#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

#535 On Sleepless Roads- Craig Davidson

#535 On Sleepless Roads- Craig Davidson

Graham is a repo-man. He gets up in the pre-dawn hours to repossess vehicles from those missing payments. 95 % of the time, he manages to complete his job without incident; other times, things can get violent. He has been doing this work, on sleepless roads, for twenty-five years.

His wife, Nell is suffering from a degenerative disease called Bradykinesia. It has caused her to lose control over the movement of her body. She shakes uncontrollably and her walk, once a thing of amazement and beauty to Graham, is no longer what it once was.

We see graham go through a few repo stops, and we see some of the tactics people use to beg for their stuff back. In a rare scene, we actually see graham take pity on a man and lets his temporarily keep his trailer.

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

#353 Lauren Groff- L. DeBard and Aliette: A Love Story

#353 L. DeBard and Aliette: A Love Story- Lauren Groff

You could call this amazing story: Love in the Time of Spanish Influenza. Like the great love tragedies of Gabriel Garcia Marques, this one leaves you heavy with grief, and envious of the love lost.

Lodovico Debard is a famous man. “He’s a swimmer, but he is other things, too: a forty-three-year-old with a mighty set of pectorals, one chipped front tooth, and a rakish smile; a rumored Bolshevik; a poet, filler of notebooks, absinthe drinker, cavorter of the literary types.”

He begins giving swim lessens to Aliette Huber. She was a beautiful and accomplished young woman before being stricken by polio. Now in a wheelchair, this protected heiress hopes to gain strength, and other things, from her new savior.

“She knows L. from his book of poetry, which she reads when she was recuperating from her illness. She feels he knows him so intimately that now, freezing on the dock, she is startled and near tears: she has just realized that, to him, she is a stranger.”

Their love affair is careful but passionate. As their fate runs its course, so does the global epidemic of Spanish Flu, swallowing the world in death and fear. They hardly notice:

“Who in the midst of passion, is vigilant against illness? Who listens to the reports of recent decimated populations in Spain, India, Bora Bora, when new lips, tongues, and poems fill the world?”

Notable Passage: “Their kiss is long and hungry. If they knew how often they would remember it, for how many years it would be their dearest memory, this kiss would last for hours.”

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

#199 Love- William Maxwell

#199 Love- William Maxwell

I got this story from the That Glimpse of Truth short story collection. It says of Maxwell: “..was the New Yorker’s fiction editor for many years but, since his death, his own work has come to be highly appreciated. He edited many of the best-known writers of the last century including Nabokov, Updike, Salinger, Cheever, Gallant, Welty and Bashevis Singer.” This is my first time reading him.

Love is a quaint story about a fifth grade teacher stricken with Tuberculosis. Her class adores her in a way that no class has ever adored a teacher. It lovingly illustrates the power that educators can have over children. We will always remember out teachers. I remember my fifth grade teacher…Thanks you Mrs. Abels!

Notable Passage: “She didn’t belong to us anymore. She belonged to her illness.”

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