#643 Are You a Doctor?- Raymond Carver

#643 Are You a Doctor?- Raymond Carver

This is a strange encounter. The phone rings and Arnold is expecting a call from his wife, who is out of town. Instead it appears to be a wrong number. Instead of hanging up, he engages with the woman on the other end of the line. He wants to know how she got this his number, and mysteriously she reveals that it was left on a slip of paper by her babysitter.

The woman seems to be lonely and implores Arnold to come visit her for a conversation. Perhaps lonely he goes to see her. The encounter at her house is just as odd as the phone call, and he goes home in time to get his nightly call from his wife. Was this all just a weird occurrence, or was this a manifestation of Arnold’s mind, his desires and psyche? 

Rating: 7-6-6-7 Total= 26

#642 The King of a Vast Empire- Danielle Evans

#642 The King of a Vast Empire- Danielle Evans

This is a story about identity and change. Terrance hears from his younger sister who is changing her major at Harvard so she can work with elephants. Their mother doesn’t like this change, but as far as Liddie is concerned this is a pretty tame shift. 

Since childhood there has been a cloud hanging over their lives. With them in the car, their father crashed into another vehicle killing two children. It was deemed a no-fault accident, but there is always fault if you look for it. Something caused something that lead to X. 

Now each member of the family deals with it in a different way, and change happens quickly and randomly, like a car accident. It could be change like Terrence’s girlfriend leaving him, or Liddie’s aceemic change, but like a caterpillar being thrown out of a window, change will happen, whether it’s forced or waited for.

“…hoping for redemption through change…”

The identity angle of this story is both symblolic and quite literal. Terrence’s identity has been stolen by Carlos Aguilar, the same name as the other family’s only child not killed by their accident. Under Carlos’ use of his identity, his credit is improving, getting more out of his name than himself.

There is a lot to this story, and it’s put together very well. It could have been overwhelming or scattered, but I wasn’t. There was even some humor that worked:

“I had an imaginary conversation with [my girlfriend], in which she told me this was the physical manifestation of my existential crisis, and I told her to stop talking bullshit and then left the room.”

OK, so maybe not ha-ha funny, but funny enough for a chuckle.

Notable Passage: “We were what we had in life.”

Rating: 9-8-9-8 Total= 34

#641 Persons and Places- John Keene

#641 Persons and Places- John Keene

This is a very creative idea for a story about two students—one black and one Ibernian—both highly intelligent, accomplished, and yet isolated Harvard men that quietly cross paths near campus. The year is 1890. Each one is in his head and in a very contemplative mood, thinking hard about their studies, their situation and the other as they pass without physical acknowledgment. 

This story is written as complementary journal entries, presented side by side, a counter-narrative I suppose. Being people of color at a very conservative institution in the late nineteenth century, they are understandably standoff-ish and careful with whom they associate. They recognize that being on a social one-man island is something they could appreciate about each other. Maybe next time they will cross paths they will strike up a conversation.

Notable Passage: “He observes me as if he has already examined the catalogue of ideas and impressions which I shall tell him when we eventually speak, of the gulf between the true-self and the world outside and how the mind, through its exercises, bridges it…”

Rating: 8-9-8-8 Total= 33

#640 The Beginning of the End- Fatima Shaik

#640 The Beginning of the End- Fatima Shaik

Mr. Henri Chapon wasn’t your ordinary New Orleans Eccentric. He came from a famous and respected NOLA family. Only now he had been disowned from that family. He was struck, mostly by religion but also by a bit of lunacy. He became a minister.

“Chapon was both too emotional and too opportunistic: first, as a salesman and now as a minister.”

He set up a tabernacle in his home and began finding miracles in the world around him. People were not sure what to think, sure he was crazy but he was likeable as well. His good works about town were truly good works and his sermons—or passion plays—he performed on his porch were entertaining at least. He touched the life of the widow across the street. One saved life is sometime all you need.

Over his four week ministry, he set about to painting his prophesy on a white plywood sign he erected in front of his house. He would paint a single word each week and ruminate on that word’s godly meanings. By the time the sign was complete, the prophesy would be fulfilled.

