#862 Their Story- Thomas Glave

#862 Their Story- Thomas Glave

Mr. Winston and Uncle Makenkie are memories in this part of the Bronx, isolated from most of the rest of the city. They are thought of fondly and also with regret and shame. They are ghosts, and like ghosts they stay with the living in perpetuity.

“We knew they came and went as surely as the summers came and went until our fire-shadowed days of autumn; there were beneficent ones and those troubled and—depending on how one had treated their personages in life—those who could bring terrible dreams and vengeance.”

This is a sad story about acceptance, secrets and community. The writing is absolutely beautiful.

Rating: 9-7-8-7 Total=31

#341 Other Brands of Poison- Rebecca Makkai

#341 Other Brands of Poison- Rebecca Makkai

Family legends told decades later often change depending on who’s telling them, but the important parts stay the same.

“If the story is hazy, seventy years later, that is because it is his. If the details are strangely specific—the dialogue, the type of soup—that is because they are mine.”

As I rotate through the fifteen or so authors during this round of short stories, if becomes clear which collection I like best. I have a large stack of these books on my desk and I read one, I put it on the bottom of the stack, with the top book being tomorrow’s story. Each time I get to see Makkai on top, I know tomorrow’s read is going to be a good one.

Even short pieces like this one are filled with rich, deep, emotion. So far, Music For Wartime has been the find of this year.

Rating: 10-7-8-9 Total= 34

#340 Great Grandmother’s Mango Chutney- Sandip Roy

#340 Great Grandmother’s Mango Chutney- Sandip Roy

In this collection, Don’t Let Him Know, the stories are connected in what should come together as “a novel in stories.” The hope for me was that each would be independent enough of a snapshot that they would stand as short stories.  So far, so good. However, this fifth story, Great Grandmother’s Mango Chutney doesn’t quite work without the context of the others. It might work as different kind of short if you didn’t read any of the other chapters, but there would be something missing. As a part of the larger piece, this works to propel the characters along, rather than act as a set piece.

That said, it adds a lot to the feeling of the book. Amit is the youngest in a house that holds four generations of the family. His mother runs the house and butts heads with the grandmother, and great-grandmother who is suffering with the frailty of her remaining time on earth. Amit is remembering this time of his life from twenty-five years later, in San Francisco, feeling homesick while he searches for a taste of home.

Rating: 9-6-6-5 Total= 26

#278 The Worst You Ever Feel- Rebecca Makkai

#278 The Worst You Ever Feel- Rebecca Makkai

A common theme I’ve seen in some of the short stories included in this project is the high perceptive abilities of children, their ability to tap into emotion and meaning in things overlooked or ignored by people with more age and experience. Aaron is more than just a perceptive child, he is a savant. He can see the past, and feel the pain and loss of those around him. And in post war Romania, that loss is beyond the scope any child should see.

Aaron is a spider on the tapestry high above his parents dinner party. This is an occasion to reflect, and celebrate. One of Romania’s brightest talents, a violinist, Radelescu, has returned to society after surviving the pogroms and the communist impresonemnt. He has lost a finger but can still feel the music with unaccny emotion.

Aaron watches from above and with each song, he “remembers” the horrifying things that happened in that house. Each song has a story, and the room has too many memories. “Aaron could feel now that the people in the room below were breathing less, as if afraid to propel the old man back to Romania on the wind of their exhalations.”

This is another powerful story from this collection, with incredible touch and depth. Even without the musical fabric sewn into the plot, there is melody everywhere in Makkai’s writing. This is one of my favorite stories thus far.

Notable Passage: “It was people’s sadness, mostly, that he attempted to feel, the ghosts that surrounded them, the place where a finger used to be but no longer was. He imagined pain traveling through the air on radio waves. If he positioned himself in a room and concentrated and listened, he could catch it all.”

Rating: 10-10-10-10 Total= 40

#275 Heaven Row- Jess Lake

#275 Heaven Row- Jess Lake

A widower raises his two teenage daughters by himself. As he struggles with parenthood he remembers the risks he took halfway across the world, and the path that lead him here.

The writing here is absolutely stunning. Lake captures the empty, frustrating feelings of a lonely father exceptionally well. A man who’s life is draining away fast, and all he has left are his memories and his children, who at this moment it time, won't give him the time of day.

“But when I sit next to them…and no one says a word, I have a feeling I can’t easily describe. It’s as if my heart has puffed up inside mu chest like a balloon, and every beat presses against my ribs, like the thump of a muffled drum. It’s nothing, my doctor says, but he’s wrong. That beat is the sound of time passing.”

Time is a big theme in this story.

“In my study there are stacks of papers to grade, books I should have read and reviewed months ago, but I have no concentration: the time slips through my fingers like water. I whisper my daughter’s names to the air and say, Listen. Listen to me.”

Notable Passage: “A pardon is a little space, an opening, where the world stands back and leaves you alone. It is a door I walk through every day when I open my eyes.”

10-8-9-8 Total= 35