Tag: short stories

Mammoth Book of Twentieth Century Ghost Stories

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Haining, Peter, ed. The Mammoth Book of Twentieth Century Ghost Stories. Carroll and Graf Publishers, 1998.

Reason read: November 1st is Day of the Dead in Mexico. Read in honor of ghosts everywhere.

The stories:
The Golden Era –

  • “The Third Person” by Henry James – two spinster women live together in a haunted house.
  • “The Presence By the Fire” by H.G. Wells – a man mourns the loss of his wife.
  • “How It Happened” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – a man crashes his brand new car.
  • “Ghostly Duel” by Jack London – published in the Oakland Aegis and renamed “Who Believes in Ghosts?”
  • “The Hand” by Theodore Dreiser
  • “The Ghost of Down Hill” by Edgar Wallace – Wallace’s short stories were made into movies.
  • “Honeysuckle Cottage” by P.G. Wodehouse – no one is who they say they are in this haunted house.
  • “The Old Dark House” by J.B. Priestly
  • “Sophy Mason Comes Back” by E.M. Delafield – Dorothy Sayers was a fan of Delafield.
  • “In a Glass Darkly” by Agatha Christie – a man saves a woman from murder…or does he?
    Two: the Phantom Army –
  • “The Bowman” by Arthur Machen – is this story really fiction when there have been eye witness accounts of the World War I phenomenon?
  • “The Other Side of the Medal” by Stella Gibbons – another version of the Bowmen story.
  • “Three Lines of Old French” by Abraham Merritt – Haining said this could be a benchmark ghost story.
  • “The Lusitania Waits” by Alfred Noyes – Noyes was an English poet who, like John Mayer, did not wait to graduate college before becoming famous.
  • “Vengeance is Mine” by Algernon Blackwood – a chance encounter with a stranger changes a mild-mannered man’s life.
  • “We are the Dead” by Henry Kuttner – from the pulp magazine called Weird Tales.
  • “The Escort” by Daphne du Maurier
  • “The Elf in Algiers” by John Steinbeck
  • “The Mirror in Toom 22” by James Hadley Case – written while Case was serving in the Royal Air Force.
  • “Is there Life Beyond the Gravy?” by Stevie Smith
    Three: The Modern Tradition –
  • “Sloane Square” by Pamela Hansford Johnson – a ghostly subway ride.
  • “The Leaf-Sweeper” by Muriel Spark – one of my favorites about a man who confronts his living ghost.
  • “At the Chalet Lartrec” by Winston Graham – a story about time spent in an isolated mountain hotel.
  • “The Love of a Good Woman” by William Trern – mild-mannered salesman murders his wife for the sake of a mistress.
  • “The Haunting of Shawley Rectory” by Ruth Rendell – does history repeat itself?
  • “Voices From the Coalbin” by Mary Higgins Clark – a woman slowly goes insane thanks to childhood traumas.
  • “A Good Sound Marriage” by Fay Weldon – a pregnant woman has a heart to heart with her ghost of a grandmother.
  • “A Self-Possessed Woman” by Julian Barnes
  • A Programmed Christmas Carol” by John Mortimer – published in the London Daily Mail in 1994.
  • “A Figment in Time” by Peter Haining

My favorite observations: the spinsters in “The Third Person” were happy to have a man in the house, even if he was a ghost and in “A Programmed Christmas Carol” a descendant of Scrooge’s is living in the world of Apple computers and paternity leave.

Line I liked, “James Rodman had a congenital horror of matrimony” (p 147), “Rage pertained to savage days” (p 263), “The dangerous thing is for a woman to wait too long, so she end with nothing” (p 445)and “Curiously, too, I thought that although a lot of people die naked, I could not find a single story of a nude phantom” (p 480).

Author Editor fact: Haining has over 200 works to his credit. I am only reading The Mammoth Book of Twentieth Century Ghost Stories for the Challenge.

