#878 Haight Ashbury- Cookie Mueller

#878 Haight Ashbury- Cookie Mueller

This is an atmosphere memoir type story about San Francisco in the summer of 1967. It has all the drugs and hippie flair you would expect from such a story:

“The air was thick with the smell of marijuana, patchouli oil, jasmine incense and Eucalyptus trees. Black guys were playing congos and flutes; white guys were playing harmonicas and guitars. It was as crowded as Coney Island on the Fourth of July. Hippie Hill was like this every day of the week.”

Although fun for what it is, Mueller clumsily tries to show exactly how cool the scene is while also trying to show her disdain for it, and thus how much cooler she is than the whole thing. She name-drops all the regulars like Joplin, Hendrix, Morrison, Carmichael. Like the others from this collection, I see the value of her writing, clearly an edgy and important voice for her time, but one that loses its importance this far removed from the scene.

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

#421 The Prison- Domenic Stansberry

#421 The Prison- Domenic Stansberry

Jojo was back from the war, everything had changed. North Beach was still the old neighborhood, but his father wasn’t there any more. His father used to be a respected newspaper man, ran a local Italian weekly. At the start of the war, he was brought before a hearing and sent to an interment camp.

Now Jojo is caught between San Francisco and Reno where his father is. He won’t return, he has been shamed publically and his pride will not allow him to come back. Jojo resents his whole neighborhood for allowing this to happen to his family while he was serving his country.

All this happens as they watch Alcatraz burn in the failed prisoner revolt of 1946.

Notable Passage: “I hadn’t planned to be here, but here I was. There are things you don’t escape. In the dark.

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

#331 Larry’s Place- Michelle Tea

#331 Larry’s Place- Michelle Tea

This was another story out of the San Francisco Noir collection. It’s an interesting read, standard noir feel. A prostitute lives in a shitty run down apartment on Bernal Hill. Her ex girlfriend breaks in and robs her. At the same time, her landlord dies upstairs. She hides the body, lives in his apartment, uses his car, and waits for the inevitable.

Rating: 7-6-6-5 Total= 24

#323 Double Espresso- Sin Soracco

#323 Double Espresso- Sin Soracco

I got this story from San Francisco Noir, one of a series of City Noir collections.  The series uses local writers to “…help expose the psycho-geography of a city. Hidden and repressed memories are a focal point…”

Here Gina is a homeless woman sleeping in a park built above a filled-in waterway. Water is a big theme here, and rivers dried-up, or controlled by civilization. Gina takes a trip just outside the city to visit a friend. She learns that the world is crazy when you don’t know the lay of the land.

“She discovered a fondness for the city buried somewhere deep in her chest, most noticeably when she was leaving.”

Notable Passage: “Civilization treats pain with lectures.”

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

#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