Rating: 8-8-7-7 Total- 30

#639 High Wire- Robert Stone

#639 High Wire- Robert Stone

I’m not really sure what this story is supposed to be. I suppose it’s an L.A. love story. Unfortunately like all the stereotypes of that city, I found this story to be sprawling, soulless, cold, shallow, and self-involved. It is just a rambling telling of two people who never quite get their relationship on track.

Lucy and Tom are two minor Hollywood players, he a writer and she an actress. They meet at a movie premier and have a brief tryst that I guess we are to believe is somehow meaningful. The next forty pages or so is just their lives without each other, and the brief times that meet up again, never reaching a point where they become an actual item. I guess this is L.A. for deep and meaningful love. I found it to be a story I wish was thirty pages fewer.

Rating: 6-5-3-3 Total=17

#638 Seven Stories about Kenel of Koulev-Ville- Kyle Minor

#638 Seven Stories about Kenel of Koulev-Ville- Kyle Minor

Kenel is a a Haitian young man. He was raised by two English speaking nuns and given back to his father when he came of age. It took him a few more years to re-learn his native language. He is creole and a bit of a con-man and not many respectable people trust him. His good friend from the orphanage, the narrator, tells seven stories about Kenel, and the seven curses that he believes in.

Many of the tales are gruesome or macabre involving voodoo cemeteries or animals eating human remains. They are stories about class, culture and disaster in Haiti. And they are about friendship and trust. The narrator will leave this place and seek out a better life in Florida, while Kenel will eke out any sort of living he can, while trying to help his people.

One of the stories is about recognizing heroes. Kenel tells the story of a thief caught in the village. He is tied up, his toes and fingers cut off, then his legs and arms, and eventually he is burned alive for his crimes. Where is the hero, he asks:

-The store owner was the hero…for protecting his family business.

-No, the thief was the hero, for risking his life to get food for his family.

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

#637 Old Rambling House- Frank Herbert

#637 Old Rambling House- Frank Herbert

It was a deal too good to pass up. The Grahams lived in a trailer, once finding it fun to ramble around. Traveling from place to place. Now Martha is pregnant and finds all the traveling too much. They have been contacted by a strange foreign couple—from Basque, they say—who wish to trade them their house for the Grahams trailer. It is an extremely unbalanced deal, the house is worth at least ten times the trailers value.

When they go with the Rushes to see the house they feel uneasy, but when they see it, they are overwhelmed. Once they agree to the deal, something strange happens. The house shakes and they are flying through space. The deal they made was not for the house but for their identities. They are now part of a galactic society in a different galaxy than earth. They must take over the Rush’s position in this society as traveling tax collectors. 

There is one final snag the Rushes did not take into account, and it will become a problem when the baby gets older.

Rating: 7-7-6-7 Total= 27

#636 Secret Love- Maxine Clair

#636 Secret Love- Maxine Clair

Teenagers have to grow up sometimes, and usually for unfair reasons. Wanda and Irene are neighbors and good friends. Wanda (16) usually lets Irene (14) read her diary. Suddenly she announces that there will be no more diary sharing. Wanda says she is getting too old to write in her diary. The real reason is that she is weighed down with responsibilities beyond her age.

For most of her life, Wanda has been charged with taking care of her brother, Puddin. He is slow and large and needs looking after. Their mother doesn’t help out much. Now, after getting lost and in trouble by himself, he is being taken to a group home away from his family. Wanda is distraught.

Meanwhile Irene, normally the more secretive of the two is dealing with a broken home. Her father is barely employed and her mother is cheating on him (an act Irene herself has witnessed). Irene is caught between wanting to keep this a secret and wanting to show Wanda that she also has tough stuff to deal with. Secrets and maturity.

Rating: 7-7-8-7 Total= 29

#635 Solomon’s Big Day- Toure

#635 Solomon’s Big Day- Toure

This is quite a fantastic story about childhood, imagination, and art. Parents day is coming up, and the children of the class are supposed to paint something to be exhibited for all the parents to see. Solomon wants to paint a masterpiece, something that will show his parents his creativity, and how he sees the world. He wants his voice to be art.

His father is a cynic, and an alcoholic. He sees the city as he sees himself: dirty, sad, and bitter.

“This city is a crucible of corruption filled with predators and prey and if you slow down for a moment, you’re somebody else’s lunch.”

