which pales in comparison to the lives of their friends.  I imagine they were also motivated to commit these neighborly sins because they knew they could get away with it.  These were, of course, the days before nanny cams hidden in teddy bears and ornamental vases.  It's been said that you are who you are when nobody is watching.  

I wonder if Bill and Arlene noticed that their neighbors' lives were quite similar to their own.  They took pills, drank decent booze, and hung their clothes in the closet just like the next guy.  I have to believe if given the chance to speak, we'd find some envy beneath Jim and Harriet's kicky facade.

For me, this story is about what happens when our rebellious subconscious is allowed a moment of release.  Our own lives can feel so constrained at times.  I bet when Bill put on that skirt, he felt like a million bucks.  We aren't privy to the details of Arlene's secret apartment capers, but we can imagine they are equally as bizarrely mundane.

I'm paying a lot of attention to endings these days, as my own confidence as a writer seems to fall apart in that last paragraph, and I thought this was a perfect, deceptively simple, quirky ending.  I won't dare spoil it for you.