#702 Clarence and the Dead- Randall Kenan

#702 Clarence and the Dead- Randall Kenan

Clarence and the Dead is the first story in the acclaimed Randall Kenan collection, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead. I imagine, judging by those titles, there will be some dead people involved in this book. This is my first time reading Kenan.

When Clarence was born, two things happened: his mother immediately died, and Wilma Jones’ prize hog began to speak, at least according to her. When Clarence died five years later, the town would be relived to be done with a very confusing time in their history, and Wilma Jones’ hog would stop talking the very same day—again, according to her. 

It took Clarence three whole years before he spoke his first word. From then on out, he often spoke the words of the dead. They told him things that were happening to their loved ones, and things that were going to happen to their loved ones. He knew when people were going to die, and who was planning to hurt whom. This clairvoyance spooked most of the town, and attracted some undesirable characters seeking the child’s wisdom.

I’m not sure what to make of this story. On one level it’s entertaining, but also a bit scattered and—I don’t know—some of it just didn’t work for me. Especially the talking pig we don’t ever see talking. Something obviously slipped past me, I’m not sure what a talking pig is supposed to add to the story. A kid with ESP by itself would have been essentially the same story. Maybe I’ll give it another read, because I’m definitely missing something. 

Rating: 7-6-5-5 Total= 23

#701 East of the West- Miroslav Penkov

#701 East of the West- Miroslav Penkov

A village is bisected by a river. In one of the cruelties of geopolitics it is separated by war. One side is now Bulgarian and the other Serbian. They are allowed only one crossing every five years. Families are torn apart and histories are lost. In the middle of the river is a drowned church, aptly representing lost hope and faith.

Love still grows however, and Nose falls in love with his cousin Vera on the other side. It is a lifelong yearning that can never be fully realized, and ends in unbelievable heartbreak. The kind of heartbreak that occurs when holding onto the last sliver of hope can create. 

“You’re holding life by the throat. So get your shit together and learn how to choke the bastard, because the bastard already knows how to choke you.”

Out of darkness and sorrow comes beautiful art. This is a beautifully rendered story about a very dark and sad existence. What do you cling to when hope is lost, when light is gone and when faith is literally washed away? I guess the answer is: anything you can. 

Notable Passage: “The words piled on my heart like stones and I thought how much I wanted to be like the river, which had no memory, and how little like the earth, which could never forget.”

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

#700 The Man with the Hat- Sheila Heti

#700 The Man with the Hat- Sheila Heti

The angst of a writer, the heart of a writer, the soul of a writer—these were all things embraced by the man. Unfortunately he lived the life of a writer, a failed one at that. He hasn’t written a thing, but he feels like he could. Don’t we all?

To his friends and drinking companions he is a bum, and a leach. He gets kicked out of one bar or the next, and his anger turns to self hatred, despair, and then just a little poetic hope. “What right had he to kill himself when there were stars in the sky, twinkling all innocent and not noticing him and noticing nothing.”

Heti’s stories are the epitome of the short form. Most are brain droppings of small nuggets left to ponder, rarely fully developed as stories, and that’s fine, that seems to be the point. This one is more complete, and a good look at the struggles of an unrealized creative mind.

Notable Passage: “The truth’s got nothing to do with your life.”

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

#699 The Man Who Could See Through Fog- Henry Dumas

#699 The Man Who Could See Through Fog- Henry Dumas

Smithy arrived in a hot Texas military town early in the morning. He used to work for the rodeo up the road but a violent kick by one of the bucks did some damage he didn’t want repeated. He was here looking for a job. Suddenly he was being surrounded by a fog of some noxious smoke being emitted from an odd tractor. He ran from it, and later met the man driving the rig. 

He was assigned a job working one of those tractors and quickly adjusted to this weird little army base. The foggers spit out clouds of chemical pesticides. It’s effectiveness was questionable but the “top brass” liked to see the foggers on the grounds because it looked like it was working. It was kind of like a placebo, but actually very poisonous. Part satire, part buffoonish story, this one was a little out of the normal wheelhouse of dumas, but it was entertaining.