“Solomon had his own eyes. He loved the city. The city to him was a party, and all-day every-day carnival, where people slept or stood on the street playing drums and horns, and doing dances, and telling jokes, and the big green daddy trees of Central Park stood watch over the baby trees, and cars seemed like animals.”

Before painting, Solomon looks at his big art history book and goes straight for his favorite painting for inspiration, Romare Bearden’s The Block. It’s a Harlem streetscape and mirrors his own positive proud feelings about his neighborhood.

In a string of dreams and hopeful moments, Solomon imagines his school painting is a big hit, something that makes him famous and sought after. He’s the next Basquiat. He imagines a world where he can paint his future and hide within his own art. If you feel like your art give you value, than it does. Simple as that! 

This is a wonderful love letter to creativity. Once you feel that freedom, you never want to go back:

“But he wouldn’t go back. He couldn’t go back to a place where people made him live in between the lines when he knew that there were places where you didn’t have to.”

Notable Passage: on the truth of art: “If you want to mirror reality, get a camera. If you want to make someone understand reality, then you have to lie a little. You have to distort things, to exaggerate in a way that reveals the way you see things.”

Rating: 9-10-10-9 Total= 38

#634 In The Moment- Amelia Gray

#634 In The Moment- Amelia Gray

“Gutshot” is a collection of short stories by Amelia Gray that comes to me highly touted. This is the opening story. Mark and Emily are in love. It is true and intense. They attempt to live inside this love, and cut ties to the past and the future. To be truly non-attached has a certain religious appeal, but in the real world it can all be a bit messy.

They go from madly in love to strictly nihilistic. They rid themselves of possessions, cut off outside influence (like light) lose their jobs, and forget their families. Taken to the logical-illogical extreme, cutting yourself from past and future would mean losing all those memories like who you are and what things do. 

“Emily taught him to view each day as a wild element divorced from past and future. He needed not to exist as a point on a vector but ultimately to destroy the vector and inhabit that solitary point, like living inside a meteor without fear or knowledge of its movement.”

This is a fun mind experiment on taking an ethos a bit too far. Camus would be proud.

Rating: 8-9-8-8 Total= 33

#633 War in the Trash Cans- Guadalupe Nettel

#633 War in the Trash Cans- Guadalupe Nettel

A child is lonely and abandoned by his parents. They are “hippy” parents and have been fighting. When they separate, they feel unable to care for the child, so she is left with her aunt, a more proper middle-class family.

She misses her mother, even though she is a disaster, “An incredibly tender disaster to which I was of course deeply attached.”

She is lonely and quiet in her new surroundings. Her school is divided between the English speaking blond-headed children and the lower-class Mexicans. She is with the latter while her cousins are in the better school. Instead if integrating, she makes the decision to stay by herself, eat by herself and wander the kitchen at night.

“I ate alone, like a ghost shoes life unfolds alongside the living but is uninterrupted by them. I liked the silence and the stillness of those moments.”

One night she comes across a cockroach, and is frightened and angered by its presence. She squashes it, and Clemencia, the superstitious maid warns that the cockroaches will now invade. She is right. The house is suddenly overrun by roaches and the family is on high alert trying to rid themselves of the scourge.

“Of one thing I was certain: if we didn’t exile them, they would us.”

Only one thing will scare off the roaches, eating them. So all week they prepare meals with roaches, and eventually they disappear. The roaches could represent the child’s fear, or loneliness or any of her emotions. By trying to aggressively squash them, they will only come back bigger and more invasive. But by embracing them, literally making them a part of her, they will no longer haunt her. And when the roaches disappear she becomes more outgoing and a part of her adopted family.

However, there will always be that roach, or fear or loneliness lurkng around the corner, if only to remind her of what was once there.

Rating: 9-9-9-8 Total= 35

#632 Swept Away- T.C. Boyle

#632 Swept Away- T.C. Boyle

If you don’t hold onto it, opportunities can blow away in the wind, literally. A young, beautiful American woman is visiting the Isle of Unst, the northernmost point of Scotland’s Shetland chain. She is a photographer, and adventurer and on her first day in town, while lugging all her equipment and bags to the Inn, she is bowled over by a flying cat. The wind in Unst is unbelievably strong and lifting up animals and tossing them towards unsuspecting visitors isn’t out of character for this part of the world.

