Relentlessly despondent, refreshing, and unforgettable tales from a skillful author.
Characters in this collection of short stories and a novella seek to validate their lives while ensnared in unhappy or fractured relationships.
In the story “He Said, She Said,” a woman has to sell her bookstore when her novelist husband’s debut isn’t selling well. After his later books garner attention and the couple are financially secure, she returns to writing poetry, an activity she enjoyed before they married. He, meanwhile, revels in multiple extramarital affairs. The predominantly female characters in Parrish’s tales struggle to define themselves. Adultery is a recurring theme, as in “The First Time.” In this case, a married woman is sleeping with a married man. Sadly, the title isn’t referencing the initial intimacy but, rather, a much worse transgression the woman suffers. There are additional hurdles that various players must face. Marjorie in “The Shed,” for example, wonders about her retired husband, Ed, who spruces up the shed and then spends most of his time there. Does he think his wife has grown weary of him, or does he feel that way about her? The collection’s final and best offering is the novella Mavis Muldoon. The eponymous character is an 80-year-old woman lounging in a lawn chair in a convenience store parking lot. She reflects on a full life, which includes losing both her husband and her only child. But her warmheartedness is infectious, as she gives a homeless man money for food, cares for his pet ferret, and lends a troubled teen girl her ear.
Many of the tales here are filled with misery and melancholy. A woman is considered a “freak” for much of her life simply due to her above-average height (“Here’s Why”) while Sally of “A Wild Feeling,” who craves affection, desperately tells her boyfriend’s other lover: “Give him back.” The book delivers a series of joyless marriages and relationships along with people who are discontent with careers or retirement. Even the dreamers who pursue their love of such arts as painting and photography may achieve success but don’t necessarily find bliss. There are nevertheless glimmers of hope. In “People Like Them,” Raoul has a job that involves checking residents’ homes while they’re away. This gives him and his girlfriend, Sally, the opportunity to stay, at least for a time, in an expensive home, though they may ultimately appreciate what they already have. Likewise, Mavis’ general buoyancy outshines the past tragedies she’s endured as well as her surviving family members—her granddaughter, Isabelle, and her husband, Brian—who seemingly view her as a burden. Parrish’s concise writing gives her already blunt language an even meaner punch: “Frank’s death had been sudden, which though merciful for him, was cruel for her. She’d had no time to prepare herself….He went to the store, stood in line, and dropped dead.” Readers will find some harsh, emotionally draining stories here. But these tales are also wonderfully worthwhile courtesy of an indelible voice that leaves a lasting impact.
Relentlessly despondent, refreshing, and unforgettable tales from a skillful author. (author bio)Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-950730-97-1
Page Count: 162
Publisher: Unsolicited Press
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The range and virtuosity of these stories make this Mosley’s most adventurous and, maybe, best book.
A grandmaster of the hard-boiled crime genre shifts gears to spin bittersweet and, at times, bizarre tales about bruised, sensitive souls in love and trouble.
In one of the 17 stories that make up this collection, a supporting character says: “People are so afraid of dying that they don’t even live the little bit of life they have.” She casually drops this gnomic observation as a way of breaking down a lead character’s resistance to smoking a cigarette. But her aphorism could apply to almost all the eponymous awkward Black men examined with dry wit and deep empathy by the versatile and prolific Mosley, who takes one of his occasional departures from detective fiction to illuminate the many ways Black men confound society’s expectations and even perplex themselves. There is, for instance, Rufus Coombs, the mailroom messenger in “Pet Fly,” who connects more easily with household pests than he does with the women who work in his building. Or Albert Roundhouse, of “Almost Alyce,” who loses the love of his life and falls into a welter of alcohol, vagrancy, and, ultimately, enlightenment. Perhaps most alienated of all is Michael Trey in “Between Storms,” who locks himself in his New York City apartment after being traumatized by a major storm and finds himself taken by the outside world as a prophet—not of doom, but, maybe, peace? Not all these awkward types are hapless or benign: The short, shy surgeon in “Cut, Cut, Cut” turns out to be something like a mad scientist out of H.G. Wells while “Showdown on the Hudson” is a saga about an authentic Black cowboy from Texas who’s not exactly a perfect fit for New York City but is soon compelled to do the right thing, Western-style. The tough-minded and tenderly observant Mosley style remains constant throughout these stories even as they display varied approaches from the gothic to the surreal.
The range and virtuosity of these stories make this Mosley’s most adventurous and, maybe, best book.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8021-4956-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Sept. 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
All hits and no skips is a tall order, but this strong, solid compilation is well worth a short story lover’s time.
Pitlor ushers in her final installment as series editor of this long-running staple showcasing the year in short fiction.
Of all the kids at the literary lunch table, the anthology might have it the hardest. Wearing plaid with stripes, unpacking the random items in its lunch box—it’s hard for a cohesive personality to shine through, unlike those cool-kid single-author collections. But if readers are prepared for eclecticism—and since Best American Short Stories was established in 1915, we must be—these 20 stories have something for everyone. Guest edited by Groff, a seven-time Best American author, the collection includes some nods to short story royalty: Jhumpa Lahiri, Lori Ostlund, the late Laurie Colwin, and Jim Shepard are all represented. But as both Pitlor and Groff discuss in their introductions, Groff sent back Pitlor’s initial batch of stories asking for something “rawer, meaner, spikier”—stories with their own “weird logic.” (Groff’s description of this aesthetic preference lands better than her diatribe against the first-person point of view, which precedes 12 of 20 stories in first-person.) In finding weird, spiky stories, Groff leans hard—and often thrillingly—on early-career writers. There is Katherine Damm’s sparkling and funny “The Happiest Day of Your Life,” featuring a young husband freewheeling into drunkenness at a wedding reception for his wife’s ex-boyfriend. In Suzanne Wang’s inventive “Mall of America,” AI narrates a tale of corporate (and all-too-human) woe when an elderly man spends time after hours in the mall’s arcade. Madeline Ffitch’s “Seeing Through Maps” recounts the tense relationship between two neighbors with a complicated history. In Steven Duong’s “Dorchester,” a young writer has a poem go viral after an anti-Asian hate crime.
All hits and no skips is a tall order, but this strong, solid compilation is well worth a short story lover’s time.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9780063275959
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
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