Music: “Good-bye to Tipperary,” “The Holly and the Ivy,” “Lillibullero,” “The Rogue’s March,”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the very obvious chapter called “Ghost Stories” (p 99).

Orange Fish

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Shields, Carol. The Orange Fish. The Fourth Estate, 2004.

Reason read: June is short story month.

  • Orange Fish – a couple finds their marriage saved by a lithograph of a fish.
  • Chemistry – a group of people join the YMCA Winter Enrichment Program to learn the recorder.
  • Hazel – after her philandering husband dies of a heart attack, Hazel learns to live again. As an aside, my father was the same age as Brian when he died, at fifty-five.
  • Today is the Day – the planting of the blisterlily.
  • Hinterland – Meg and Roy Sloan of Milwaukie, Missouri travel to France.
  • Block Out – Meershank has writers block so travels to Portugal with his wife, looking for inspiration.
  • Collision – Marta is waiting for Malcolm Brownstone, the Recreation and Resort Consultant, to arrive.
  • Good Manners – Georgia Willow oversees instructing people on Canadian manners.
  • Times of Sickness and Health – Kay is surrounded by people always telling her what to do.
  • Family Secrets – when family secrets are all that you have, you tend to protect them.
  • Fuel for the Fire – a daughter lets her aging and widower father burn anything he can find in her glorious fireplace.
  • Milk Bread Beer Ice – Barbara and Peter Cormin are a sad couple with nothing to say after thirty-plus years of marriage.

Author fact: I found a Carol Shields Literary Trust website here. Really cool site.

Book trivia: Orange Fish is comprised of twelve short stories about friendships and relationships and won the Marian Engel Award in 1990.

Quote to quote, “How was he to know she would mistake a random disruption for lasting attachment?” (p 136).

Confessional: I just lost my Papa-in-law last week. When the protagonist of Orange Fish confessed that he wanted to run a dude ranch, I thought of Papa. He, too, had cowboy fantasies.

Setlist: Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Chopin, Handel, and Vivaldi.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Carol Shields: Too Good To Miss” (p 197).

Case-Book

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes: The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes. Doubleday & Company, 1922.

Reason read: to complete the series started a long, long time ago in honor of Doyle’s birth month.

The best stories come to life when the personality of Sherlock Holmes gets to shine through his investigative brilliance. It is in Case-Book that readers are reminded that Sherlock is his most human self when he relaxes in a Turkish bath.

As an aside, Sherlock reminded me of Nero Wolfe in The League of Frightened Men when he refused to help Colonel Damery.

The stories:

  • Adventure of the Illustrious Client – Baron Gruner is known as the Austrian murderer who supposedly killed his wife. Will he kill his latest fiancé? Why is the woman dead set (pun intended) on marrying this man?
  • Adventure of the Blanched Soldier – crime is not always at the root of a case for Holmes. This time a man hides his pale face for a completely different reason.
  • Adventure of the Mazarin Stone – the theft of a missing crown jewel.
  • Adventure of the Three Gables – a tale of what one person will do to keep their reputation clean.
  • Adventure of the Sussex Vampire – a mother is accused of being a vampire.
  • Adventure of the Three Garridebs – a weird scam so that a villain could acquire a counterfeiter’s printing press.
  • The Problem of Thor Bridge – a woman is found dead. Could the murderer have been her husband’s younger and more beautiful mistress?
  • Adventure of the Creeping Man – what would make a respected professor act like a monkey?
  • Adventure of the Lion’s Mane – Did a man kill his friend over a woman?
  • Adventure of the Veiled Lodger – What happens when a murder plot goes horribly wrong.
  • Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place – how far would a man go to hide his sister’s demise?
  • Adventure of the Retired Colourman – A man experiences the ultimate betrayal…or did he?

BookLust Twist: this will be the last time that will I say this does not come from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 123). The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes is not listed.

Hearts in Atlantis

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King, Stephen. Hearts in Atlantis. Scribner, 1999.

Reason read: Stephen King’s face should be in the dictionary next to the word ‘scary.’ Read in honor of Halloween.

