enthusiastic reader

Thoughts about Tampa , by Alissa Nutting This novel's anti-protagonist narrator, Celeste, is so focused on her own sexual needs, which can be filled only by having sex with unformed adolescent boys, that other elements of what we might consider essential to life, love, friendship, civic duty, and intellectual stimulation, are absent from her consciousness. But what's brilliant about Alissa Nutting's work is that Celeste's story of putting all her effort into seduction and domination is really an indictment of our culture's similar effort to sexualize and dehumanize itself. Tampa the city has little or nothing to do with the story; it could have happened in any sterile suburb in any part of the country. By setting it in a generic city, Celeste's perverse and cruel acts point right back at us and our larger culture. Like so much covered in the media, Celeste is so glib, so oblivious, so immune to guilt that even though she admits she has "broken...

Alice Munro Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage Published in 2001, Vintage Books Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage Two girls on the cusp of womanhood, Edith and Sabitha, bring out the worst tendencies of each other in a small town. They connive against the Sabitha's father's housekeeper, writing fake letters to Johanna from Sabitha's ne'er do well father. It is Edith who is the smart one, and though she is not kind, she can intuit the sad and lonely lives that Johanna and the father must live. In the end, Johanna does end up with the father and they have their own son. It's a long short story that combines the inner lives of several characters, burgeoning sexual curiosity of the girls, how small small town life can be, and more.

Taking a page from Quivering Pen and Lynne's Book Notes , here are the best sentences I read this week. At the time, I was wondering how I could tweet them for fullest impact, but this is better: From "Differently," published in Alice Munro's Friend of My Youth: The bleak apartment in the run-down building, the bad-tempered old woman who was knitting a sweater, the doctor arriving in his shirtsleeves, carrying a brown-paper bag that Maya hysterically believed must contain the tools of his trade. In fact, it contained his lunch--an egg-and-onion sandwich. Maya had the smell of that in her face all the time he and Mme. Defarge were working her over.

Alice Munro Friend of My Youth Vintage Contemporaries, 1990 #s in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series #34-43 Friend of My Youth This is a nested narrative wherein the narrator has recurring dreams that her mother, afflicted by some kind of neurological disease at the end of her life, returns to the narrator fully formed and healthy. "I would say [to her dream mother] that I was sorry that I hadn't been to see her in such a long time--meaning not that I felt guilty but that I was sorry I had kept a bugbear in my mind, instead of this reality--and the strangest, kindest thing of all to me was her matter-of-fact reply. Oh well, she said, better late than never. I was sure I'd see you someday." The bulk of the story is another  story, a memory of the mother right before she was married, when she taught school and boarded with a family who practiced an extreme form of Prebyterianism. Two sisters (one married, the other not) live in an una...

In the first episode of the sixth season, Betty Draper glibly suggests to her husband that he "rape" the fifteen-year-old friend of Sally, Betty's daughter. Henry looked shocked (as anyone would) and many people who blog about Mad Men said that she had crossed a line, even for Betty. But Betty has always crossed lines of behavior, whether for shock value or for the volt of adrenaline that Don mentions elsewhere in the episode. I can think of a number of incidents: 1. She shot the neighbor's pigeons. 2. She manipulated a situation where a friend succumbed to lust and then Betty shamed her for it. 3. She teased the mechanic in the dead of night on a dark road. 4. She seduced a stranger in a bar in the backroom. 5. She allowed the neighbor boy, Glen, to cut a lock of her hair and didn't fully realize why the mother thought it was weird. 6. She became angry and jealous because Glen became friends with Sally. 7. And in this episode, she hangs out in the flophou...