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

#698 An Invocation of Incuriosity- Neil Gaiman

#698 An Invocation of Incuriosity- Neil Gaiman

Another fantastic, fantastical tale by Neil Gaiman. This world is coming to an end. The sun is burning out and all will soon be engulfed in nothingness. Farfal the unfortunate—so called because: “He had spent his life in a one-room cottage at the end of time, at the bottom of a small hill, surviving on the food his father could net in the air…”—witnesses the end of all things from his cottage he sometimes shares with his father.

Balthasar the Tardy lives two lives. One with his son Farfal and one in a world a million years in the past where he is known as Balthasar the Cunning because he brings amazing spells and technologies from the future. Farfal is unaware of his father’s second life because he is under a hex, an Invocation of Incuriosity. But when the world ends, he is whisked off to his father’s other life and loses his place at his father’s side.

“I have spared you from death, my boy…I have brought you back in time to a new life. What should it matter that is this life you are not son but servant? Life is life, and it is infinitely better than the alternative.”

In a fun mind experiment, if you could travel back in time and meet your brothers from this time, some of which have been alive less years than you, but who were born a million years in the past—who is older?

His father makes a mess of his duel dimension dealings and is lost to nothingness. No longer unfortunate, Farfal finds a way to a different time, our time, the reader’s time and is telling this story to a kind man he meets while selling ancient carvings at a flea market over a free Denny’s Breakfast. Only Neil Gaiman can make this stuff work.

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

#697 A Bird in the House- Rebecca Makkai

#697 A Bird in the House- Rebecca Makkai

An estranged couple living halfway across the world meet for the last time in Chicago for the birth of their grand-daughter. A sparrow flies through the room, jarring and ominous, but not without elegance. This two-page interlude has more beauty and well-sculpted symbolism than most novels achieve, proving to all aspiring writers that a story should be as long as it needs to be, not as long as you can make it.

“In almost any culture, it’s an omen: of death, or of a birth, or a journey. Sometimes a bird in the house is said to be the ghost of the recently departed. We aren’t capable of seeing it rationally –especially as it falls in love with itself in our windows, as it flaps frantically past family portraits, as it kills itself against our walls.”

“The longest feathers stayed between her fingers as the bird flew on, raining small, perfect circles of blood on the kitchen tiles, on the flesh of the peeled apples…”

In this project where I’m only reading one story a day, I’m getting Makkai stories only periodically. I think that’s perfect. It’s like getting rare bottle of whiskey. You want only a taste every once in a while to keep on your tongue. Too much and you’d risk emptying the bottle too soon. This collection is just about perfect, I want it to last for a while.

Rating: 10-8-9-9 Total= 36

#696 The Toad Prince- Chuck Palahniuk

#696 The Toad Prince- Chuck Palahniuk

Well, this story reaches new levels of gross. Thank you Chuck Palahniuk, you win the prize! Not only does he create stories from topics you didn’t want to know about, he does it from places you didn’t want to know exist.

Ethan and Mona are canoodling in his bed, on the way to having sex for the first time together. It’s cute at first but Ethan is taking it slow, preparing her for something we don’t know about. But we know it’s going to be weird.

“Ethan choice her not because she’s hot. He thought she’d be more open minded…He’d found [her] in advanced placement Microbiology During a section of virology. He loves her because she loves viruses. There’s a match made in heaven.”

He tells her of the history of tattoos, body modification, and sexual mutilation. He has invented some new body-altering sexual fetish. You can’t look away, but you should. This is the epitome of grotesque. It’s Stephen King meets Penthouse Forum. Most definitely not safe for the squeamish. I’ll give Palahniuk points for originality.

