#771 The Afterlife- Amy Hempel

#771 The Afterlife- Amy Hempel

A girl relates what life is like for her father after her mother dies. “He was kind, cultured, youthful, and good-looking.” This had woman of all sorts coming to visit and making all sorts of plays for her dad. She saw through all of it with childhood insight. He spent a good deal of time with one woman in particular that she liked, but sometimes a spouse left behind just can’t move on.

“She understood that my father’s life had ended with my mother’s death, and that what he inhabited now was a kind of afterlife—not dead, but not alive to possibility.”

This story is the kind delicate and flowing short story that we expect from Amy Hempel.

Notable Passage: “That’s the trouble with people in general—you have to run into them.”

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

#513 Pool Night- Amy Hempel

#513 Pool Night- Amy Hempel

I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain. This is a story about a family's loss, regret, and time. They have experienced a house fire and a flood.

“When the wires touched the water, that part of town went black. This was the thing we watched—the city going dark along the path of the flood…It was not supposed to reach us…and then it did.”

Nobody thinks tragedy will happen to them. Now that it has, they look for answers and memories in a photo book, the one they still have. Each person has their own view of time:

-What I lose will always be lost.

-His problem is the past…he says only do things you have done before and liked.

-I thought the present was the safer bet.

-We can only die in the future…right now we are always alive.

-I made those seconds live.

Fire and water, some things we cannot control, but some we can.

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

#209 San Francisco- Amy Hempel

#209 San Francisco- Amy Hempel

Of all the authors I’ve read for this blog, and all the sizes, shapes, and forms of short stories highlighted here, Amy Hempel is the absolute best at the short vignette. Some of her stories, like this piece here is a quick two-page single stroke work of art. It can be read, and tossed off like it never happened, but there is meaning and emotion floating there, like a mint leaf in a cup of tea, subtle and lasting. Read, breath, close your eyes, and let it sink in.

The premise is simple, as San Francisco trembles, a mother dies, daughters squabble over her heirloom watch. But deeper underneath is what happens in those lives to get there, the implications of the watch, entitlements, recognition and true loss.

This won’t be on anybody’s list for greatest short stories because of what it is; a lingering, delicate thought. I read a Hempel story and it truly does linger with me all day. That is a rare talent. This is like the haiku of the short story world.

Rating: 9-8-10-7 Total= 34

#195 Jesus is Waiting- Amy Hempel

#195 Jesus is Waiting- Amy Hempel

A life of driving is a lonely thing. The narrator calls the act of driving a mediation or a drone. The same could be said about this story. The running thoughts get funny, and a little loopy but not too deep, and rarely meaningful, at least not to the reader. Just random brain dropping like:

“It is the day before Thanksgiving. According to the radio, people travel to their destination by car. One hundred percent if you count just me.”

“A good feeling when I see traffic cones. They weigh next to nothing and cannot hurt a car. That’s not why I mow them down.”

We don’t learn much about the driver, or the purpose of the driving. We are just riding along, watching through the passenger side window. The Title references an Al Green song.

Notable Passage: “The drive is determinedly a drive. Mostly it is just about the sounds of the car, or driving, of the fade-in and fade-out of the radio, the removal from everything but the moving body in a vehicle, of the is-ness of passing from here to there, of not being where you were, of Jesus waiting. Call it a meditation. Call it a drone. How else to approach Jesus that without history, without reason, without restraint?”

Rating 8-7-7-7 Total=29

#181 The Most Girl Part of You- Amy Hempel

#181 The Most Girl Part of You- Amy Hempel

Two adolescent best friends, one girl who lost her father years ago, and one boy who lost his mother 8 days ago. Big Guy is more than just a friend, he has been embraced by her mother as “The Man of the House.” She takes care of him, feeds him and welcomes him to the house.

The two teenagers maneuver through that uncomfortable period of attraction between lifelong best friends. What lines can be crossed, what lines should be crossed?

Hempel writes nostalgia very well. This somehow reminds me of my childhood even though non of the details match.

Notable Passage: “I mean someone that good-looking tells you what to do, you pretty much do what he says.”

Rating: 7-6-8-6 Total= 27

#167 Nashville Gone to Ashes- Amy Hempel

#167 Nashville Gone to Ashes- Amy Hempel

A widow is coming to grips with her husband’s death, and the life they shared.

“Here’s the trick I found for how to finally get some sleep. I sleep in my husband’s bed. That way the empty bed I look at is my own.”

He was a loving Veterinarian. They housed many animals, even though she was allergic. He gave her love, but she didn’t always feel special. “Things might have collapsed…But the furious care he gave the animals gave me hope and kept me waiting.”

“But the fact is, I think all of us were loved just the same. The love [my husband] gave to me was the same love he gave them. He did not say to the dogs, I will love you if you keep off the rug. He would love them no matter what they did. It’s what I got too. I wanted condition”

This is a bit charming, a bit melancholy, and a bit sad.

Notable Passage: “We give what we can—that’s as far as the heart will go.”

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

#153 Tonight is a Favor to Holly- Amy Hempel

#153 Tonight is a Favor to Holly- Amy Hempel

This story is about complacency, indifference, and apathy. As the narrator prepares for a blind date she does not want to go on, she wonders about her directionless life:

“It takes me fifty-five minutes to drive one way, and I wish the commute was longer. I like radio personalities and I like to change lanes. And losing yourself on the freeway is like living at the beach—you’re not aware of lapsed time, and suddenly you’re there, where it was you were going.”

“My job fits right in, I do nothing, it pays nothing, but—you guessed it—it’s better than nothing. A sense of humor helps.”

She ponders the slow, lack of ambition life of living on a west coat beach. The fickle, flaky, shallow musings of someone trapped by the luring effects of the beauty and vastness of the ocean view.

“The people who live here, what you here them say is I’m supposed to, I’ll try, I would have.

There is no friction here.

It’s kind of a buoyant place.

What you forget, living here, is that just because you have stopped sinking doesn’t mean you’re not still underwater.”

But she has tried moving away, tried other lives, tried switching lanes. Only to move back west. Like the many who die each falling off the cliffs of Highway One, she continues to move West until it’s too late.

“The truth is, the beach is like excess weight. If we lost it, what would the excuse be then?"

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