Beautiful As the Moon, Radiant As the Stars. Jewish Women in Yiddish Stories: An Anthology. Sandra Bark, Editor.
Most of the twenty-two stories in this wonderful anthology are set in pre-Holocaust Europe and Russia, also a time of great political, social and economic change. These changes are depicted through the experiences of the Jewish women whose lives are described in these tales: some stories are about coming of age and the first stirrings of sexuality, and many concern youthful rebelliousness before parental authority. The Yiddish writers included here are largely unknown, and they are nearly all women with the exception of the masters Sholom Aleichem and Isaac B. Singer. This is a unique collection which will be treasured by lovers of fine writing, but it’s special importance stems from the way these stories so beautifully evoke this vanished time and place in Jewish culture. The collection opens with a poem whose last line is: “Somewhere I’ve left my heart aside”, and this sense of longing, and regret, permeates most of the stories, leaving us grateful for these written memories.
Suzanne McGuire, Commack Public Library
Rick Bass
Best known for his explorations of the relationship between man and nature, Bass is considered to be one of the foremost writers concerned with the treatment of the environment. While he frequently writes in essay and journal form (sometimes termed "creative nonfiction," in which he combines observations of the natural world with personal reflections), Bass is also recognized as an accomplished fiction writer. His fictional characters are noted for their realistic portrayals and for their placement in peculiar situations, in which they often exhibit a deep connection to their environments. Bass's tenacious preservationist ideals and his introspective writing style have garnered much attention, and he is widely regarded as an innovative contributor to contemporary American literature. His works would be recommended for any young adult or adult reader concerned with outdoors life and the environment, whether they enjoy those things themselves or want to experience them vicariously. Probably not recommended to those who fiercely oppose hunting.
Kathleen L. Scheibel, South Country Public Library
London Transports by Maeve Binchy
London Transports is a collection of 22 short stories, set in London. Each title is actually a stop on the London train line. Characters are introduced immediately and each short plot is developed in a unique style. Readers will find themselves getting into the minds of the characters as they experience everyday life. The stories are both cheerful and sad. Endings are astonishing and without logic. Some of the issues covered are: A compulsive shopper’s expeditions and family in “Bond Street;” finding a new apartment in Queensway, having an affair with a married man in Lancaster Gate, a dress designer’s live-in boyfriend’s blunder in Warren Street, conflicts in a family in Easton, abortion in Shepherd's Bush, wife swapping in Seven Sisters, and showing an assistant manager how to get ahead in King's Cross. Even though the endings are not conventional, readers will enjoy these light and fun to read stories.
Terry Gearty
A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You by Amy Bloom
Amy Bloom’s collection of short stories revolves around characters that are faced with tragic circumstances. In two of her stories women are dying of cancer, two more involve the death of a child and another depicts a man coping with the last stages of Parkinson’s disease. In these stories we see how the characters learn to cope with their situations as well as how they relate to their families and friends. Amy Bloom’s writing is very genuine . The characters in her short stories are ordinary people who are faced with extraordinary circumstances. And, although she writes of the effects of tragedy on humanity, she does end many of her stories with a glimmer of hope.
Vicki Lever, Babylon Public Library
Italo Calvino – a sampling!
Numbers in the Dark – a case of crowd mentality
The Man Who Shouted Teresa
A General in the Library– the “dangers” of knowledge
Beheading the Heads – a dire, but interesting political commentary
Glaciation – troublesome ice cubes
Memoirs of Casanova – a tell-all
Difficult Loves
The Adventure of a Reader – the parallel between reading and making love
Cosmicomics
The Distance of the Moon – a trip to the moon using a rowboat and a ladder
All at One Point – the entire universe in one spot
Read-alikes:
Isaac Babel
Alberto Moravia
Cesare Pavese
Domenico Rea
Grace O’Connor, West Islip Public Library
Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver’s first collection of short stories, Put Yourself in My Shoes, appeared in 1974 and was followed by Will You Please be Quiet, Please? in 1976 which established his reputation and introduced his central themes. Most prevalent among these is the issue of love and its bearing on marriage and individual identity. Much of what he wrote was based on his own experiences in the Pacific Northwest. “…everything we write is, in some way, auutobiographical,” he said in an interview. Carver depicted the quiet desperation of white and blue collar workers, salesmen, waitresses, showing their sense of betrayal and inability to express their deepest thoughts. Things are often left unspoken and conflicts unresolved, with the meaning of the story only revealed through implications. His prose may be muted, but the atmosphere is tense, evoking the mood of Pinter or Kafka. Rejecting the more experimental fiction of the 60s and 70s, Carver became a leading figure among writers known for their gritty depictions of everyday life, like Richard Ford, Tobias Wolff, Ann Beattie, and Jayne Anne Philips. In Why Don’t You Dance? from Where I’m Calling From (1989), a man whose marriage has failed, sells his furniture in a yard sale. A young couple shows some interest and they dance together in the driveway at the man’s suggestion. The surfaces of Carver’s stories seem calm and banal, but especially his portrayals of marital problems are full of emotional tension, hidden memories, wounds, longing, hate, anxiety and melancholy.