Rating: 7-7-8-4 Total= 26

#695 Find Me a Dream- Kurt Vonnegut

#695 Find Me a Dream- Kurt Vonnegut

Creon, Pennsylvania is home to the country's largest Forge and Foundry making sewer pipes. Like any industrial town, the whole culture is all about that industry. Pipes, Pipes, Pipes. Everything is named after pipes, and everyone somehow works for pipes. Almost everyone. Andy is the local band leader, but that is not as fun as it sounds. In a town that is so obsessed with it’s business, nobody takes the time to hear the music:

“Those people don’t hear anything that isn’t about pipe. When they dance, do they keep any kind of time to the music?”

“How can they dance…if the men spend the whole evening in the locker room, drinking, shooting crap, and talking sewer pipe, and all the woman sit out on the terrace, talking about things they’ve overheard about pipe, about things they’ve bought with money from pipe, about things they’d like to buy with money from pipe?”

When he befriends a woman crying alone, his life changes. She is the widow of a famous New York jazz musician and is now engaged to marry the Foundry Forman. That is why she is crying, running away from her problems she ran into the arms of a rich business man and now she realizes that life has no music in it…but Andy’s does.

This is a pretty shallow look at love.  I like the small town satire, but the portrayal of the woman is a little too misogynistic. Not my favorite Vonnegut story.

Notable Passage: “I think everybody young is basically a great lover. All anybody needs is the chance.”

Rating: 7-7-6-5 Total= 25

#694 Crossing- Andre Kocsis

#694 Crossing- Andre Kocsis

James was a war resister and a world class mountain climber. He got himself into some trouble, moved to Canada and now lives off the grid. Thirty-seven years later, he’s a mountain guide going by the name Sierra. He lives in a glorified lean-to in the Alpine and makes money helping skiers and hikers get through the peaks. Occasionally he makes some extra cash guiding pot dealers from British Columbia across the Montana Border.

When he is offered twice his rate to take some foreigners across, he thinks it’s just more dope. But these Russian speaking smugglers are carrying something much more dangerous than drugs. People die, things get lost, and Sierra needs to rely on his experience to survive.

It’s a good backwoods adventure story. The infusion of politics is a bit sloppy and probably unnecessary. I didn’t find it helpful to any part of the story, except why he lived in the mountains.

Notable Passage: “The U.S. is at war again. It took just one generation to forget the lessons of Viet Nam."

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

#693 Missing Link- Frank Herbert

#693 Missing Link- Frank Herbert

After a ship crashes on a remote planet, two government sectors are racing to control jurisdiction and the fate of it’s inhabitants. Admiral Stetson is with a new recruit, Orne. They are part of an Investigation and Adjustment crew, but for the moment are preparing to visit the planet as an R & R unit (Rediscovery and Readjustment). This is a very high stakes situation and could go catastrophic at any time.

“We both know we’re going to rediscover one planet too many some day.”

Orne is dropped onto the planet to make contact, evaluate the local population and discover the fate of the lost ship. If he gets in any trouble, they come get him and blow up the planet. If he discovers a warlike civilization, they come get him and blow up the planet. If pretty much anything weird happen, they come get him and…well, you see the pattern. 

The whole operation rests on the wits and logic of a rookie operator.

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

#692 A Sunday Kind of Love- Maxine Clair

#692 A Sunday Kind of Love- Maxine Clair

Thomas is head of deacons at his Parish. His wife died two years ago and he is now with a much younger woman, Wanda. Even though church is very important to him, he has never taken her to a service until now.

He sits up front with the deacon and she in a rear pew. He spends the time sitting coldly still trying to avoid the judgmental eyes of his fellow church goers. He knows what they think, but he still feels right about being with Wanda.

“What really bothers him is this sense of everything and nothing to be said—no words for the kind of thing his mind can’t quite grasp, can’t quite let go of, either.”

After the service, the elders (the men, of course) gather for an important church meeting. Wanda sticks around. It turns out that this meeting is about Thomas and Wanda. Their love (or at least one elicit act of it) has been rumored and disturbed the congregation. But love is eternal and will not be denied, especially under the watchful eyes of God.