Critics have cited King’s first novel, Carrie, when reviewing Hearts in Atlantis. Like Carrie, Hearts in Atlantis carries a running theme of the Vietnam War and psychological breakdowns. Like a television on in the background where no one is watching, the conflict begins as a faint constant presence, a hum, until it becomes a deafening roar by the end of the book. Despite having five separate narratives Hearts in Atlantis reads like a fragmented novel. The character narratives are sequential in nature, allowing the reading to stay connected to particular characters from beginning to end, even though the locations and stories change.
In the 254 page short novella that kicks off Hearts in Atlantis, “Low Men in Yellow Coats,” eleven year old Bobby Garfield just wants to buy a bicycle. It is his birthday and all his mother can afford is an adult library card. This is when Bobby is introduced to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and the weird upstairs neighbor, Ted. Suddenly, adults are no longer the protectors he has always trusted. Predators lurk behind faces he has known all his life. Bobby was a good kid who slowly soured on doing the right thing. He sank lower into a life of crime – breaking windows, drinking, theft.
In the next short story, “Hearts in Atlantis,” we leave Bobby and follow Pete who ends up dating Bobby’s childhood girlfriend, Carol. Carol is now college-aged and she is the one who ties “Low Men in Yellow Coats” and “Hearts in Atlantis” together. In fact, she, together with the Vietnam war, are the linchpins that hold all of the stories together.

Lines I loved, “Put a glass of water next to Nate Hoppenstand and it was the water that looked vivacious” (p 262) and “In Orono, Maine, buying a Rolling Stones record passes for a revolutionary act” (p 395). Truth.

Author fact: Stephen King is known for taking ordinary situations and making them scary as hell. In Hearts there are no monsters. Only what war can do to a person; how human nature can turn ugly and sinister.

Book trivia: I loved how the genesis of the peace symbol is explained in “Hearts in Atlantis.” I never knew it was the British Navy’s semaphore letters for nuclear disarmament.

Setlist: Andy Williams Singers, Animals, “Angel of the Morning”, Al Jolson’s “Mammy”, Allman Brothers, Beatles, Benny Goodman Orchestra, Bob Dylan, “Boom Boom”, “Bad Moon Rising”, Bobby Darin, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B Good”, Carpenters, Dave Clark Five, the Doors’ “Break On Through”, Dean Martin, Diane Renay’s “Navy Blue”, “Do You Know What I know?”, “Don’t You Just Know It” by Hury “Piano” Smith and the Clowns”, Danny and the Juniors, Donovan Leitch’s “Atlantis”, Dovells, “Dance to the Music”, Doors, Donna Summer’s “Bad Girl”, Elvis Presley, Four Seasons, Frank Sinatra, Freddie “Boom Boom” Cannon, “Gimme Some Lovin'”, Gerry Miller, “Goin’ Up the Country”, “Hang on Sloopy”, Hare Krishna Chorale, Herman and the Hermits, “Insta Karma”, Jack Scott, Jo Stafford, Jimmy Gilmer’s “Sugar Shack”, “Let’s Work Together”, Little Richard, “Light My Fire”, Liz Phair, “Love is Strange”, “Louie, Louie”, Miracles, Mitch Miller, “Mack the Knife”, Mysterians’ “96 Tears”, “My Girl”, Neil Diamond, “Night and Day”, “Oh! Carol” by Neil Sedaka, Offspring, “The Old Rugged Cross”, “One O’Clock Jump”, “One Tin Soldier”, Paul Anka, Petula Clark, Peter Frampton, Platters, Phil Och’s “I Aint Marching Anymore”, “Queen of the Hop”, “The Rainbows”, Rare Earth, “Red River Valley” Rolling Stones, Royal Teen’s “Short Shorts”, “Silent Night”, Sly and the Family Stone, Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Strawberry Alarm Clock’s “Incense and Peppermints”, “Tequila” by the Champs, Tro Shondell’s “This Time”, William Ackerman, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, “Where the Boys Are”, and the Youngbloods.

