#741 Vampires in the Lemon Grove- Karen Russell

#741 Vampires in the Lemon Grove- Karen Russell

The title story of Karen Russell’s first short story collection sets a good tone. It’s a vampire story, but original and touching. These characters don’t need to be vampires, they could be anyone going through life with normal emotions—love, loneliness, depression.

Clyde grew up alone hearing all the horror stories about vampires, the killing, the bloodsucking the aversion to sunlight, etc. He built his own life around these stories until he met the only other vampire he has ever met, Magreb.  She becomes his wife and disabuses him of the lore. They travel and live somewhat normal lives, but his hunger once psychosomatically about blood has led them to an Italian lemon grove. Lemons, it seems can quench their nocturnal thirst for a while.

“After an initial prickling—a sort of chemical effervescence along my gums—a soothing blankness traveled from the tip of each fang to my fevered brain. These lemons are a vampire’s analgesic. If you have been thirsty for a long time, if you have been suffering, then the absence of those two feelings—however brief—becomes a kind of heaven.”

He sits all day in the grove looking like an old Italian widower and with Magreb he feels that he need not travel anymore. He is no longer lonely:

“There is a loneliness that must be particular to monsters, I think, the feeling that each is the only child of a species. And now that loneliness was over.”

However, he is not an old man, and Magreb is ready to keep moving. Clyde’s dilemma is a very human one, caught between love and life, feeling lonely and depressed and not wanting to let go of old feelings.

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

#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

#79 Tricks- Alice Munro

#79 Tricks- Alice Munro

This is a tragic Love Story. We haven’t had many of those in the past few months. This is at once familiar and completely fresh.

Robin is a single 26 year-old traveling to Stratford for her annual night of theatre. She likes to go alone and ride the train home afterwards. Due to a serendipitous string of events, she has the romantic night of her life. After losing her purse she meets a man walking his dog that offers his assistance:

“She had trusted him for faulty reasons. But she had not be mistaken to do so.”

They part, but not before agreeing to meet again next summer: “We will not write letters, letters are not a good idea. We will just remember each other, and next summer we will meet.”

But alas, it is not to be. The Shakespearian circumstances that lead to their failed re-meet is heartbreaking to ponder, but as a reader of short stories, completely satisfying. This is a fantastic read!

Notable Passage: “Move and inch this way or that…and you’re lost.”  Such is life.

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