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

#691 How Babe Ruth Saved My Life- Toure

#691 How Babe Ruth Saved My Life- Toure

Sports allegiances are a serious thing, and if you are a serious sports fan you know that there are unspoken rules about which team you are allowed to root for. And if you ever think about changing your allegiance from one team to another, you better have a good reason. If your team changes cities for example, or if you move cities, maybe after a certain interval you can change teams. But there is one hard and fast rule in sports allegiances in American sports: Red sox fans and Yankees fans hate each other and you cannot, EVER change allegiances from one to the other. 

“For a Bostonian to become a Yankee fan is for a Kennedy to become a Republican, an Irish Catholic to become a Jew. The Sox and Yanks are more than sports teams—they’re extensions of the local ego.”

One prep school kid is duped into thinking he can predict the outcome of the 1986 World Series and bets every kid in his New England school that the Mets will win. When his whole world is about to come down on his head, his life is saved by the “Curse of the Bambino.” Suddenly he changes his tune:

“If you could choose your parents you’d choose the best. If you could choose your team you’d choose the Yanks.”

Fun story, some of the details about betting are a little unbelievable (like needing to offer 75-1 to get people to bet one side of a World Series). No matter, GO YANKEES!!!

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

#690 The Lark- Amelia Gray

#690 The Lark- Amelia Gray

Another day another story with a sickening plot element, this time literally. William has a puking problem. He vomits every time he speaks. After the words come out, so does the bile in direct proportion to the length of his sentences. As you can imagine, this makes William very quiet and very lonely.

He naturally gets a job working at a post office, where his speaking can be brief and his customers either odd themselves or at least wanting to spend very little time in the post office. He manages to find some sort of equilibrium and can hide his affliction. That is until one day a woman seemingly crazy comes in toting a legless can in a carrier and he spews all over the office and ruins some first class mail. The proverbial cat is out of the bag and his co-workers are sickened. Everyone is sickened except the crazy cat lady. They say there is a soul mate for everyone.

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

#689 Fungus- Guadalupe Nettel

#689 Fungus- Guadalupe Nettel

Yes, this story started out talking about a toe fungus. The  narrators mother suffered from an incurable infection she was both embarrassed about and allowed to tale over her general countenance. 

“However, more than the dubious shifting appearance, more than its tenacity and attachment to the invaded toe, what I remember best about the whole affair was the disgust and repulsion the parasite inspired in my mother.”

As unpleasant as a story about fungus may be, this quickly became about a love story between a violinist and her musical idol. But yet, just when we thought the fungal story lines have subsided, it comes back as syphilis. And not is a small way. Her syphilis grows and grows and she cultivates it as a symbol for her love of the man that gave it to her. She is proud of the infestation and connects it to her most base desires.

As you can imagine some of the details here are just outright unpleasant. It’s hard to properly evaluate this story when you are left with a sense of extreme nausea. No thank you.

Rating: 7-6-5-4 Total= 22

#688 Suffer the Little Children- Stephen King

#688 Suffer the Little Children- Stephen King

“Kids these days just have no respect, they were so much nicer so many years ago.” This common refrain is often heard by educators who have been teaching a long time. Ms. Sidley is such a teacher. She teaches third grade and has a reputation for being very strict. One of her tricks is to use her glasses to reflect her students actions while her back is turned. She often catches them in unruly behavior this way. Her eyes-in-the-back-of-her-head routine usually shocks them into compliance. But recently she sees more students defying her authority. Robert is such a student. When her back was turned she swore she saw his face morph into something ugly:

“What was it I saw when he changed? Something bulbous. Something that shimmered. Something that stared at me, yes, stared and grinned and wasn’t a child at all. It was old and it was evil…”

She is taken aback but tries to remain calm. But the next day when Robert confronts her and admits his power to change into the monster, and tells her there are many more students that can change, she loses it. Eventually the changlings are everywhere and she decides to take matters into her own hands. 

