The New Strength of the Short Story

For years, short stories have been given short shrift (is there any other kind of shrift?).  The complaints are many: collections don't sell as well as novels, the authors lack the ability to write full-length works, the reading public wants one long story, blah, freakin' blah, freakin' blah.  Oh yeah?  One word for you: Hemingway.  Another: Salinger.  I could go on but I won't belabor the point, an unusual position for me since many say that's what I do best. 

Interestingly, a recent Times article (http://goo.gl/ZNtMa) argues that the short story is making a comeback because it fits well on tablets and phones and because the distinct lack of length complements the collective short attention span of the early 21st century. Therefore, I find it especially heartening to find two short story collections included on the latest New York Times bestsellers list: Tenth of December by George Saunders and Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell. 

Some assess the work of George Saunders as "weird just to be weird".  They are not only mistaken but are missing the point. Tenth of December, which has been lauded as "the best book you'll read this year" (http://goo.gl/DuSo1), is indeed his breakthrough book, a breathtaking collection of stories that left me panting.  It has boundless heart and humor (Puppy, Victory Lap), generous grace and warmth (the title story) and yet, like the bulk of Saunders' backlist, remains odd (My Chivalric Fiasco), often uncomfortable (Escape From Spiderhead), and sated with sadness (Home).  All of Saunders' work has always touched me deeply but he has reached new heights here.  His greatness is that he makes us feel and feel deeply for these characters.
  

Karen Russell can make something absolutely beautiful out of nothing.  St. Lucy's Home For Girls Raised by Wolves, her debut collection, was wildly imaginative, and her novel, Swamplandia!, itself born from a short story, proved she was only going to continue to amaze us.  The eight stories that comprise Vampires in the Lemon Grove are a testament to how well she writes and is replete with those breathless moments I relish.  The only drawback is that I found the collection a bit uneven. 

My favorite, The Barn at the End of Our Term, imagines former U. S. presidents reincarnated as horses. The main character is Rutherford B. Hayes and it is touching and funny and makes you wonder how in hell she ever arrived at the premise.  That said, it is her expert execution of that very premise that makes Russell shine.  Much the same can be said about the haunting Proving Up and Reeling for the Empire in which women in a Japanese silk factory begin to metamorphose into actual silkworms.  The title story somehow manages to make us think about vampires not as Bela Lugosi or their more recent incarnation as pale teen boyfriends but as people faced with living too long. 
 
Unfortunately, the overlong and, frankly, exhausting The New Veterans and the story on Arctic tail-gating that reads like a Shouts & Murmurs piece that needed an editor, bring down the collection by a notch.  There is still plenty at which to marvel, to absorb and commit to memory. 

The new face among the collections I've read recently is Clare Vaye Watkins and her impressive debut, Battleborn.  Watkins is only 28 but writes like the old soul I imagine she was at 8 and 12 and 18.  Throughout all ten stories, we are presented with characters in desperate need to connect, be it with the world, each other or themselves.  Watkins' home state of Nevada provides the setting for all the stories and often acts like a character itself, all dusty, hot, desperate, and often unforgiving.   

The Diggings is a tale of two brothers who set out for California in search of gold but find only madness and desperation.  It is terrifying.  Ghosts, Cowboys contains some autobiographical details about the author (or does it?). Watkins' father was known as Charles Manson's wingman and the story includes history of the Spahn ranch, the desert hideout of Manson's Family.  This may be a chance for the author to rid herself of the inglorious association into which she was born.  The Last Thing We Need, a story told in one-sided letters, is another stand-out.  Unlike Karen Russell's latest, Battleborn is the opposite of uneven. It thrills, it frightens, it questions, it aches and it delivers.  

Of Bookmarks, Brothers, and BAD (with an Office Girl and a Swamp thrown in for giggles)

I got my Albatros bookmarks the other day and I'm digging using them.  It really may be a better bookmark, simple, elegant, and clever.  I would prefer they were re-usable.  We live in the golden age of adhesives so I can only guess this is a simple adjustment to make.  

