#341 Other Brands of Poison- Rebecca Makkai

#341 Other Brands of Poison- Rebecca Makkai

Family legends told decades later often change depending on who’s telling them, but the important parts stay the same.

“If the story is hazy, seventy years later, that is because it is his. If the details are strangely specific—the dialogue, the type of soup—that is because they are mine.”

As I rotate through the fifteen or so authors during this round of short stories, if becomes clear which collection I like best. I have a large stack of these books on my desk and I read one, I put it on the bottom of the stack, with the top book being tomorrow’s story. Each time I get to see Makkai on top, I know tomorrow’s read is going to be a good one.

Even short pieces like this one are filled with rich, deep, emotion. So far, Music For Wartime has been the find of this year.

Rating: 10-7-8-9 Total= 34

#340 Great Grandmother’s Mango Chutney- Sandip Roy

#340 Great Grandmother’s Mango Chutney- Sandip Roy

In this collection, Don’t Let Him Know, the stories are connected in what should come together as “a novel in stories.” The hope for me was that each would be independent enough of a snapshot that they would stand as short stories.  So far, so good. However, this fifth story, Great Grandmother’s Mango Chutney doesn’t quite work without the context of the others. It might work as different kind of short if you didn’t read any of the other chapters, but there would be something missing. As a part of the larger piece, this works to propel the characters along, rather than act as a set piece.

That said, it adds a lot to the feeling of the book. Amit is the youngest in a house that holds four generations of the family. His mother runs the house and butts heads with the grandmother, and great-grandmother who is suffering with the frailty of her remaining time on earth. Amit is remembering this time of his life from twenty-five years later, in San Francisco, feeling homesick while he searches for a taste of home.

Rating: 9-6-6-5 Total= 26

#339 The No-Talent Kid- Kurt Vonnegut

#339 The No-Talent Kid- Kurt Vonnegut

Mr. George M. Helmholtz lived in a world of music, and even the throbbing of his headache came to him musically, if painfully, as the "deep-throated boom of a bass drum seven feet in diameter.”

The Lincoln High School band had won every single band competition the last ten years until last year, when the Johnstown High School Band had stunned the judges with their amazing over-sized bass drum.  The loss haunts Helmholtz as he tries to prepare this year's band for the next competition.

Enter Walter Plummer, the least talented kid in the school: “No one else. He realized, no matter how untalented, could fill the last chair of the organization as well has Plummer had.”

When Plummer was able to procure an even larger drum, he tried to make a deal with Helmholtz for a place of honor in the band. The agreement they struck, as would this story, would make O. Henry proud.

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

#338 Eleanor’s Music- Mary Gordon

#338 Eleanor’s Music- Mary Gordon

I guess you could call Eleanor old-fashioned. Perhaps stubbornly complacent is a better term. It’s not that she is happy or content with her life, as much as she doesn’t want anything to change.

She had a husband, but they divorced when he admitted his homosexuality. They are still friends now, and for the last 18 years, she has lived with her parents, a situation to all of them that seems normal.

“She knew that many people thought it odd, to say nothing of unhealthy, for her to be living with her parents at age fifty-one…She had long ago given up that last residue of her embarrassment, which at one time, like a pile of dried leaves, could be set adrift by the slightest wind, and would flutter inside her, cause her to put her hand splayed out flat against her chest.”

“She considered the shape of her life not peculiar, but original; she lived as she liked; real courage, she believed, was doing what you believe in, however it appeared.”

Like her parents who never leave the house without impeccable dress, Eleanor believes the details of her life should be kept from everyone, including her family. She lives with small enjoyments. These will rarely change, and anything ugly or new should be avoided or hidden.

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

#337 Solid Wood- Ann Beattie

#337 Solid Wood- Ann Beattie

A famous writer, Jacob Foxx Greer has died. An old friend and colleague comes to visit his daughter and wife. He brings his sister, a former student and lover of Greer’s.

It’s a quiet, contemplative piece that makes the reader steadily try to put the puzzle pieces together. It seems at times that all the other characters know something more than the narrator (and thus the reader). There are questions left unanswered and should probably stay that way.

The paragraph where the narrator is struggling to see the check, and has a flash memory caused by the pen-light is exceptionally written.

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