Confessional: whenever I think of “Mack the Knife, “I think of a time when I was in my early twenties. The guy I was dating called a radio station to request a song. No one had a person phone back then. My true love had to run out to a payphone up a hill and around a building. I thought for sure he was going to request something romantic; something just for me. Nope. He requested “Mack the Knife.” When I asked him why Mack he said he just liked the song.
More connections to my life: I went to UMaine and dated a guy named Soucie. His twin was named AnneMarie. I also worked in the Bear’s Den.

BookLust Twist: Book Lust in the chapter called “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 213).

“The Adventure at Wisteria Lodge”

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes. “The Adventure at Wisteria Lodge.” Doubleday and Company, 1930.

Doyle loves words. Case in point: John Scott Eccles, the man who comes to Sherlock for help describes his experience as incredible, grotesque, singular, unpleasant, improper, outrageous, queer and bizarre. All that really happened was that he spent the night at some place called Wisteria Lodge as the guest of Aloysius Garcia, but upon waking found that everyone had disappeared, including the host. As he was sharing this incredible, grotesque, singular, unpleasant, improper, outrageous, queer, bizarre news with Sherlock and Watson, the inspector from Scotland Yard arrives to say Aloysius was found murdered. Through a series of tips and clues, Sherlock is led to the home of Mr. Henderson. He is actually Don Juan Murillo. How he is connected to the disappearance of Aloysius Garcia, I am not sure. Of course, there is a mysterious woman who isn’t as she seems.

Story trivia: Holmes looks back at mysteries solved in other stories.

Ballad of the Sad Cafe

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McCullers, Carson. The Complete Novels: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe. Literary Classics of the United States, 2001.

Reason read: the infamous fight between Miss Amelia and Marvin Macy occurred on Groundhog Day, my birthday.

The question of nurture versus nature. Every major character with The Ballad of the Sad Cafe has a tendency to instigate and agitate. Everyone stirs up trouble in one way or another. Did the impulse to do this come from something nefarious in childhood or were they born to rattle cages from the very beginning? Miss Amelia Evans is a person who, if she didn’t completely understand a situation well enough to have an opinion about it, ignored it completely. Cousin Lymon is a southern Iago, prone to stirring things up with cruel intentions. When Marvin Macy comes to town it is like two criminals recognizing themselves in total strangers; they are kindred spirits, born to raise hell as a team.
Confessional: Everything about the story was sad. I think that was because you didn’t really know why everyone was so uncaring and cruel.

Author fact: McCullers was always in poor health. She ended up passing away at the age of fifty.

Book trivia: Ballad of the Sad Café was reimagined an a film in 1991 starring Vanessa Redgrave.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the simple chapter called “Southern Fiction” (p 222).

A Good Fall

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Jin, Ha. A Good Fall: Stories. Pantheon Books, 2009.

Reason read: Jin’s birthday is in February. Read in his honor.

Twelve stories with themes like immigrants in transition, culture clashes, vanity, identity, and family traditions. Ha Jin’s characters are so well drawn they keep speaking to me after I have closed the book. I could see A Good Fall as a movie with interconnecting stories of Chinese immigrants living in Flushing, New York. Maybe they are all living in the same apartment and pass each other on the stairs? Each suffering their secrets in silence?
I do not think it is a spoiler to say that A Good Fall surprisingly ends on a hopeful note.

  • The Bane of the Internet
  • A Composer and His Parakeet
  • The Beauty
  • Choice
  • Children as Enemies
  • In the Crossfire
  • Shame
  • An English Professor
  • A Pension Plan
  • Temporary Love
  • The House Behind a Weeping Cherry
  • A Good Fall

Lines I liked, “After Zuming came, she would have to become a faithful wife again” (p 177). That sentence is packed with so much drama. And then there is this one, “Keep in mind, yours is not the worst sorrow” (p 236).