Is she crazy, or are the students really shape-shifters? The metaphor of students morphing into monsters and leaving their old, more innocent selves buried deep inside, is one most teachers will understand. There gets a point where seeing students as evil monsters may be a sign you should probably retire, before you do something drastic.

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

#687 Encounters with Unexpected Animals- Bret Anthony Johnston

#687 Encounters with Unexpected Animals- Bret Anthony Johnston

Lambright’s seventeen year old son is dating a girl two years older. She is a handful and much too much for the boy, or maybe just too much for the parents to handle. Just a few weeks ago the kid was keeping to himself in his childhood bedroom with childish surroundings. Now he has taken down all his boyish posters and model airplanes ready to let this older girl make him an adult. She is certainly a influence over him:

“Two weeks ago, one of his wife’s necklaces disappeared. Last week, a bottle of her nerve pills. Then, over the weekend, he’d caught Robbie and the girl with a flask of whiskey in the backyard.”

Lambright offers to drive her home one night after she stayed for dinner. He uses the trip alone to demand that she leave his son alone. Her reaction is impetuous, dangerous and all the bad things he saw in her; but he didn’t see this coming.

“He was disoriented, short of breath. He knew he was at the beginning of something, though just then he couldn’t say exactly what.”

Rating: 8-8-8-8 Total= 32

#686 A Butterfly on F Street- Edward P. Jones

#686 A Butterfly on F Street- Edward P. Jones

This is an uncomfortable meeting between Mildred and the woman that her husband left her for. They had been together for twenty-seven years, and with the new woman for the last two. He died six months ago, and this is the first time the two woman had ever met face to face. 

The woman is cordial and respectful and seems understandable a little disheveled, all things that Mildred notices. That still doesn’t make her lighten up on her wanting to hit this woman however. The two part without incident, but Mildred is left with an empty feeling of sad contemplation.

They say that cancer kills you twice, Mildred is reminded of, like her husband’s death. In a way heir marriage died twice as well, once when he left her and once when he passed away.

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

#685 About Love and Money or Love’s Lore and Money’s Myth- J. California Cooper

#685 About Love and Money or Love’s Lore and Money’s Myth- J. California Cooper

This is a life story told by Bessy. She was a poor black woman orphaned at age eleven. Her father killed her mother and went to prison. She was self reliant and always looked to the future and better days. She used every opportunity to get a leg up to the next one. 

“This the kind of world, if you don’t die, you just keep on growing up and living through everything that comes.”

When she got old enough she came to be a housemaid at a rich black doctor’s house. He became her friend and the wife became jealous. They divorced and the doctor wanted to marry Bessy. Seeing it as an opportunity she became the woman of he house, but only long enough to get her own house and her own life.  She got most of what she wanted, and on her own terms. 

It’s a nice life story, and empowering at times. I found humor in the use of “singing opera” as a euphemism for the sounds made while having good sex.

“I went home to sing the blues and left her there singing opera.”

Notable Passage: “In life you can go as silly as you want to, but don’t go crazy.”

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

#684 Jaws- Julia Elliott

#684 Jaws- Julia Elliott

Families are sometimes like the sun; they are life-giving, warm, and supportive but too much exposure may cause scarring. Caroline is with her parents on an Orlando vacation and she’s doing her best not to get burned by either the sun or her family. Her mother is getting a little delusional, having more and more “senior moments.” Her father is doing all he can to keep her on track but he knows this is her last vacation. 

The first person narration feels at first to be a bit teen-angsty even though Carloline is a post doctorate adult with a husband. That seems like a choice Elliott has made. Caroline is having an undisclosed husband problem, and has run home to the family in a subconscious reaction to her life. Now she remembers her childhood and reverts to some of her childhood habits. She sees the way her father takes care of her mother and wonders if her husband will be that supportive when needed.  