Arlene Leventhal, Half Hollow Hills Community Library
Twisted by Jeffrey Deaver
Deaver's collection of short stories is a treat to his fans. The stories live up to the title, Twisted, in many ways. There are many bends, surprises and plot twists as well as a rich assortment of characters ranging from murderers, thieves, adulterers, con artists and other questionable sorts. The best thing about each story is that the reader doesn't really know what the story is about until the very end. What is expected to happen, doesn't. The ending comes as a complete surprise and the reader will wonder why he hadn't seen it coming. Deaver's amazing range and plot twists have earned him "master of ticking bomb suspense.”
Rosalie Toja, Brentwood Public Library
Welding With Children by Tim Gautreaux
There is a strong sense of place in Tim Gautreaux's stories in Welding With Children. The characters' names, the cadence of the conversation, even the heat, tell of rural Louisiana. His often humorous stories are about ordinary people doing ordinary things and frequently involve elemental moral dilemmas. The title story in this collection is about a grandfather who realizes that he has not done a good job raising his daughters and the sins of the father are being visited on his daughters' children. Misuse of Light is about a camera repairman who uncovers a different ending to a sad story that is decades old. Good for the Soul, reminds us of what grace is. This story is about a priest who has had one brandy too many and then makes a sick call that is the beginning of a chain of events both funny and poignant. Gautreaux lives up to his belief that "no story is interesting unless it deals with matters of values."
People who enjoy Southern writing, especially Lee Smith and Clyde Edgerton, will also enjoy Tim Gautreaux.
Michelle Epstein, East Northport Library
John B. Keane
John B. Keane was born in Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland in 1928. He grew up in a family of 10 children, adored Kerry, which is a proud and independent county that juts into the Atlantic on the southwest coast of Ireland. His parents were actively involved in the Irish struggle for independence from Britain and he remained a lifelong supporter of Fine Gael, the party founded by Michael Collins. John B., as he was known, wrote novels that met with popular success but it was his stage writing that struck a nerve in Irish society. “What made him a genuine folk dramatist was his refusal to take on face value the notion that Irish country people were simple, devout creatures,” wrote critic Finan O’Toole in The Irish Times. “He imagined their world as an almost medieval one, in which the forces of darkness and of light, the devils and the angels, were at war.”
Mr. Keane wrote his first play when he was 30. It was rejected by the Abbey, Ireland’s National Theater, but received an All-Ireland Drama Prize in 1959. He was a prolific playwright, producing seven plays over the next four years. Mr.Keane wrote 18 plays and 32 works of prose and poetry. The 1986 novel, The Bodhran Makers, is regarded as among his best work—“I was writing about people I knew. . .They’re all gone now, but they made me their spokesperson and I felt a responsibility to tell their story, to preserve a wonderful tradition in written form.” Mr. Keane is survived by his wife and three sons, a daughter, and a large extended family. He was one of the most respected literary figures of the 20th century in Ireland and the president and prime minister both offered tributes when is death was announced in 2002.
Perhaps speaking to a nephew, Feargal Keane, a reporter for the BBC, best sums up his advice on writing: ”Don’t mind the big fellows. They can look out for themselves. Listen out for the small man. He will tell you the truth.”
Marie T. Horney, Cold Spring Harbor Library
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
A lyrical collection of stories focusing on arranged marriages, assimilation from Indian to American culture sometimes integral sometimes incidental to the stories, universal themes all combine to make this a work of distinction. In A Temporary Matter, the reader feels the heartache of a young couple who are struggling with the loss of their baby and their crumbling marriage; we hope through the eyes of a child for the safety of Mr. Pirzada’s family who are left behind in Dacca, as she watches the 6:30 news in When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dinner (pg31); and the disappointment of Mr. Kapasi who had dreams of being an interpreter for diplomats who now moonlights as a doctor’s interpreter of maladies when not serving as a tour guide.
This collection won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 2000 and was an unlikely choice as a debut work and also a short story collection. It is a magnificent work of literature, she paints a picture and captures the lives of South Asian immigrants, displaced persons, young and old. Interpreter also won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was honored as debut of the year by The New Yorker .