While dazed on the ground, her life is saved from an oncoming car by a local sheep herder, Robbie. They fall in love and have an affair that is talked about for years to come. But she is a traveling spirit and Robbie belongs to the Isle. Before he knows it, his one great love is swept away for good.

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

#631 The Trimmed Lamp- O.Henry

#631 The Trimmed Lamp- O.Henry

It’s been a while since we’ve done an O.Henry story, so here we go. It’s O.Henry Friday! In my collection of 100 of his short stories, I randomly opened to this one, The Trimmed Lamp. Like most of his stories this one seems old fashioned and outdated, but quaint.

Lou and Nancy are two young woman just moved to the big city. They have two different ideals about life and love and go about securing their future. Lou gets a job working at a garment shop ironing clothes. It’s not glamorous but she makes good money and gets to keep some of the nice clothes that are left behind. She is seeing a working class man, but does not take him too seriously; she is having fun. 

Nancy on the other hand gets a job working in a high-end boutique. She makes only half of what Lou does, but she believes being around high-end people, she will meet a millionaire husband. She turns down some offers, waiting for perfection. She doesn’t find it, but she does find love. What does Lou find?

Like I said, the sensibilities of 100 years ago are different from today; a story about woman who’s life mission is to work menial jobs so they can find a suitable husband wouldn’t fly today, or shouldn’t at least. But we judge art from the times they were written, and this is vintage O.Henry.

Notable Passage: “She was surrounded by beautiful things that breathed of taste and refinement. If you live in an atmosphere of luxury, luxury is yours whether your money pays for it, or another’s.”

Rating: 7-7-7-7 Total= 28

#630 Lost in the City- Edward P. Jones

#630 Lost in the City- Edward P. Jones

Lydia got a call late at night while a strange man lies in her bed. It was the home where her mother lived; she had just died. The onrush of emotions and memory hits her hard and she tries to gather herself up to go to her mother. She takes stock of her life and sets out.

While in the taxi, she is overwhelmed with memories. Each street, each part of town sparks another memory. She asks the cab to drive until they are lost in the city, somewhere with no connections or memories.

Rating: 8-7-8-7 Total= 30

#629 Limbs- Julia Elliott

#629 Limbs- Julia Elliott

Elise is in the Dementia Ward of an old age home. This one is different than most. Here they are trying some experiments on rejuvenating some of the losses of age, namely movement and memory. The Dementia Ward patients are part of a program dealing with the mechanization of geriatric care. A robotic leg program called Leg Intuitive Motion Bionics (LIMB) is in full swing.

Her new legs seem to be working and as she goes through memory therapy, she recognizes a few other patients from her life. This triggers even more memory and emotion, and her dreams both waking and in sleep become very vivid. Without knowing how or why, she comes across a man in a wheelchair from another wing who turns out to be her husband.

What’s the use of movement if you can’t go anywhere and why have memories if you cant share them. This is a very touching story.

Notable Passage: “His voice rattles like a rusty cotton gin, but to her the word sounds exquisitely feminine, the name of some flower that blooms for just half a day, almost too small to see but insanely perfumed in the noon heat.”

Rating: 8-8-9-8 Total= 33

#628 The Life You Live (May Not Be Your Own)- J. California Cooper

#628 The Life You Live (May Not Be Your Own)- J. California Cooper

 It took Molly forty-four years, one marriage and a lot of mistakes before she came to love herself. She had been living with lies and lying men all her life. It had nearly ruined her life.

Her best friend growing up, Belle, moved in next door to her after not seeing each other for twelve years. But before they got back together as friends, the husband comes over and tells her that Belle never liked her at all. Taken aback, she doesn’t inquire further, so the two live next door for many years and never talk. After Belle’s husband dies, they both realize it was him that kept them apart.

At the same time as her and Belle reuniting as friends, she thought her marriage was OK, but one day he upped and left. Now the two recently liberated woman find a way to live free and happy without the lies men tell to imprison them. 

I like the female empowerment message, but I find everyone in here to be a bit a caricature. There is little nuance at all in this story, and thus little real emotion.