Author fact: Ha Jin is also a poet.

Book trivia: Many people have mentioned that the short stories of Ha Jin are very repetitious. For that reason I am spreading out my reading so that it does not become tedious. I have already read Ocean of Words and The Bridegroom. I am also reading Waiting but not until September of 2042.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about A Good Fall.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “China: the Middle Kingdom” (p 61). Except…most of Jin’s stories take place in Flushing, New York. The characters are immigrants from China.

Krik? Krak!

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Danticat, Edwidge. Krik? Krak! SoHo, 1995.

Reason read: Danticat was born in January. Celebrating her birth month with Krik? Krak! I also needed a book for the Portland Public Library Reading Challenge of 2024 with a book about loss. This definitely fit the bill.

Right away, you know you are in the presence of a great writer when you read the very first short story of Krik? Krak! In “Children of the Sea” two teenagers who are in love keep journals when they are separated by dictatorship. Danticat keeps the two first person narratives clear by using capitalization and punctuation for one voice but not the other. The educated boy, a member of the Youth Federation, has escaped Haiti on a boat bound for Miami, Florida, while his young love (who does not use capitalization of punctuation) is left behind to endure military abuses. This was probably one of my favorites. Each subsequent story builds upon the next with the tiniest of threads. A minute detail will tie one story back to another.
“Nineteen Thirty-Seven” is a painful story about a woman visiting her mother in prison. Her mother is accused of flying. The government believes she is a witch, capable of rising like a bird on fire.
“A Wall of Fire Rising” tells the short but devastating story of a family barely making ends meet.
“Night Women” demonstrates the lengths a woman will go in order to provide for her child.
“Between the Pool and the Gardenias” is another heartbreaking story about loss.
“The Missing Peace” illuminates innocence abandoned.
“Seeing Things Simply” shares the story of an artist looking for beauty while ugliness crowds all around her.
“New York Day Women” demonstrates just how much a mother’s love can suffocate a daughter.
“Caroline’s Wedding” weaves a tale of expectation in age old customs.
“Women Like Us” is a message to daughters.
“In the Old Days” is an additional story for the twentieth anniversary edition of Krik? Krak! It tells the story of a woman asked to visit her dying father, a man she has never met.

The short stories of Krik? Krak!:

  • Children of the Sea
  • Nineteen Thirty-Seven
  • A Wall of Fire Rising
  • Night Women
  • Between the Pool and the Gardenias
  • The Missing Peace
  • Seeing Things Simply
  • New York Day Women
  • Caroline’s Wedding
  • Epilogue: Women Like Us
  • New to the 20th Anniversary Edition: In the Old Days

Quotes to quote, “At times I feel like I can just reach out and pull a star down from the sky as though it is a breadfruit or a calabash or something that could be of us to us on this journey” (“Children of the Sea” p 8), “I want him to forget that we live in a place where nothing lasts” (“Night Women” p 73), “They kept their arms close to their bodies, like angels hiding their wings” (“Nineteen Thirty-Seven” p 137).

Author fact: I am reading five books by Edwidge Danticat. Brother, I’m Dying in the last one.

Book trivia: reviewers call Krik? Krak! virtually flawless, passionate, lyrical, devastating, moving and luminous. I couldn’t agree more.

Nancy said: Pearl did not say anything specific about Krik? Krak!

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Contradictory Caribbean: Paradise and Pain” (p 55)

Return of Sherlock Holmes

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes: The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Doubleday & Company, 1930.

Reason read: I am still working my way through Sherlock Holmes. I obviously took a little break, but now I am back.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes is comprised of thirteen adventures. There is a certain formula to Doyle’s writing. Someone is always trying to scam, blackmail, or extort something from someone else. Clients come to Holmes when Scotland Yard thinks the case is out of their league. Scandal, public embarrassment, or out and out trickery is usually the name of the game. Sherlock is always the master of disguises; a chameleon of identity. He is always seeing details others commonly miss. Confessional: I got a little tired of his smug attitude. I love love Watson, though.