Read-alikes:
The Unknown Errors of Our Lives by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Where the Grass is Long: Stories by Neela Vasevani
Peggy McCarthy, Smithtown Public Library
Here’s Your Hat, What’s Your Hurry by Elizabeth McCracken
A wonderful collection of stories focusing on offbeat, yet sympathetic characters. McCracken creates amazing, fully realized people in only a few short pages in this collection of nine stories. The title story features Aunt Helen Beck, who makes her living moving from relative to relative, before one of her many “nephews” realizes that she’s not even part of the family. Aunt Helen Beck comes alive because she is like the aunt all of us have, the one whose visits we dread, yet who is somehow endearing and unforgettable.
The story It’s Bad Luck to Die, tells the tale of an awkward 6-foot young woman, who only becomes comfortable with her self and her body after she marries and becomes the test canvas for Tiny, the town’s tattoo artist and a man 30 years her senior.
What we know of the Lost Aztec Children, offers a little boy who has always seen his mother as a plain old everyday mom, but realizes, after the family takes in one of her old circus buddies, that the outside world will always see her as the “Armless Wonder.” She has no arms, and performs most tasks using her feet. The boy cannot see how other people can see his mother or her friend as anything less than human.
Quite a few of the stories feature unconventional characters. McCracken has remarked that the inspiration for some of the stories came from perusing the Guinness Book of World Records and photos of circus freak shows. Many stories feature the interaction between “freaks” and otherwise outwardly “normal” people. The reader is often left to ponder the old adage, that the people inside the asylum are the sane ones, while those outside are the real crazies. McCracken’s “freaks” are usually the most truly human and caring of all.
Read-alikes include writers who often feature characters who are quite quirky. I would include Eric Kraft, John Irving, Anita Brookner, Anne Tyler, Van Reid, and Dan Chaon.
Bruce Silverstein, Patchogue-Medford Public Library
Friend of My Youth: Stories by Alice Munro
With a strong sense of place and time, Canadian author and storyteller Alice Munro paints pictures of the people living in rural Ontario. Without mincing words, she allows the reader to imagine in great detail the setting and personalities of the characters. The reader feels they are there, watching scenes of the character’s life through a window. These stories will be enjoyed by women who enjoy old-fashioned storytelling and reminisces of a past events and people.
Karen Jaffe, Comsewogue Public Library
The Whore’s Child and Other Stories by Richard Russo
Richard Russo’s collection of short stories draws the reader in to the emotional worlds of several characters. The titular character, Sister Ursula, who as a youngster was designated the whore’s child by the cruel residents of the nunnery she was abandoned at, is not, as would be expected, the main character of the story. In fact, the main character of The Whore’s Child is Sister Ursula’s neighbor, an English professor, whose fiction writing class she is taking as an unregistered student. The personas of the main character and Sister Ursula are revealed through the perceptions of the main character. This remains true for the other stories in this collection, where the main characters uncover revelations about themselves through experiencing other characters’ lives. This is evident in the short story Joy Ride, where a twelve-year-old boy learns about himself and his mother in the course of a road trip they share. Russo’s stories are not eventful in terms of actions, but the subtle unfolding of reflective characters move the stories forward. The stories appear to be unrelated by characters, but their themes of personal epiphany and development are consistent, whether the main character is an English Professor or a twelve-year-old boy.
Read-alikes:
The Short Stories of:
Raymond Carver
D.H. Lawrence
Flannery O’Connor
Ilana Beckerman, West Babylon Public Library
After Rain by William Trevor
There is a reason why William Trevor is considered one of the finest short story writers of modern times, and that’s his ability to meticulously represent the human condition in a few short pages, or even a few short words. Trevor’s writing style has awarded him a reputation that is admired by readers and writers alike. In his collection After Rain, Trevor skillfully demonstrates his ability to detail the dilemma that is the human condition. The disappointment of failed expectation and the consequence of chance are integral elements in Trevor’s depiction of the lives of everyday people in everyday situations. Protagonists in this collection experience the tragic results of their life choices. In Widows two sisters react to the deaths of their spouses in very different ways; in Lost Ground a young man feels the need to become a preacher after a visit from a mysterious woman; and in The Piano Tuner’s Wives a woman is consumed by the memory of her husband’s first wife. The title story, After Rain, explores the various emotions that accompany the end of both a love affair and a family tradition. Trevor’s use of language and metaphor, his ability to capture the obvious as well as nuance, is so masterful that one not only reads his works, but experiences them as well.
Deborah Formosa, Northport-East Northport Public