Rating: 7-6-6-5 Total= 24 

#627 Skin- Roald Dahl

#627 Skin- Roald Dahl

We’ve all made crazy choices while drunk, right? The classic story about waking up with a tattoo you forgot about getting. Drioli is a tattoo artist and he had the biggest day of his career. Teeming with money and joy he brings home wine for him, his wife, and the young brooding artist working in his studio. As the night progresses and this young man becomes enamored with his wife, Drioli has an idea: He wants the artists to tattoo a picture of his wife on his own back. It is done.

Years later, decades really, he is walking the streets cold, poor, hungry and without friends or family remaining. He is stopped by a beautiful painting in a gallery window. He’s not sure why he has stopped, but then realizes the work was done by the same artist that gave him the tattoo all that time ago. Only now, Chaim Soutine is a world famous painter.

He enters he gallery and as he is being escorted out by the snobbish crowd he strips off his shirt and reveals the masterpiece on his back. There is a bidding war for the piece between one man willing to pay for a skin graft to remove the work physically and other that will pay him to walk around shirtless at his beachside hotel. Funny!

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

626.) Territory- David Leavitt

626.) Territory- David Leavitt

Neil’s mother is a strong independent woman. His father is never around, so his mother seems like a single mom. It’s the eighties and she he is also a kind of lefty activist, standing out front with placards and petitions railing against nukes:

“In the age of Reagan, she has declared, keeping up the causes of peace and justice is a futile, tiresome, and unrewarding effort; it is therefore an effort fit only for mothers to keep up.”

Neil is homosexual and has known since he was about twelve. Now past college age he is bringing a lover home for the first time. Mom is trying hard to be welcoming and act normal, but she is finding it difficult. It’s one thing to say you support something, believe you support something and see it up close. Those reactions and nervousness are hard to cover up.

“I wanted you to be happy. And I’m very tolerant, very understanding, but I can only take so much.”

It’s a touching mother/son story, very well done.

Rating: 8-8-8-8=32

#625 Supernova- Susan Steinberg

#625 Supernova- Susan Steinberg

It’s late or early depending on how you spent the evening. For this young woman it’s late and she’s spent the night at Club Midnight partying. Now thousands of miles away a plane crashes or explodes and she can sense it. Somebody she knows is on that plane, not somebody important, but she knows her.

The narrator is obviously stuck inside her own head, and despite her pleading to the contrary—“This story is not about me”—the story is all about her, and he messed up directionless life.

“I would go to school like everyone else. I would read and write like everyone else. I would graduate like everyone else. I would go to college. I would get a job. I would live in a house. I would have kids. And eventually I, like everyone else, would die.”

That’s a pretty depressing view of existence. She tries to give her life meaning and context by using symbolism like fire and snow, or metaphors like crashing or walking a tightrope. Perhaps we all have this kind of inner monologue, and when disaster hits, it is natural to put it in perspective with your own life. And we all probably catch ourselves and say “This story is not about me”…but it always is.

Notable Passage: “It wasn’t a big deal, being messed up. The whole world was a mess.”

Rating: 7-8-7-7 Total= 29

#624 The Devil to Pay- David Edgerley Gates

#624 The Devil to Pay- David Edgerley Gates

This is a top-notch mystery story. The difference between a mystery and most of the other short stories I read, in this case I don’t want to give away any of the plot details. Mysteries don’t really have much value once you know what happens. That said, this tracks down a million dollar gun heist, following a common street criminal, the NYPD, the FBI, the NSA, Mexican drug cartels and the Russian mob. What’s not to like?

Rating: 7-7-8-6 Total= 28 

#623 The Tavern of the Black Cat- Naguib Mahfouz

#623 The Tavern of the Black Cat- Naguib Mahfouz

“They were engaged in a sing-song when a stranger appeared at the door.”

This is a nice allegory taking place in a bar. Who doesn’t know the comfort, friendliness, camaraderie and familiarity or a good neighborhood bar:

“The Taverns patrons were one big family tree whose branches were spread among the bare wooden tables. Some of them were bound by ties of friendship or by being colleagues at work, while all were joined in the brotherhood of being together in the same place and in the spiritual intimacy they shared there night after night. They were united too by conversation and the infernal wine.”

As the stranger’s ominous presence disrupts the nightly reverie, it appears that he is deranged and dangerous. After several cups of the infernal wine, and many tense moments of muttering to himself, the man speaks to the room and announces that nobody is allowed to leave until he says so. Angry and scared at first, the patrons soon realize that they normally don’t eave for many hours, so might as well have fun. Fate is sitting their waiting regardless. What will you do, live in fear, or live like it isn’t even there?

