short stories

May 17 2011

Tom Perrotta on Flannery O’Connor

ThoughCast (“An ideaspace for authors, academics and intellectuals, hosted by Jenny Attiyeh) has posted a podcast interview with Tom Perrota wherein he discusses Flannery O’Connor:

His relationship with her borders on kinship, and he admires and admonishes her as he would a family member, with whom he shares a bond both genetic and cultural.

When asked to choose a specific piece of writing that’s had a significant impact on him, Tom chose O’Connor’s short story Good Country People, but then he threw in two others — Everything that Rises Must Converge and Revelation. As Tom explains, these three stories chart O’Connor’s careful trajectory, her unique vision, and her genius.

Click over and give a listen if you are so inclined. And check out ThoughtCast it looks like an interesting resource.

By Kevin Holtsberry • Interviews, Views • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,

Apr 9 2011

In the Mail: Alone With You

Alone With You: Stories

Publishers Weekly

Unwellness is woven through these eight beautiful and brutal stories from Silver (The God of War), who gives readers finely wrought slivers of lives scarred by sickness and the intermingling of hope and despair. The characters in the first two stories, “Temporary” and “The Visitor,” carry scars from their mothers’ illness into adult life. In “In the New World,” a 14-year-old boy gets a classmate pregnant, leading his hardworking immigrant father to reflect on his son’s future and his own battle to get away from an overprotective father. In “Leap,” a pet-owner’s wounded heart heals along with her injured dog, who she believes tried to kill himself. “Three Girls” tells the story of sisters who have to raise themselves in the face of incapable parents, while the title story details the resolution, made while trekking through the Sahara, of a woman recovering from a nervous breakdown. While the stories contain woes that can befall anyone—addiction, brain tumors, heart disease, disability—Silver infuses her characters with a fatalistic resilience that’s revealed through tiny, perfect details.

By Kevin Holtsberry • In The Mail • 0 • Tags: , ,

Feb 28 2011

Tales From Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

Cover of "Tales From Outer Suburbia"

Cover of Tales From Outer Suburbia

On one of our recent family treks to half-price books, I stumbled upon Shaun Tan‘s Tales From Outer Suburbia. This was one of those where both my wife and I were interested. She more for the illustrations and me for the short vignettes but both of us were intrigued by the combination.

I was vaguely aware of Tan but hadn’t read of owned any of his previous works. But the cover art and a peak inside pulled me in.

I was not disappointed. The book is full of mystery and whimsy; of foreboding and tragedy; of strangeness but joy as well. There is a unique combination of minimalism and depth to both the art work and the stories.

What works about these stories is what I find interesting about short stories, even though it is not my preferred format, they contain a depth that hints at “more” behind the story and yet they seem to capture just the right amount of the story on the page. They let the reader imagine what is off the page in a way that is thought provoking and satisfying somehow.

Keep Reading

By Kevin Holtsberry • Reviews • 0 • Tags: , , , , ,

Jun 30 2010

What Is This Thing Called Love? by Gene Wilder

Gene Wilder at a book signing for My French Whore

Image via Wikipedia

My review of Gene Wilder’s last book, The Woman Who Wouldn’t, had this assertion:

I don’t think Wilder is seeking to be a great writer or hone his craft in some academic or literary way. Rather, I think he enjoys telling stories of a certain kind. He isn’t doing this to get rich or famous but because he enjoys it.

His latest release, What Is This Thing Called Love?, reflects this I think. And my reaction to this collection of stories was similar to my reaction to his novels.

The stories touch on the idiosyncrasies of love; falling in love, longing for love, seeking love, etc.. Wilder often paints men as desperate for love and companionship but on occasion too dumb and selfish to see it for what it is. But he is also a romantic and understands that love breaks through and strikes when we often least expect it.

The stories are not particularly deep or literary but they have a lightness and a tragicomic sense that comes from Wilder and makes them worth reading.

From my perspective Kirkus Reviews best captured the collection’s oddly entertaining style:

Another slim volume that should amuse the actor’s fans. There is no answer to the question posed by the title of this collection of stories by Wilder (The Woman Who Wouldn’t, 2008, etc.). In fact, many of the narrators seem more confused in the aftermath of their romantic misadventures than they had been in the beginning. But, as one of the pair of young lovers suggests in “In Love for the First Time,” “If you always knew the ‘why’ about such things, the meaning of life wouldn’t be such a mystery.” In this particular story, an exceedingly shy boy and the more assertive object of his desire, herself a virgin, eventually make love-somehow. And that’s pretty much it. In three of the 12 stories, the protagonist is the hapless Buddy Silberman (to whom Wilder dedicates the collection as his cousin, “who really wanted love, but settled only for sex”), bumbling his way through various seductions and receiving a big surprise with the punch-line revelation of “The Hollywood Producer.” Many of these stories play out like elaborate jokes, often with a bittersweet tinge to the humor, or extended vignettes. Within them, love typically seems like a byproduct of biological urges, a matter of chance rather than destiny. “The Kiss” concerns two young actors at the Milwaukee Community Theater, with the 17-year-old girl asking her 24-year-old co-star “why they couldn’t go to his house and touch each other and see each other’s naked bodies.” When he says that she’s too young, she switches her affection to someone younger and runs off with him. True love prevails, or at least what passes for it in these stories. Wilder writes in his prelude that he hopes these stories “might give you a little pleasure and alaugh.” They should.

By Kevin Holtsberry • Reviews • 3 • Tags: , , ,

May 12 2010

Call It What You Want by Keith Lee Morris

I have been very busy with offline activities and haven’t had a chance to post reviews here. As I have mentioned before, that is likely to continue for the next six months and perhaps beyond. But I still want to try and post – even if short, quick bursts – about the books I have read. So here is the first of some catch-up posts.

I loved The Dart League King and so was interested in seeing Keith Morris work in short stories (I haven’t read any of his previous works) in his latest work Call it What You Want. I was not disappointed.

Although the stories share a similar form and focus – the “dreams and disappointments, good intentions and small triumphs, chronicles the lives of men lost in the liminal spaces between adolescence and adulthood” – each one has a unique angle and feel to it.

Morris has a honesty to his writing that comes from honing his craft so that just the essentials are left (isn’t that the essence of short story writing?) and a sympathy and humanism to the way he presents his characters. The surreal or absurdest nature of many of the stories adds a twist as well.

If you are a fan of the short story format – or just quality writing – be sure to check out Keith Morris.


By Kevin Holtsberry • Reviews • 0 • Tags: , ,

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