Sometimes the sun will warm you, sometimes it will burn you.

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

#683 The Landlady- Roald Dahl

#683 The Landlady- Roald Dahl

A young seventeen year old man, Billy, has come into town from London. He starts at the local office tomorrow and is looking for a place to stay. He is eager, well-dressed, and full of energy.

“Briskness, he had decided, was the one common characteristic of all successful businessmen.”

He is pointed to an Inn about a half-mile down the road. As he walks however he comes across a boarding house, a bed and breakfast that catches his eye. It’s quaint and quiet but not exactly what he was looking for. Before walking on however, he is drawn back to the house and rings the bell. Immediately a nice old woman answers the door.

“She seemed terribly nice. She looked exactly like the mother of one’s best school-friend welcoming one into the house to stay for the Christmas holidays.”

The price is cheap and the woman, although a little batty, is very nice. He decides to stay the night. As he is signing the register, he notices only two names, the most recent from two years ago! The names sound familiar to him and they might be name of two school boys that went missing, but he cant be sure.

This is the beginning of a haunting tale we never get to see. We are left to wonder if the tea is poisoned, if the woman has kept the other boys upstairs stiffed like the two animals in the drawing room. It’s not likely he will ever get out of that house.

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

#682 The Lost Cottage- David Leavitt

#682 The Lost Cottage- David Leavitt

Sometimes traditions are meant to die. The Dempson family is in a bit of upheaval. All three children are now grown and the parents have decided that it is time to separate. For twenty-five years during the end of June, the Dempson’s have vacationed in the same Cape Cod cottage. Six months after the divorce, the mother insists that they keep the tradition alive, for the sake of tradition.

“Tradition can become repatition…when you end up holding on to something because you’re afraid to let it go.”

As you can imagine, this leads to a stressful weekend, filled with pent up emotions that are bound to explode in unpleasant ways. I didn’t really enjoy reading this—not because it was badly written—but because who wants to witness a family going through such angst and bitterness?

Rating: 8-6-7-7 Total= 28

#681 The Kontrabida- Mia Alvar

#681 The Kontrabida- Mia Alvar

A man travels home to Manila for the first time in ten years. He has been in America working as a pharmacist and sending home remittance to his enfeebled father. His father is now dying so he made the trip. He is loving and protecting of his mother, who he feels has been oppressed and subjugated by his overbearing and sometimes violent father. In fact, he sees the same violence is himself. This is why, he tells himself, that he hasn’t had children.

“Anytime a woman opened her mouth and I could imagine myself clapping a hand over it, pinning her to the bed, I knew that my father breathed somewhere inside of me. I couldn’t risk repeating his life.”

His father dies while he is there, perhaps due to some of the medicine he brought from his hospital. He sees different sides of his mother than he ever has, she has more strength than he’s ever known.

This is the first story in Alvar’s 2015 debut collection, In The Country.

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

#680 Casino- Alix Ohlin

#680 Casino- Alix Ohlin

A middle-aged woman is being visited by her sister, the richer more successful sister. She still lives in their home-town, never left, physically or mentally. They both have adult children, but hers has gone missing. Rose got involved with drugs and a bad crowd, left home and has never come back or even called her mother.

The sisters go out on the town, get some spa treatment and go to the town’s newest attraction: the casino. Drunk and feeling pretty good, suddenly they recognize the new dealer is Rose’s former drug dealer boyfriend. They get belligerent and demand to know where she is. He doesn’t know, but he knows that she will never come back home.

Notable Passage: “People who look on the bright side all of the time are hypocrites at least some of the time.”

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

#679 The Empty Café- Naguib Mahfouz

#679 The Empty Café- Naguib Mahfouz

Mohammed Rasheedi’s wife has just died after forty years of being married to each other. He was much older than she was, but he has outlived her. He has in fact, outlived all of his friends too; he is the last one left. His son and daughter-in-law have happily welcomed him into their house to live, but he does not feel at home. He is lonely and out of sorts.