Notable Passage: “Who of you is without a story…?”

Rating: 7-8-7-7 Total= 29

#622 Happiness is a Chemical in the Brain- Lucia Perillo

#622 Happiness is a Chemical in the Brain- Lucia Perillo

A woman believes her husband is having an affair, and she is in a depressed state. She tries to sniff our who the woman is, but she cannot track the person down, if in fact she exists at all. In her depression, she hints strongly at suicide, but doesn’t seem keen on acting on the threat. At times she is serenely introspective:

“If you dwelled on sadness you’d never get even one foot out the door. What was sadness, after all, but the fibrous stuff out of which a life was woven? And what was happiness but a chemical in the brain?”

At other times she is snide and sarcastic:

“He would never bring his mistress to our house, though in fact I thought this might be all right: it’s a big house and we could all play cribbage after.”

The woman is in a very dark, depressing mental state. This is a pretty cynical look at marriage and infidelity, one I’m sure that is more real than those that suffer depression would likely admit to themselves. Not at all uplifting, but it is well written. This is the last story I will read from this collection (same title as this story). It was an overall good read.

Notable Passage: "The mind is a dog that the body walks on its short leash.” 

Rating: 8-7-7-8 Total= 30

#621 Free Fruit for Young Widows- Nathan Englander

#621 Free Fruit for Young Widows- Nathan Englander

This was a tough one for me, as it should be, as it was designed to be. But I’m not sure of it’s for the right reason. An Israeli man remembers his war years to his son. He has been telling him for years about the time his good friend killed four Egyptian soldiers in cold blood. 

“They were people. They were human beings who had sat down at the wrong table for lunch. They were dead people who had not had to die.”

And for years, his son didn’t understand why his father forgave him for his cruelty. Then he gives him “context” by telling him another story about his friend surviving the Nazi prison camps. After returning home to his house now being lived in by his former house-keeper and her family, he kills them in their sleep (after over-hearing their plan to kill him). I will never explain the story completely enough to do it justice, but the story was told to the son to show him the horrors of the time, and also to show him why he has forgiven his friend.

Justifying murder is a little morally dicey to me, even with the “context” given. There is a large and significant difference between understanding a transgression and justifying one. I’m not sure we should be so casual with that distinction (I’m speaking more about the killing of the Egyptian soldiers years later than his actions upon returning home). These are tough topics to discuss, I am glad Englander talks about them in such an unguarded manner.

Notable Passage: “You must risk your friend’s life, your family’s, your own, you must be willing to die—even to save the life of your enemy—if ever, of two deeds, the humane one may be done.” 

Rating: 9-9-9-10 Total= 37

#620 Talkin Bout Sonny- Toni Cade Bambara

#620 Talkin Bout Sonny- Toni Cade Bambara

Betty and Delauney are sitting at a  bar talking about Sonny. Sonny just killed his wife and didn’t seem all that upset about it. His only response was “Something came over me.” Betty was appalled by the act and his reaction, but Delauney wouldn’t make a judgment saying that maybe he understood getting that angry feeling.

“I can wake up, not thinking anything in particular, and all of a sudden it’s on me. A cloud of evil. A fit of nastiness takes over. Next thing you know I’m doing dirty to everybody and giving out to the malevolent looks…Like sometimes, I just hate all people, that’s all.”

Betty starts to get worried that she is with an insensitive man that can let something so horrible go without being upset by it. Then she realizes maybe she isn’t the purest flower in in the vase: “They weren’t my kids for crying out loud. He wasn’t my father. And I wasn’t Florence Nightingale.”

The argument goes on, and I’m pretty sure he lost her—as he loses the bartender and the reader—when he suggests that maybe the murdered woman deserved it.

Rating: 7-7-6-7 Total= 27

#619 The Other Man- Denis Johnson

#619 The Other Man- Denis Johnson

This is a story about strangers, longing and identity. Characters are making up fake identities for the fun of it; Characters without a place to sleep, or without access to their temporary place to sleep; Newly married characters out looking for love. This is Denis Johnson, so I find in this story, a sad cold look at the human condition…and booze, there is always booze.