Honeydew Edith Pearlman From Best American Short Stories, 2012 Originally appeared in Orion #33 in the I read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series A private day school and a forbidden ravine and a centruy-old suicide get mentioned in the first paragraph. The headmistress, Alice, is perturbed by a superb but anorexic student named Emily; her anger is such that we are told that "this tall bundle of a twigs that called itself a girl--Alice's palms ached to spank her." Alice meets with parents; the father is a detached physician who scolds Alice and the wife: "Emily must find her own way to continue to live," which the narrator tells us is "useful and true." Alice is pregnant by Emily's father, the physician. He will not leave his wife. Manna is described as being excrement, called by nomads "honeydew." Emily is fascinated by this concept. The biological lives of insects is the thread that holds the story together. I...

North Country Roxane Gay From Best American Short Stories, 2012 Originally printed in Hobart #32 in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories project A faculty engineer named Kate embarks on a sad cruise of Lake Superior with a less than desirable set of colleagues. She is African-American, and must endure questions like, "Are you from Detroit?" She tells us, "Shortly after that, I will begin telling people I have recently arrived from Africa. They will nod and exhale excitedly and ask about my tribe. I don't know that in this moment, so there is little to comfort me." She meets Magnus as she comes to the deck for air. Loneliness is pervasive in North Country. Kate despairs the life of the town. She tells her mother more than once that she might not survive. She has a one-night encounter with Magnus; he seems very interested in her but she pushes him away. Kate remembers being with a liar, her dissertation advisor, the father of their s...

"Hello, Everybody" A.M. Homes From Electric Literature, Volume 5, #1 Kindle Single #31 in the 300 short story project Like the characters in Homes' May We Be Forgiven, the characters in this story are hyper-contemporary. They are late-adolescent and have intellectualized tattoos, body logo branding, acne, and psychotherapy. The girl, Cheryl, has a family that lives in bathing suits, is addicted to plastic surgery, and has a dog named "Rug." The mother had a failed operation to change the color of her eyes. They eat in restaurants with names like Micro-Macro, where they are served "Tiny designer-sized macrobiotic bites." Walter is Cheryl's best friend, a fish out of water who's been away at school for awhile and comes back to visit the family. It has a surreal George Saunders vibe, parody, satire, a depressing commentary on modern, detached, artificial life.

Creatures Marisa Silver From the 12/17/12 New Yorker 30# in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series The story of James, a father, angrily dealing with the perception on the part of a nursery school that his son Miles is dangerous. Weaving from the present to James's childhood, when he is part of a terrible accident involving a hunting rifle and a very stuffed-up friend named Freddy, who is tormented by his father. There is a lot of lashing out and passive aggression.

George Saunders Civilwarland in Bad Decline Stories and a novella Riverhead Books, first published 1996 #24-29  in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series Civilwarland in Bad Decline Absurdist and violent, the narrator recounts the decline and fall of a simulated Civil War park, replete with gangs, ghosts, a hired killer, and the narrator's own bloody death. The story follows the narrator's conscience; he starts out as a functionary, a yes-man, but by the end, as more innocent people are targeted and killed, he sees what he has helped destroy. There is a scene where one of the ghosts gets caught in some kind of violent loop and must reenact the murder of his own family, a ghost killing ghosts and the narrator himself will soon be a ghost. There is horror all around. Isabelle Some terrible people cope with special needs, murder, and love. Poverty, miseducation, and despair are the undertones. The Wavemaker Falters The ghost of a boy who was ...

Alan Heathcock "Volt" from the collection, Volt #23  in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series Sheriff Helen is back a few weeks after the flood of the story,   "Peacekeeper." I'm not sure "Volt" would entirely hold up without the previous story. Or, perhaps it would stand alone, but knowledge about Helen and what she'd recently endured certainly adds a rich layer to this story. There's another big storm and the already damaged town is further wrecked by too much rain. Helen is asked by law enforcement from the county seat to pave the way for an outstanding warrant arrest. So Helen has to approach the suspect's home and encounters stiff and violent resistance. In the meantime, she also has to grapple with her own guilt about keeping her slowly-deteriorating mother in a nursing home. Sheriff Helen deserves her own novel.