It is obvious that he does not want to be a burden on his family, and he does not want to impose on their day to day lives. He feels a kinship with the household cat, but that too does not belong to him. What does he have left but fading memories and days alone sitting at the café forgetting to drink his coffee?

This isn’t exactly sad, but it is melancholy and very delicate.

Rating: 9-7-7-7 Total= 30

#678 The Banks of the Vistula- Rebecca Lee

#678 The Banks of the Vistula- Rebecca Lee

How far would you take a lie to protect yourself from a mistake? Margaret is only a few weeks into her college career and she has gotten herself into a jam. She loves her classes, especially her linguistics class. While researching her first paper, she came across an essay written fifty years ago in the frosty beginnings of the cold war. The paper was stunning, bold, and intoxicating to a young mind. She cribbed the essay and handed it in as her own.

She knew she wouldn’t be able to write anything better, and since the book was out of print, and hadn’t been checked out for decades, the risk of being caught was slim. What she didn’t anticipate was that the subject of the matter went far beyond the beauty she perceived. A young student might see value without understanding the political delicacies that can exist in linguistic analysis. Straight out, the paper was fascist propaganda. 

What follows is a brilliant story about language, oppression, and cold war politics. It’s all wrapped up in a very real stage of campus debate, full of stubborn arrogance and youthful naivte. How much should we be punished for the ideas we espouse in our youth? What about the decisions we make while our lives (or reputations) are at risk?

The symbolism here is strong and powerful, and not very subtle. This passage of Margaret burning the book that would act as evidence against her I found particularly striking:

Notable Passage: “As the flame approached my hand, I arched the book into the murky water. It looked spectacular, a high wing of flame rising from it. Inside, in one of its luminous chapters, I had read that the ability to use language and the ability to tame fire arose from the same warm, shimmering pool of genes, since in nature they did not appear one without the other.”

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

#677 Keeping Watch Over the Sheep- Jon McGregor

#677 Keeping Watch Over the Sheep- Jon McGregor

A man is being denied entrance to the annual school Christmas nativity production, apparently there is no room at the inn. He has been banned from he school and has a restraining order put against him by his wife. All he wants to do is watch his daughter on stage for the first time. But his violent behavior has caught up with him.

“That’s what he was now, a situation.”

He leaves and tries to watch through the windows from outside, but he is arrested, he doesn’t understand why his daughter is crying. It is a very sad story.

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

#676 On Ohaeto Street- Chinelo Okparanta

#676 On Ohaeto Street- Chinelo Okparanta

“Here are Nigerian woman at home and transplanted to the United States, building lives out of longing and hope, faith and doubt, the struggle to stay and the mandate to leave, the burden and strength of love.” 

That is the back cover description of Chinelo OKparanta’s 2013 collection, Happiness, Like Water. It’s hard not to read that and think of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s collection, That Thing Around Your Neck, that we’ve already read for this project. But, that’s not a bad thing. Comparison is a part of analysis. I am looking forward reading this.

We begin with this story. Chinwe and her mother live on Ohaeto street, her father now dead. They get visited by a young Jehova’s Witness named Eze. At first Chinwe won’t invite him in, but her mother sees something in the young man, and they talk for a while. Besides spreading the good word, he is looking to start a family but he will only marry a woman who is also a Witness. After several friendly visits, Chinwe agrees at her mother’s prodding to convert and become Eze’s husband.

Meanwhile the surrounding townships are falling to a gang of thieves. When their neighborhood agrees to make a deal with the thieves and pay them off, Eze refuses to contribute, so he and Chinwe become a target. Eze is a wealthy and ostentatious so the robbers come pretty quickly. They survive the attack, but it becomes clear that Eze is more worried about protecting his wealth that his wife, she decides to leave.

There is strong commentary here about patriarchal constructs in religion, and the subjugation of independent woman for “stability.”