Notable Passage: “It was there. It was. The long walk down the hall. The door opening. The beautiful stranger. The torn moon mended. Our fingers touching away the tears. It was there.”

Rating: 7-6-6-5 Total= 24

#618 When Are You Coming Home?- Bryn Chancellor

#618 When Are You Coming Home?- Bryn Chancellor

This is the title selection from Chancellor’s 2015 collection. The book won the Prairie Schooner Prize. 

Robert Cannon is a retired repair shop owner. He and his wife have moved and now he spends his time as a part-time locksmith. It seems like a normal story until we get hints that he is hiding from a tragedy. His son has suffered from an “accident” perhaps dealing with anger issue. He may have closed his shop due to embarrassment or something akin to that.

“That was how he believed he was known, how he wished to be known, how he knew himself. That life was bountiful beyond what he could have ever imagined. But now. Now. Everyone knew a different version. They all knew what he could not say aloud.”

He seems lonely and introspective. He keeps a copy of the keys he makes and “checks in” on the houses he has serviced. A bit creepy? Probably, especially when he actually goes into the houses. But, he is searching for something. He is looking for “Home,” whatever and wherever that is.

“Sometimes he simply drove by, and sometimes he went in, wandering the dark rooms, listening to the creeks in the silence. Nothing nefarious. He had no intentions. He just had an urge to check on things, these homes that did not belong to him.”

Rating: 8-7-8-7 Total= 30

#617 Evidence- Alexis Pauline Gumbs

#617 Evidence- Alexis Pauline Gumbs

We are five generations ahead of an era (the twenty-first century) that is referred to as “The time the silence broke.” It is an enlightened era where no punitive actions are necessary and justice is in remembering. This story is evidence of past bravery of those who broke the silence, of those who came out from underground and gave the world power through love.

“You affirm our collective agreement that in the time of accountability, the time past law and order, the story is the storehouse of justice. You remember that justice is no longer punishment. You affirm that the time of crime was an era of refused understanding and stunted evolution. We believe now in the experience on the scale of the intergalactic tribe.”

Future witnesses are writing to the past leaders and writers to thank them for being  brave, and breaking the silence. It’s a bit self-referential as the writer they are quoting is Alexis Pauline Gumbs herself (who also writes a letter to her younger self). Overall, this is a successful story. There is nothing wrong with a utopian look to the future. This story is filled with hope and it’s a call for strength.

Notable Passage: “We have been wrong all along. Blood is not money. Money is not Food.”

Rating: 7-9-9-8 Total= 33

#616 The Balcony- Felisberto Hernandez

#616 The Balcony- Felisberto Hernandez

I am utterly taken with the beautiful writing in this collection. Hernandez is just as much a musician as a writer, taking an extraordinary person and building a magical setting around her like a composer builds strings around a piano soloist.

A pianist is invited to visit the home of a father who’s daughter cannot leave her house. She is afraid of going outdoors and has created a world around herself. Her friends are the objects she sees, the colors of parasols she adorns the hallway with, and the balcony she spends most of her time. Her anthropomorphic eye extends to more elusive things like shadows:

“As the light faded we could feel them nestling in the shadows as if they had feathers and were preparing for sleep. She said they develop souls as they came in touch with people.”

Silence is another theme that gets a lot of attentions here. Like the shadows, silence is seen as something alive with not only personality but emotion:

“I could see it growing on the big black top of the piano. The Silence liked to listen to the music, slowly taking it in and thinking it over before venturing an opinion. But once it felt at home it took part in the music. Then it was like a cat with a long black tail slipping in between the notes, leaving them full of intentions.”

-I was sinking into something like the bowels of silence

-the silence was a heavy animal with a paw raised

These are the types of stories that makes reading more than just entertainment. Enough of the stories that try to relate to everyday life. We see everyday life, exist in it, I don’t want to read about it. I read to escape from everyday life, go somewhere only the author can imaging. I’m glad people still write like this, although that’s not entirely fair…nobody writes quite like this.

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

#615 They’re Not Your Husband- Raymond Carver

#615 They’re Not Your Husband- Raymond Carver

This one should be retitled: How to be an awful husband. Earl is out of work and his wife has to take a job working at an all night diner. One night while visiting her to try to get a free meal, he hears two men make fun of his wife’s looks. Instead of defending his wife or try to make her feel good, he tells her she needs to lose weight.