  • “Adventures of the Empty House”
  • “Adventure of the Norwood Builder”
  • “Adventure of the Dancing Men”
  • “Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist”
  • “Adventure of the Priory School”
  • “Adventure of Black Peter”
  • “Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton”
  • “Adventure of the Six Napoleons”
  • “Adventure of the Three Students”
  • “Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez”
  • “Adventure of the Missing Three-Quarter”
  • “Adventure of the Abbey Grange”
  • “Adventure of the Second Stain”

Author fact: Doyle tried to kill off Sherlock but his fans wouldn’t let him.

Book trivia: The Return of Sherlock Holmes was published in 1905 as a collection. The stories came out individually from 1903 – 1904.

Nancy said: Pearl never mentions The Return of Sherlock Holmes because it is within The Complete Sherlock Holmes.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 117).

Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes

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Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Complete Sherlock Holmes: Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

Reason read: It’s Sherlock.

Here are the short stories that make up The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes:

  • “Silver Blaze” – who killed a jockey and where is the famous horse, Silver Blaze?
  • “Yellow Face” – this was my favorite mystery of the book.
  • “Stock-broker’s Clerk” – What is a true connection and how can it be bought?
  • “The Gloria Scott” – a glimpse into Holmes’s past. We learn of a friendship that comes from a dog bite.
  • “Musgrave Ritual” – my favorite line came from this story, “Pistol practice should be an open air pasttime.” Amen to that.
  • “Reigate Puzzle” – holmes is supposed to be resting after an illness but cannot help getting involved with a murder mystery.
  • “Crooked Man”- it was at this point that I decided it would be exhausting to have a conversation with Shelock Holmes; to have all of his observations and elementary deductions punctuating his every sentence.
  • “Resident Patient” – Watson picks up on Sherlock’s method of deducation.
  • “Greek Interpreter” – it is revealed Sherlock Holmes has a brother, Mycroft. The two brothers share the same powers of deduction so a conversation with them would be twice as annoying.
  • “Naval Treaty” – we meet a college friend of Watson’s.
  • “Final Problem” – the story that makes everyone think Homes has died.

As an aside, what constitutes a fabulous forehead?

Author fact: Doyle studied medicine. I think that education helped his writing.

Book trivia: Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is odd in the sense that it was published in 1893 with a ’94 date.

Nancy said: Memoirs of Sherlock Homes was so under the radar or Pearl since she only indexed The Complete Sherlock Holmes.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love a Mystery” (p 123). Confessional: when I realized I would be reading more than one title within a single book, I started listing out the individual titles. For example, Remembrance of Things Passed has seven volumes (seven titles). I am listing each title separately because there is no way I can read Remembrance in its entirety in one month. So. Same with the Complete Sherlock Holmes. Pearl doesn’t mention each compilation of short stories or novel within but since that’s how I’m reading them, I decided to list them that way. My true confessional is that I have started to list out the short stories and this is where I have gotten myself confused. I haven’t been listing out the short stories in other collections, so why now?

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage

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Munro, Alice. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage: Stories. Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.

Reason read: Munro’s birth month is in July. Read in her honor.

Munro has a way with words, as everyone knows. Here are four words I never thought I would see stitched together, “bug-eyed pickle ass”. Go figure.
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage is a collection of short stories with a common theme: relationships:

  1. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage – a childish prank backfires.
  2. Floating Bridge – a woman deals with positive news concerning her cancer.
  3. Family Furnishings – a college student learns about a secret her aunt was keeping.
  4. Comfort – the suicide of a husband.
  5. Nettles – childhood taunts.
  6. Post and Beam – when a house is more than a house.
  7. What Is Remembered – the memory of an affair with a pilot lingers long after the romance has died.
  8. Queenie – A sister’s abandonment.
  9. The Bear Came Over the Mountain – An adultery gets his comeuppance.

