Lucia's Eyes by Marina Sonkina

Lucia’s Eyes by Marina Sonkina

Guernica Editions

Publication Date:  April 25, 2011

Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

Lucia’s Eyes features characters young and old living in a number of countries.  My favorite stories are “Tractorina’s Travels,” which is the story of an old woman looking back at her life growing up in Russia as she prepares to move out of her lifelong home in Moscow to be with her stepson, and “Runic Alphabet”, a briefer story about a man remembering a long-dead mistress as he buys and plants a Japanese snowbell tree that reminds him of her. 

These stories feel like they could all be expanded to full length novels:  “Carmelita” about an older man’s love affair with a younger woman painter he meets while visiting an oceanside Mexican village, as well as “Christmas Tango,” told by an unemployed Canadian man becomes obsessed with tango.  They feel like they could be expanded into novels because the characters are quite richly developed, which is quite a trick for a short story.

It’s a bit difficult to say much more about these stories without giving away the pleasures of reading them, that is, without giving away the details of the characters lives that they reveal as they look back at key scenes in their lives.  It’s a melancholy collection of stories, but somehow still hopeful.

Birds of a Lesser Paradise by Megan Mayhew Bergman (Review)

This short story collection teems with birds and other animals, ranging from pet dogs to coyotes and bears, but tending to animals is not the only thread running through this collection.  From the opening story, “Housewifely Arts,” told by the adult daughter of a deceased mother to “Yesterday’s Whales,” told by a newly-pregnant mother, the narrators of these stories grapple with motherhood.  It has a firm grip on these characters’ lives, whatever their ages.  So what’s the connection between animals and motherhood?  Maybe it’s something about the urge to procreate being an animal urge? Maybe it’s  that caring for animals is close to caring for one’s family?  Whatever the connection, these stories circle around parent-child relationships and human-animal relationships in interesting ways.

Bergman is very astute about the emotional lives of her characters.  My favorite story in the collection is “Every Vein a Tooth,” the story of a very devoted animal-rescue volunteer with relationship problems.  The story is spot-on emotionally—not that I’m anywhere near as obsessed with rescuing animals as she is.  I also like the fact that this story, as well as most of the others in the collection, takes place in a small town.  The stories do not feel claustrophobic because they primarily take place in different small towns in the eastern half of the United States, from Maine to Florida.  Finally, this collection does not suffer from the “vague epiphany,” issue that I find in some short story endings.  The endings of these stories feel earned, but even so, I’d love to see some of these stories developed into novels.



Birds of a Lesser Paradise by Megan Mayhew Bergman
Scribner
Publication date: March 6, 2012
Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

STAY AWAKE by Dan Chaon

Stay Awake by Dan Chaon is a collection of short stories that reminds me very much of his previous novel, Await Your Reply.  Both books talk a lot about identity and memory, both books have pivotal scenes that happen in abandoned Nebraska prairie towns, and both books feature twenty-something men who haven’t really grown up.  The only Chaon besides this book I’ve read is Await Your Reply is this one, so I can’t compare this to his other short stories.

I was bowled away by these stories, and especially by “Stay Awake,” told by the father of a young baby born with a parasitic head.  It reminded me very much of Lorrie Moore’s story, “People Like That Are the Only People Here,” which was told by a mother of a baby dying of cancer. I felt for lots o Chaon’s characters, but the father in this story sticks out.

Other stories are very good at capturing marriages, relationships dissolving, and reassessing one’s life at mid-life.  Chaon is very good at capturing the inner lives of his characters, from the young widower and father in “To the Psychic Underworld:” to the teenager whose infant son died in, “Thinking of You in Your Time of Sorrow.”

I wasn’t in love with the closing story, told by ghostly daughters of a father who tried to kill them, but that’s the only and biggest misstep I found in this collection.  Why did these stories resonate?  I live in the Midwest, and most of the stories in the collection take place around here.  Chaon gets sorrow.  His characters felt like real, suffering people.  Finally, Chaon also gets parenting right.

I have a few other Chaon books sitting on my shelf, and I can’t wait to delve into them as well.

STAY AWAKE by Dan Chaon

Ballantine

Publication date: February 7, 2012
Source:  Publisher via NetGalley

SMUT: TWO UNSEEMLY STORIES by Alan Bennett

I haven’t read much by Alan Bennett.  I read The Uncommon Reader, which was sort of a comedy piece about the Queen of England becoming an avid reader, and I watched the film version of The History Boys.  This collection of paired stories, Smut, fits with what I know of Bennett:  the stories are funny, smart, and humane toward its main characters.  And, of course, given the title, these stories contain plenty of sex.

The first story, “The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson,” involves the sexual awakening of a fifty-five-year old widow who supports herself as an actor in medical student demonstrations and as a landlady.  The second story, “The Shielding of Mrs. Forbes,” involves two couples:  Graham and his wife Betty, and Graham’s parents.  This is the story that made me see the humane side of Bennett in the final pages.

Both stories deal with small town propriety:  basically every character has a bit of a tawdry sex life that they are intent on keeping from their neighbors.  These are, after all, stories of seemliness.  Bennett does poke fun at suburban mores, but these pieces are not straight satires.  He cares for his characters, even the snobby elder Mrs. Forbes.  I don’t want to give away much more about the details about these delightful stories.   They are witty stories about hidden sex lives.

Smut:  Two Unseemly Stories by Alan Bennett

Picador
Publication Date:  January 3, 2012
Source:  Publisher via NetGalley