Amazingly she does what he says and doesn’t seem all that put off by him calling her a “slob.” After starving herself, she does lose weight (as well as the energy to do much more than work and support him), he goes back to the diner hoping to hear some guys say nice things about the way his wife looks.

All this rigmarole at the diner does little but make himself look like a jackass, the  only things he seems to be good at.

Rating: 7-5-5-5 Total- 22

#614 Someone Ought to Tell Her There’s Nowhere to Go- Danielle Evans

#614 Someone Ought to Tell Her There’s Nowhere to Go- Danielle Evans

Georgie went to Iraq for a year. His best friend, Lanae, the woman who finally just became his girlfriend didn’t understand why. She had cut him off to prtoect her daughter. Now he’s back, having been discharged from the army with something akin to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He had a bad experience in Iraq involving little girls and it haunts him.

“you didn’t get to pick your ghosts, your ghosts picked you.”

He needs something to give him perspective, something to make his feel safe. He doesn’t get back together with Lanae, but he does start taking care of her daughter, Esther. They get along great and start pretending that he is her Father. This fanstasy starts out harmless but eventually leads to a bit of a scandal. 

Notable Passage: “What’s the difference between you and some other asshole…Either nobody’s responsible for nothing, or every last motherfucker on this planet is going to hell someday.”

Rating: 7-7-6-7 Total= 27

#613 Rivers- John Keene

#613 Rivers- John Keene

This is a great idea for a story, and very executed. If written by somebody else about a more modern topic, I suppose this would fall under the genre of “Fan Fiction” but I wouldn’t dare call this that. Seeing as Keene is a professional, maybe it’s “Peer Fiction.”  In any case, this is a story about a famous fictional character, Mr. James Alton Rivers, aka Jim Watson, or the “slave” that was on the raft with Huckleberry Finn.

He is a freed man now, and runs into Huck and Tom Sawyer in the street. They are now in their early 20’s. Tom is a proper southern gentleman and a lawyer, Huck is still a bit of a troublemaker and an adventurer. They start talking about their lives and it becomes clear right off that Tom has no interest in seeing Jim as anything but an inferior person. Jim sees this and decides not to tell him about his life, his travels to Chicago, St. Louis, becoming a shrewd businessman, etc.

The country is on the brink of the civil war and race tensions are high and Tom has certainly taken a side on the matter. Jim is probably smart not to talk about his family escaping north, or the reality of living in the shadow of the Dred Scott case for instance.

“Though I’ve always made sure to have an escape route and a safe house on the other side of the river ready to flee given the trials the courts are putting Mr. Dred and Mrs. Lizzie Scott through.”

Tom and Huck are the ones to bring up the name of Abolitionist heroes:

“Well sounds to me like Jim is keeping himself out of trouble, and the worst thing for anybody these days is getting caught up in all that trouble, getting involved with people like Lovejoy or Torrey or that new agitator writer Mrs. Stowe what likes to stir up a whole heap of trouble too.”

Before parting we see the two youths as something different, and Keene I think writes them as two white archetypes in the struggle for racial equality. This is illustrated by the warnings Tom and Huck each give Jim as they say goodbye. Tom’s warning is straight out “know your place:”

“You’d better watch yourself, Jim, you hear me? Good thing we know you but you walking these streets like they belong to you, and they don’t to no nigger, no matter what some of you might think these days, so you watch it, cause the time’ll come when even the good people like me and Huck here have had enough.”

Huck’s warning is softer, and if not coming from a friend necessarily, it’s at least from a fond acquaintance; one that doesn’t want to see harm come but also doesn’t want to get involved:

“You take care of yourself, Jim, and keep out of all that trouble, please, cause this world is about ready to break wide open, and I sure don’t want to see you swallowed up.”

Overall I think this story is brilliant. The allegory wrapped-up in characters we are acquainted with is a great idea. Keene fills-in a perspective to the Mark Twain story that historians and critics have complained are missing in the original tales. I’m not sure if this story works as well without the original, but  I think it would be great if this story was read side by side in schools (or like I’ve said earlier teaching Henry Dumas side by side with Twain to show two different perspectives on classic Americana).

Rating: 9-10-10-9 Total= 38