#540 Malaria- Michael Byers

#540 Malaria- Michael Byers

Orlando was living an OK life in college. He had a girlfriend that he could not imagine living without. “I wasn’t headed anywhere on any fast track, that was plain even then, and I didn’t have any kind of natural flair, but I had Nora, and it felt to me like a fair exchange.”

When he went to visit her parents he met Nora’s brother, George. After playing tennis together, George told Orlando that he had Malaria. It was an obvious lie and it stuck in Orlando’s head. He didn’t tell Nora and life went on. Later that year George began showing signs of mental instability. He felt guilty about not mentioning the Malaria lie, thinking it might have been an early warning sign. It wasn’t, it had nothing to do with him or what lie he was told.

As Orlando and Nora broke up, and things went forward, he learned about creating or finding his own identity. “I think this summer was also the period when I first struck on the idea of ambition, that I could be something in particular, rather than just myself in general.”

All this time, however, he couldn’t stop thinking about George. This one person, with one moment taking up an unfair amount of importance to Orlando, trying to find meaning where none existed.

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

#504 Wings- Lorrie Moore

#504 Wings- Lorrie Moore

This story is the perfect depiction of how the world sees generation-x and probably a little how generation-x views itself—or maybe just how I view it. KC and Dench are in a long term relationship, in their late thirties and are going nowhere. Neither is their music career. Their last tour has ended and they are renting an old house and KC is doing some mid life re-evaluating.

“She spent a decade barking up the wrong tree.”

“She loved Dench. She was helpless before the whole emotional project of him. But it didn’t preclude hating him and everything around him, which included herself, the sound of her own voice—and the sound of his which was worse.”

While Dench is staying home probably having similar thoughts, KC befriends an old man and finds peace and truth in his presence. She likes the old-fashioned attention he gives her, like the parents she missed. She struggles with what to do from here on out.

The story is a good one, it hits on the right somber notes, not too powerful and not too delicate. The imagery is great, little detail like the old man complaining about age then flashing a smile with “Sepia teeth”…a color usually describing an old photograph.

And of all the movies, books, songs, and random conversations I’ve had over the years, never before has there been a better description of a Generation-X relationship than this one sentence:

“I don’t know what I want…and I don’t know what you’re doing.” AMAZING!!!

As with a lot of Moore’s stories I find this has a little too much “extra” material. There are pages of stuff that would be great for development in a novel, but I find extemporaneous in shorter fiction—but that is just a personal preference. I also get stopped when I come to a phrase like this:

“Patience was a chemical. Derived from a mineral. Derived from a star. She felt she had a bit of it. But it was not always fruitful. Or fruitful with the right fruit.”

It’s nice wordplay, great musical cadence, but it seems like phrase just dropped into the story for its form, and to me feels un-integrated in the flow of the piece. It happens a few times per story where I stop to re-read a passage and wonder why it’s there; They’re not unpleasant, just out of place. It would be like walking in a secluded forest and suddenly coming across a string quarter. That would be a beautiful sight, just not the sight you set out to find...and the rest of your hike you find it hard to enjoy the natural beauty of the forest because you have the string quarter stuck in your mind.

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

#488 The Breakup Ceremony- Toure

#488 The Breakup Ceremony- Toure

“We are gathered here today to witness the conclusion of a wonderful relationship between two wonderful people.”

This is the custom in Soul City. If a couple is together long enough but doesn’t last, the community throws them a Breakup Ceremony, an un-wedding of sorts. Each party gets to briefly air their grievance and they, supposedly, part under fair circumstances.

“The ceremony spreads the word that it’s over, freeing the two from many awkward questions, sending a tacit message to anyone who’s been waiting for the relationship to dissolve.”

It sounds very civil doesn’t it? Any reason to throw a party I guess. Today’s ceremony goes awry of course, and an good intentions are lost in a flurry of chaos. What didn’t they think was going to happen?

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

#423 Blue Heron Bridge- Katherine Heiny

#423 Blue Heron Bridge- Katherine Heiny

This story just has a natural humor to it. Not that the topic was all that funny, a woman having an affair with a neighbor, but the breezy style it’s written, somehow softens our judgment of that situation, and we get a story told by someone that could be a friend of ours.

Nina is very self aware about her infidelity and what kind of person it makes her but she does it anyway.

“Oh, it was horrible to have a teenager’s emotions and a forty-year-old’s body. It was humiliating. It was depressing. It was degrading. It made her feel alive to the very tips of her toes.”

Like I said, there is nothing naturally amusing about this story, its just told very well. The humor is in the details. Like the name of her neighbor—Bunny Pringle. “The most interesting thing about Bunny Pringle, in Nina’s opinion, was that everyone always referred to her by both her first and last name, like Darth Vader.”

Heiny has a very plaintive, matter of fact attitude towards her character’s relationships that I find relieving. So many of the stories I’ve read about relationships, infidelity, failed marriages are just so weighty, or self-indulgent. This is just one person sitting at a bar saying: “Guess what I did the other day?”

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

#375 How to Give the Wrong Impression- Katherine Heiny

#375 How to Give the Wrong Impression- Katherine Heiny

If a modern phenomenon can be considered an age-old tale, then this is it: urban apartment living with unrequited love. This goes beyond the “friend zone,” this is “friend purgatory.”

Gwen and Boris live together, but not in that way. They are apartment mates. To the outside world they look like much more, and in their own minds they each secretly wish to be. They don’t deny rumors or insinuations that they are in a relationship, but they won’t outright imply it either. To each other, they try their hardest to hide their feelings to the point that:

“you worry you’re becoming a pathological liar.”

They get jealous of each other’s romantic lives, but even that gets more scarce with time. “You don’t have boyfriends anymore, and these days you don’t even have dates.” It’s a game of relationship chicken; how many hints can you drop and hope that the other finally makes the first move?

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

#333 Taped to the Sky- Luis Alberto Urrea

#333 Taped to the Sky- Luis Alberto Urrea

Hubbard is in a bad way. His wife, the woman he bought a car and an education for, the woman he just helped get through an AA program, left with her sponsor. He decided to take the car back and drive his troubles away.

South to Louisiana, West to Texas, North to Colorado, etc…“This whole chunk of the map was written in poems and liquor bottle labels.”

His grief subsided with each state, each dumb roadside attraction, each violence run-in with the local drunks. As the sky got bigger, his head got clearer:

“There were patterns moving across the sky, high, where small scallops of cloud shimmered like mother-of-pearl. He felt a part of the great becoming, the revelation of the West.”

Sometimes when you feel abandoned, maybe you’ve really been set free. Sometimes, you still need to be taught a lesson.

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

#226 Thawing Out- T.C. Boyle

#226 Thawing Out- T.C. Boyle

Marty is 24 and in the beginnings of a serious relationship with Naina. As it gets more serious, he gets more cold on the subject. He takes a solo vacation that turns out to be a five month long weekend, losing his job, and his girlfriend in the process. Afraid of adulthood and a long term commitment, Marty struggles with adulthood.

The setting and theme is cold water. Naina’s family is Ukrainian and they have an affinity for cold water. Their Polar Bear Club takes a ceremonial frigid dip into the Hudson each winter solstice to reaffirm their lives and virility. Marty needs to take the plunge to rid himself of his selfish adolescent ways.

The plunge has to be voluntary. The accidental fall into freezing water he took in Canada was due to miscommunication, and thus ended in disaster. The real plunge must be embraced, and done on faith; that one will be as warm as bath water.

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