When I began this blog almost ten years ago (My, my! Has it really been
that long?), I announced that my intention was to discuss the characteristics
of the short story as a literary genre, even though many of my colleagues have
always insisted that the form has no
unique literary characteristics, for “fiction is fiction is fiction” whether it
is a short story or a novel, or so I have been told countless times.
Nevertheless, I stubbornly persisted. Over the years, whenever I have discussed
individual short stories or collections of short stories, my aim has not been to write “reviews”-- although I
have written many newspaper and periodical reviews during my career—but to use individual stories and collections as a basis
for discussing general issues about the short story form.
However, occasionally, I get requests from publicists to write a “review”
of a new collection of stories. I never
turn these requests down, for, as I said in my first blog almost ten years ago,
I am, if nothing else, a “cheerleader” for the short story and am always happy
to encourage both writers and scholar/critics who have an interest in the form.
I recently got a request from the publicist for JKS Communications in
Nashville, to “review” a new collection by a writer named Caroline Taylor, who
I had never heard of before. The collection is entitled Enough, which is also the title of the opening story, and subtitled
Thirty Stories of Fielding Life’s Little
Curve Balls. Ms. Taylor is the
author of three mystery novels and numerous short stories in various online and
small press venues—many of which are reprinted here.
Ms. Taylor did not purposely write thirty stories on the theme of “fielding
life’s curve balls”; in a public relations interview, she said that without
intending to, she just seems to have written a number of stories about “people
confronting the unexpected and the unwelcome,” adding that she selected those stories
that “best reflect the myriad ways people handle life’s life surprises.”
This might very well be a description of a great number of short
stories I have read during my career as a teacher and critic. The short form is
one that lends itself to “unexpected” and often “unwelcome” “surprises.” The
issue that concerns me as a reader and critic of short stories is how
mysterious are those surprises and how complex are the means by which human
beings react to and deal with them.
I read all thirty stories in Enough,
and then, as is usual for me, I went back and read them all again. However, I don’t think that most readers will
read them more than once, for truth to tell, they do not require reading more
than once—as stories by great short story writers, such as Alice Munro and
William Trevor—most always do.
But then, all short stories do not have to be stylistically complex or
metaphorically mysterious, do they? Although
these are not the kind of stories I usually taught in the classroom or have
written extended analyses of, I did enjoy reading them. They seem to me to be “entertaining”
stories--brief enough to read rather quickly and straightforward enough to grasp without a great deal of soul-searching
thought. This is the perfect collection
of stories to take to the beach or on vacation.
You can read one of these stories while filling up your gas tank and not
be distracted by it while driving on down the Interstate. These are stories that may make you smile
wryly and nod your head knowingly. They
are the kind of stories that filled Saturday
Evening Post and Colliers many
years ago when short stories were the entertainments that television took over
for later on and made couch potatoes out of us all.
These stories are not brilliant, but they are intelligent. They are not poetically precise, but they are
well written. They are not
psychologically complex, but they are psychologically perceptive. I liked
reading them. I just would not feel the need to “study” them. But then only
guys like me always feel the need to “study” stories.
I will summarize and comment on only one story to give you an idea of
what they are like. “Maude’s Makeover”
begins with the first-person voice of the titular character saying, “Life would
be so much easier if I were a cartoon character.” She hurriedly amends her statement by saying
she does not mean a cartoon character like a hapless rabbit flattened by a
falling piano, but rather a woman from a graphic romance novel—with “shoulder-length
golden hair, huge tits, a narrow waist, and long, curvy legs.” But alas, she says, her name is not Paris or
Angelina, but Maude—with all the homeliness that the name suggests.
So Maude decides to go to the beauty parlor and get a make-over to try
to be like the kind of cartoon character she aspires to, telling the credulous
receptionist at the salon that she is one of the finalists in the “Miss
Eighteen Wheeler” contest at the National Long-Haulers Association convention.
The National Long Haulers get wind of this and apologize for leaving
her name off the list of contestants, and, as you might expect, Maude wins the
contest and goes down to the courthouse to get her name changed.
The story is a lot more fun to read than my summary can give it credit
for, for Miss Taylor adopts the voice of Maude quite convincingly. And not all the stories are this flippant and
facile. But they are all entertaining
and clever. Once you accept them as this type of story, you can just give
yourself over to them while lying on the beach before putting on your sun
screen and taking a nap with a smile on your face.
