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"Stickmen" won the American Fiction, Vol. 11 contest for best previously unpublished short story.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.
No comments:
Post a Comment