#649 In the Winter Sky- Jon McGregor

#649 In the Winter Sky- Jon McGregor 

There is a lot of love in this story, love of family, love of the land. It’s authentic and earthy. It is also tragic like love often is, but this not a love story. This is a story about truth and life, living with your mistakes; it is about inevitability.

George kissed a girl for the first time when he was seventeen, the same night that he killed a drunken stranger with his car. The kiss led to his marriage and the killing led to a secret he would keep for many years. Both were defining moments, both were inevitable and both represent the land and the earth. 

Things happen differently in the farmland. You marry the girl nest door, you work your family’s land when your father gets too old, you live with your mistakes the best you can. Macgregor writes this atmosphere so well; The slowness of a farm, the stillness of time and the deep meaning in small gestures.

“She has seen the faint smiles and nods which indicate that he is well pleased. She hopes that George has noticed; She suspects that he has not.”

The pastoral setting somehow smoothes over the tragedy as a mere fact of life. The whole story is interwoven with the poetry of Joanne. It’s from her notebooks and either unfinished, unpolished or re-written so we see the changes. Like the story itself the poetry is both delicate and deeply rooted, and at times stunningly emotional.

There is no history here.

No dramatic finds of Saxon villages.

No burial mounds of hidden treasures.

Only the rusted anchors our ploughs drag up,

Left when these fields were the sea.

Notable Passage: “The death he had made in the hole he had made in the earth.”

Rating: 9-9-10-9 Total= 37

#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

#394 Dimension- Alice Munro

#394 Dimension- Alice Munro

This was a hard story to read. An emotionally oppressive marriage ends it the murder of three children. Lloyd was insane, getting there slowly, while Doree seemed happy at first, but as it is in this situation, she couldn’t reason with herself a way to get out.

“No matter how worn out she got with him, he was still the closest person in the world to her, and she felt that everything would collapse if she were to bring herself to tell someone exactly how he was, if she were to be entirely disloyal.”

Her fears seemed to be dead-on. When they had an argument and Doree spent the night with a friend to give it some space, he took that as betrayal, and killed their children: “I wanted to save them the misery…the misery of knowing that their mother walked out on them.”

In her emotional recovery—if a person can really recover from something like this—she decided to go visit him in prison. “It was almost like seeing a ghost.”

He was more worried about his own soul--“Peace. I arrived at peace and I’m still sane”—then the souls of his children. He wasn’t contrite or apologetic, just interested that he, himself was getting better. I guess that’s the true definition of psychosis…you murder three people, and make it all about yourself.

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

#372 Better Latitude- Antonio Ruiz-Camacho

#372 Better Latitude- Antonio Ruiz-Camacho

A single mother is raising her child and trying to make sense of his father’s disappearance. The whole story is written like a letter that will never be sent. Laureano, used to his father’s sparse company, only believes his father has taken a long trip and will soon come back. His mother knows better, although she herself is in some denial:

“I realized you had a capacity for disposing of people like they were ziplock bags, but I considered this trait of yours the same way I did tragedy or bad luck, only affecting other people, never myself.”

There is something both noble and tragic about this delusional mother, hanging on to any thread of hope, her son in a state of suspended emotional development. The end will not be good, no matter how hard she works as a mother, something is missing. Maybe it’s not just his father, maybe the missing truth is more damaging.

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

#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

#261 Doo Wop- Jabari Asim

#261 Doo Wop- Jabari Asim

Ray Mortimer is a violent, crooked cop. “Crossing Sarah street, Mortimer loses himself in a fog of memories. So many ass-kickings, all in the name of peace.”

Charlotte is “A Petite southern lady with a brain for science will of steel.”

And Guts is a hard-hitting killer.

Tonight their three paths will cross. Their fates will converge, and somebody will die. Is it random, is it justice, is it destiny?

“It’s all about choices…tonight I stopped. Another day I might have kept on going. Who’s to say how it all comes out in the end? Damned if you doo-wop, damned if you don’t.”

Notable Passage: “Danger always has a scent, though most of us miss it.”

Rating: 7-7-7-7 Total= 28

#259 Nemecia- Kirsten Valdez Quade

#259 Nemecia- Kirsten Valdez Quade

Maria is seven years younger than her cousin, Nemecia, and sees her as an older sister. And like any younger sister, she bears the weight of jealously, admiration, and the need to find her own identity in the shadow of someone more defined.

This family is racked with a tragedy. Nemecia’s mother died when she was seven. Protecting her and giving her a loving home has become Maria’s parent’s biggest concern. Maria doesn’t understand, and tries to find out the truth of what happened. Nobody will tell her, because the memories are so sad, and she is so innocent.

“You are lucky, Maria to have been born after that day, You’re untouched.”

Whe she pries her family to tell her, she gets vague answers like: “It’s best forgotten.” Or “It’s beyond imagining”

“The whole town seemed to have agreed to keep me in the dark.” This adds to her resentment of Nemecia. Children understand and feel keenly when another child is getting special attention. Perhaps if she had been told why Nemecia needed to be treated differently, Maria would have undetrstood. But the family doesn’t seem to work that way. When there is a conflict between the girls, Maria is the one that is sent to live briefly with their aunt, instead of Nemecia. That’s a hard lesson for a young girl already feeling unloved to learn.

Like the scar on her cheek caused by Nemecia, these wounds never truly heal.

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