"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.