Tessa Hadley Married Love and Other Stories 2012 Harper Collins #11-22  in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series Married Love A young girl, 19, has an affair with a much older professor of theology. He leaves his 2nd wife and marries Lottie, against the wishes of her bohemian, non-married parents. It's a Casaubon situation, though the husband is patient but unhappy. Lottie has a number of children and is very unhappy. She tells her brother that "my life is so grey." Edgar takes up with his second wife for the comforts of marriage that Lottie is unable or unwilling to bestow on him. Friendly Fire Shelly and Pam sometimes do cleaning jobs together. In this story, they are cleaning the mess of men who work in a plant. The story is about Shelly, her worry over her son fighting in Afghanistan, the loss of her sexual drive. Hadley's gorgeous descriptions of the outdoors is juxtaposed with the filth of the warehouse. And she paints the sc...

Sam Lipsyte The Climber Room From the 11/21/11 New Yorker #10  in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series Tovah is in her later-30s and like many other people, underemployed, drifting, lonely. There has been an annoying biological switch that has suddenly set to "baby," even though she is contented being alone. She works in a day care center and a parent who calls himself Randy Goat pays particular attention to her. Themes of economic breakdown, gender, and body image, and sexism; they are all here.

Kevin Canty Mayfly, from the 1/28/13 New Yorker #9  in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series James and Molly, Jenny and Sam. Two couples, no happiness. On the drive to Jenny and Sam's mountain mansion somewhere away from Denver, James and Molly collide with a swarm of butterflies. The story centers on James and his misery, and how he and Jenny wallow together in misery of their mates when those mates drive down to Denver for the night.

A&P by John Updike From the New Yorker Fiction Podcast #8  in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series When I realized that the reader, Allegra Goodman, chose Updike's serially anthologized story, one I've read in at least two and probably more English classes, I was surprised at the conventionality. But I listened anyway and it was a treat to hear the narrator's angsty and appreciative prose as he tells the story of girls who dare to come to the grocery store in their bathing suits. Sammy is inexperienced and arrogant; a common combination. His probably temporary rejection of the mores of the time, must, as Goodman said in her interview, have seemed very fresh.

Fitting Ends Dan Chaon First published in Triquarterly Best American Short Stories 1996 #7  in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series The story starts out with the ghost of the narrator's brother appearing on the train tracks a couple of years before he actually dies on those same tracks. But this isn't a supernatural story, but is rather a psychological haunt; the narrator is wracked and ruined with his lingering and unspoken guilt over a lie he told that pushed his brother over the line from rehabilitation to deep despair.

Experience Tessa Hadley, from the 1/21/13 New Yorker #6   in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series The story of Laura, recently dumped by her husband, still young, housesitting for a more sophisticated older woman. There's an attic, a diary, pornography, and Laura reaching a space where she has almost none of her married possessions nor money. An encounter with one of her benefactor's lovers sends Laura on her way to independence and adulthood.

The 1/21/13 issue of the New Yorker  features a personal essay by James Wood about the universal experience of watching one's parents (and by extension, ourselves) shift, age, shrink, then die. He mentions a story by Lydia Davis. I haven't read any Davis fiction, only her translation of Madame Bovary a couple of years ago. The crux of the essay is, "It's just the river of time, and a waste of time, but there it is. And sometimes I murmur to myself, repetitively, partly to calm myself down,'How shall I mourn them?' How indeed?"

Caitlin Horrocks "Sun City," from the New Yorker , 10/24/11 #5 in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series "Sun City" is the story of a girl who is helping settle her late grandmother's effects after she's died. The grandmother had a roommate, Bev, and it's fairly clear that Bev and the grandmother were lovers. The granddaughter, Rose, is also gay. There are lots of family complications, hurts, and a sweet scene at the end that is a moment of peace between Rose and Bev, while a guinea pig watches loyally from the edge of a pool.