Lines I really liked, “Her teeth were crowded to the front of her mouth as if they were ready for an argument” (p 3), “See the conquering hero comes” (p 125), “A stealthy, considering, almost married glance, its masquerade and its bland intimacy arousing to those who were after all not married” (p 233), and “As if he dared anybody to breathe while he was in there” (p 252).

Author fact: Munro has won a bunch of awards for her writing including the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Book trivia: I have six different Munro books to read on my list. I have already read Friend of My Youth and The Love of a Good Woman.

Nancy said: Pearl said Munro is among the authors who have “distinctly evoked sense of place that distinguishes Canadian fiction” (Book Lust, p 50).

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Canadian Fiction” (p 50).

Lottery

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Jackson, Shirley. The Lottery. Amereon Limited, 1976.

I don’t think I have to explain the plot to anyone. In one sentence: it is the short story of a community that annually choses someone to stone to death. I had so many questions as a teenager reading The Lottery in high school. Who was the third person narrator and why do they never express emotion or share the thoughts and feelings of other characters? It’s as if the scene they describe is too horrible for humanity and they purposely keep their distance by staying out of the other characters’ heads. As a result, the dialogue has to be heavy and masterful enough to carry the action. Otherwise, no one would understand what is truly going on. The other questions I had: Who was Mr. Summers and why does he get to conduct the lottery? Who came up with the black box in the first place? If everyone avoids the black box and keeps their distance from it, why have it around at all? No one wanted to help Mr. Summers even move it. Did this community continue using the box just because of tradition? Lastly, how does Jackson as a young mother come up with something like this?

Reason read: Shirley Jackson was born in December. Read in her honor.

Author fact: Jackson is bets known for her horror.

Book trivia: The Lottery first appeared in “The New Yorker in 1948. It was awarded the O Henry Award in 1963.

Nancy said: Pearl described The Lottery as “endlessly anthologized.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Ghost Stories” (p 100).

Everything That Rises Must Converge

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O’Connor, Flannery. Everything That Rises Must Converge. New York: The Library of America, 1988.

Reason read: September is Southern Writers Month.

Flannery O’Connor’s short stories are like the crack of the whip dangerously close to your head. Sometimes humorous, sometimes peculiar, often times violent, but always breathtakingly true. Imagine the nervous laughter that bubbles up when you realize that whip has missed your face. You laugh because you want it to be a skillful miss as opposed to a clumsy mistake. Imagine the quirkiness of characters who are dangerously misunderstood. There is always something a little sinister about O’Connor. She enjoys the abrupt turn of events that take her readers by surprise. She holds us witness to the good, the bad, and the ugly of humanity.
Everything That Rises Must Converge is a compilation of nine short stories:

  • “Everything That Rises Must Converge” – we start with the discomfort of a mother’s obvious prejudice.
  • “Greenleaf” – a fight over property and propriety.
  • “A View of the Woods” – a punch to the gut when you least expect it.
  • “The Enduring Chill” – another tale about an overbearing mother.
  • “The Comforts of Home” – mother and son disagree about taking a brash girl into their home.
  • “The Lame Shall Enter First” – a widower tried to take in a second son with horrible results.
  • “Revelation” – another story heavy on the racism.
  • “Parker’s Back” – a man obsessed with tattoos
  • “Judgement Day” – an elderly and racist father is terrified of dying in New York City.

Quotes I liked, “There was a continuous thud in the back of Asbury’s head as if his heart and got trapped in it and was fighting to get out” (p 565), and “Behind the newspaper Julian was withdrawing into the inner compartment of his mind where he spent most of his time” (p 603), and “In addition to her other bad qualities, she was forever sniffing up sin” (p 655).

Author fact: Flannery O’Connor died too young at the age of thirty-nine. Imagine the books and stories she could have written had she lived to a hundred!

Nancy said: Pearl didn’t say anything specific about Everything That Rises Must Converge in “Growing Writers” or “Southern Fiction” but she did mention O’Connor as a great fiction-writer and a classic.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust twice. Once in the chapter called “Growing Writers” (p 107), and again in the chapter called “Southern Fiction” (p 222).