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

#675 The Running Legs and Other Stories- Lucas Southworth

#675 The Running Legs and Other Stories- Lucas Southworth

This is like fable or a fairy tale skewed, and twisted into a nightmare. “You’ll see that this story works like a dirty mirror. Be sure to recognize yourself.”

A father comes home from work. He is an axe-man, scary and gruff, but not the devil. His two daughters and their stepmother are there when he gets home. The girls watch in horror as the father cuts the stepmother’s legs off with his axe. The legs run away and the girls follow.

What comes next is a series of connected stories, like a song cycle, trying to remember a dream. They are: The Running Legs, The Bubbling Kitchen, The Two Princesses, The Devil Father, The Beautiful Stepmother, The Spider-web Sidewalk, The Howling Mountain, The Man in the Car, The Very Tiny Door, The Tightening Hug, The Wailing Park, The Loving Witch, The Dying Legs, The Dirty Mirror.

“Do you know why I tell you these stories…They are good places to hide…In them, people do things because they are the only things to do. Nobody has time to think. Nobody has time to remember or be afraid.”

Rating: 8-10-9-8 Total= 35

#674 Meet Me Here- Bryn Chancellor

#674 Meet Me Here- Bryn Chancellor

People mourn in different ways. Zoey’s father has died. She and her newly widowed mother are traveling to Europe soon after. She is brooding and upset and her life is in a holding pattern; her mother is carefree and has gotten plastic surgery, it is her second life.

As they travel to see the sights, Zoey ruminates on having a child. She and her husband have been arguing about it. They both wanted one, but now Zoey is not sure. Seeing her mother unattached and happy deepens this feeling, but also deepens her resentment and confusion. She cannot see her mother’s pain through the literal and symbolic façade, she has put up. Family feelings can get complicated, it’s hard to focus on the future when the past is still weighing you down.

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

#673 The Long Memory- Morrigan Phillips

#673 The Long Memory- Morrigan Phillips

Imagine a society where decisions cannot be made unless the holders of history and memory do not approve. The shortsightedness and culture-deaf nature of modern politics would not exist. Now imagine exactly who would try to fight against this system, who would want to shield the masses from remembering.

“It was a part of the identity of the Archipelago that the record of the past should guide the governance of the present and the building of the future.”

The archipelago has a group of Memorials who hold onto long-memory. They are able to tap into the past and remember the stories of the people. They act as clerics, memory as a religion. “It was the exploration of the past, not merely the facts of history but the stories of the past, that made the Memorials so important.”

This system is under attack from a powerful merchant who wants to take over the oldest and most profitable land. To do this he has captured the Memorials and is trying to control history. There is one tool left for the Memorials, to unbind these memories and give them back to all the people. Those who remember the past, will protect the future.

Notable Passage: “Memories are supposed to be shared. It is what gives them power.”

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

#672 Except Julia- Felisberto Hernandez

#672 Except Julia- Felisberto Hernandez

Letting go is difficult. Can you spend time both getting in touch with your own soul, and also connecting with others? A man has a tunnel, it is like an isolation tank. He uses it to shut out the world and heighten his senses. He believes that outside influence hinders his ability to see clearly.

“I used to hear a loud radio when I was strolling in the garden and it made me lose sight of the trees, of my whole life. It was a defilement that spoiled all my ideas: my own home longer seemed mine.”

He invites an old friend to his tunnel to experience this heightened perception. The experiment goes well, his friend sees the benefit of the tunnel, and of seeking the mysteries of the self. But he also sees the conflict. If they are in the tunnel together then their experience includes that person. It is unavoidable.

“I‘ve lived near other people and collected memories that don’t belong to me.”

“Soon we would be entering the tunnel with the memories of all the things the light had blurred before it went out.”

“In the tunnel I can feel all sorts of ideas going by on their way to someplace else.”

In the end, the man must decide to compromise, or be pure in his pursuits. If you are attached to someone, they become part of your “self”. 

Rating: 9-9-9-9 Total= 36