Books I enjoyed in 2012 (not necessarily published in 2012) Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel Good storytelling, and I learned about a time which I'd held only brief and hazy beliefs. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green Good lord. This is a smart, funny, and devastating story of love. I read it right after a young family member died suddenly. All I have to do is think about the last quarter of this book and I want to do things over again, and better. Canada by Richard Ford This is my favorite read of the year. The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes 1960s Arizona noir. Well-crafted and moody. It goes well with the stupidly hot summer we had. East of Eden by John Steinbeck I read this when I was a teenager and I remembered almost nothing about it. There's no way I could have understood everything it is about, especially the philosophy. I think you either like Steinbeck's layered and sometimes histrionic stories or you don't. I was sucked...

David Long "Oubliette" from the New Yorker , 10/10/11 #4 in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series This is a story about a mother and daughter who are pulled apart by the mother's illness. Where the girl, Nathalie, can remember moments of closeness with her mother, there is a distinct break as the mother becomes especially ill, chronically ill, and erratic. There is a complication too where Nathalie has always felt very close to her father. The last line tells us that Nathalie's mother has been a chore and will continue to be so, "...the world would go on--not where it had left off but on the other side of this nothing time. And when it did, though she couldn't quite see it yet, Nathalie would begin the never-ending task of not forgetting her mother."

Rivka Galchen The Lost Order From New Yorker , 1/7/2013 #2  in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series Story starts out, "I was at home, not making spaghetti." The story is told in a kind of frenetic stream of consciousness, where a woman talks about dieting, body image, gender dressing. It evokes a kind of nervous energy, feels real.Then her husband calls and asks her to look for his missing wedding ring. We see that maybe she's more unstable than we were let on because she says that her husband says, "I'm so sorry, my love...His voice has hairpin-turned to tender. Which is alarming." She calls herself a "daylight ghost." We find out she had once been an environmental lawyer. She quit in an impulsive move, and her husband supports her decision. She says to a UPS delivery woman, "It's like you knock on your own nightmare." And maybe she is her own nightmare. In the final confrontation of the story, her ...

Laurie Colwin "Mr. Parker" Published 1973 From the New Yorker Short Story Podcast, airdate 8/1/12 Read by Maile Meloy #3 Short Story Project, 300 in 2013 This is a coming-of-age story about a young girl who takes piano lessons from a teacher in the neighborhood. His wife dies, and that death marks a transformation in the girl, her relationship to her mother, and to her own understanding of what it means to perform well enough, through practice, to make real music. It's a simple story really, but the language used carefully describes the fading process that life deals out to older people. There's also a running theme of innocence vs. knowing. It's not funny, like Colwin's novel Happy All the Time, but in a small number of words, the reader is let in on the girl's inner life.

Just because the show let Drew have his own opinion and didn't spend much time on Amy's POV doesn't mean she looks like the "bad" person in the situation. Lots of stories are told from the woman's side, but this time, we get to see it through a (very important) secondary character. Values are not necessarily ascribed just because they didn't tell the story the way we've always seen it before. Just because Drew was mourning the loss of a baby doesn't mean NBC was throwing angry "values" viewers a bone. Amy is not wrong, and Drew is not wrong either. And damn, he does everything he can to support her. And yes she is distant, but she's sad and scared too.

Borges Shakespeare's Memory From the New Yorker Short Story podcast First published in English, 1998. Airdate of podcast: 12/2012 #1  in the I will read and take brief notes on 300 short stories series The character in Borges' story is bestowed with Shakespeare's memory. Palaces and caverns.  "Regions... of shadow, regions that he willfully shunned." The narrator tells us that we cannot experience all of our memories at once, that they come to us in parts, and likewise, his slow absorption of WS's memory is revealed to him in the same way. He says that "after some thirty days, the dead man's memory had come to animate me fully." He almost thought he was Shakespeare. He senses a deep guilt in WS's memory. "The offense had nothing in common with perversion...The three faculties of the human soul, memory, understanding, and will are not some mere scholastic fiction." WS was the artist, but the narrator sees his own life as more e...