Olive Kitteridge

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Strout, Elizabeth. Olive Kitteridge. New York: Random House, 2008.

Reason read: In Rockland, Maine, there is a festival dedicated to lobsters. Read Olive Kitteridge in honor of the critters.

Comprised of thirteen short stories with varying narratives, Strout cleverly tells the story of Olive Kitteridge. Olive is lurking in most of each connecting tale. Sometimes characters gossip about her, like in the story called “Winter Concert.” In the first story “Pharmacy” Olive’s husband, Henry Kitteridge, doesn’t seem to have a happy life since he retired from his old fashioned pharmacy. Olive is presented as a woman who doesn’t suffer fools easily. She shows the world an angry and proud face most of the time. I think they call it “Yankee stoicism.” Other stories:

  • “Incoming Tide” – Olive is present when a woman tries to commit suicide.
  • “The Piano Player” – Angela O’Meara plays the piano for ungrateful guests.
  • “A Little Burst” – Olive’s only son is getting married to a woman she doesn’t like.
  • “Starving” – Harmon is starving in his marriage while he befriends a girl with anorexia.
  • “A Different Road” – a couple are victims of a crime by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
  • Winter Concert” – A couple attends a concert where the wife learns of her husband’s secret rendezvous.
  • “Tulips” – bitterness.
  • “A Basket of Trips” – a death cuts a marriage short.
  • “Ship in a Bottle” – a girl is stood up on her wedding day.
  • “Security” – Olive tries to visit her son in New York; a story about expectations.
  • “Criminal” – the story of a neurotic kleptomaniac.
  • “River” – My favorite story of the the bunch. Olive is a widow and learning to be polite.

Author fact: Strout also wrote Amy & Isabelle and Abide with Me. Both are on my Challenge list. I read Amy & Isabelle in 2007 and I read Abide with Me in 2013.

Book trivia: Olive Kitteridge won a Pulitzer in 2008.

Playlist: “Good Night, Irene,” “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “The First Noel,” “We Shall Overcome, “”Fly Me to the Moon,” “My Way,” “Feelings,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” Beethoven, “Fools Rush In,” “Whenever I Feel Afraid,” Phish, Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, “Some Enchanted Evening,” “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows,” and Debussy.

Nancy said: Pearl said Olive Kitteridge would be an excellent choice for a book club.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the curious chapter called “The Maine Chance” (p 135).

Bad Haircut

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Perrotta, Tom. Bad Haircut: Stories of the Seventies. New York: Berkey Books, 1994.

Reason read: June is short story month.

Comprised of ten short stories:

  • The Wiener Man – Your past is never far behind you. A mother connects with an old friend.
  • Thirteen – Coming of age is terrible when trying to help a best friend get the girl.
  • Race Riot – Which side are you on? Racial tensions and peer pressure and a bad combination.
  • Snowman – revenge is not as sweet as you think.
  • Forgiveness – standing for the flag is a choice.
  • A Bill Floyd Christmas – Bill loses his wife and latches on to another family to fill the void.
  • You Start to Live – take chances in life.
  • The Jane Pasco Fan Club – Dating in high school can be dangerous.
  • Just the Way We Were – prom memories.
  • Wild Kingdom – sometimes people can be animals.

Lines I liked: “The world was a still as a photograph” (p 61) and “She had that voice special tone of voice that she only used when she had company,” (p 119).

Author fact: Perrotta is from New Jersey.

Book trivia: all of the short stories are linked and are in chronological order.

Setlist: “We May Never Pass This Way Again,” Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are,” Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” The Carpenters, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Donny Osmond, Aerosmith, Grateful Dead, a couple of Jim Croce songs, “I’ve got a Name” and “Operator.”

Nancy said: Pearl called Bad Haircut “heartfelt yet unsentimental.”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Near Novels: Linked Short Stories” (p 175).