Karen Russell won the New York Public Library Young Lions award for Swamplandia!  The award is for American authors under the age of 35 who show promise.  She was a finalist for her previous collection St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.  As if I haven't pimped her enough on this blog, I strongly encourage you to read her work.  

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt is out in paperback and continues to rack up awards, especially in his native Canada.  The new cover isn't nearly as enthralling as the original and whoever decided there was need to change it should be taken out and horsewhipped.  However it's what's between the covers that counts. 

Joe Meno's upcoming Office Girl is a winner.  I'll post more about it closer to its July pub date but be on the lookout for this one from those cool cats at Akashic Books.

Paul Fussell passed away yesterday at the age of 88.  A cultural critic with a sharp eye and an acid tongue, his book BAD or the Dumbing of America had a strong grip on me when I read it 20 years ago. I'm re-reading it now and find he is still dead on the money.  I can only imagine what he must have thought about the ubiquity of the Internet and cell phones, reality TV and the demise of empathy, honor and shame in American culture today.  Was he ahead of his time or have we as a society just gotten worse? 

My Top Ten of 2011

Below are my favorite books from the past year.  A good mix I'm happy to have read and pleased to recommend--seven fiction, three non-fiction, a mix of male and female authors, contemporary and historical settings, debut and established authors.  



Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
 
Great House by Nicole Krauss
 
The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
 
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt
 
A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
 
Bullfighting by Roddy Doyle


Life by Keith Richards 

Just Kids by Patti Smith

What It Is Like To Go To War by Karl Marlantes

The Times and The Swamp

http://goo.gl/I1kdq

Author Karen Russell and friend

Here the NY Times weighs in with their notable picks of the year.  It is a good solid list though with few surprises. 

I was pleased to see Swamplandia! by Karen Russell make the cut. 

My two cents on that book can be read here: 

http://goo.gl/a3Bi9.  Don't miss out on this book or her first short story collection, the brilliant St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.  Russell is an immense talent.

Oddly, the book is to be adapted by HBO and producer Scott Rudin as a "half hour comedy project"(!) with the author consulting.  While HBO has created some real magic, this leaves me baffled.  If it ever makes it to the screen, my high hopes for it will be matched with low expectations.  Then again, I would love to see HBO prove me wrong.

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell

My how the month has flown.  Reading and writing have taken a back seat recently to a marvelous trip to New Orleans with Mrs. Next.  It was my first visit and I admit to having a rather serious crush on the Crescent City.  

At last I finished Karen Russell's Swamplandia! and I must say I wholeheartedly agree with Joseph O'Neill's backcover blurb:

"A wonderfully fertile novel by an unfairly talented writer."  Russell is only 29 years old and her writing makes my head spin like a radar dish.  In a good way. 

Swamplandia! itself is a down-at-the-heels theme park (the theme is alligator wrestling) on an isolated island in the Florida Everglades.  The story begins with the death by cancer of Hilola Bigtree, the park's main attraction and matriarch of the Bigtree clan.  Told alternately by Ava, the youngest of the three children, and her older brother, the fussy Kiwi, the novel Swamplandia! is a moving story of family, of deep love and crushing loss, of gators and ghosts.  

As Janet Maslin suggested in her NYT review, some readers might be turned off by the offbeat family and their strange exploits but I found them charming, maddening, upsetting, and lost in their own worlds.  Much like real families. 

The novel isn't without a few faults.  Without spoiling anything, I can't quite understand the need to put Ava through a terrible ordeal within an already painful ordeal.  As for the ending, I suspected there might be problems but the author pulled it off well enough that I was satisfied. 

Karen Russell is an immensely gifted writer and one deserving of a readers' time and full attention. She has the ability to make the mundane fascinating and the arcane seem like common, though worthwhile, knowledge. Because of her youth, there is also the promise of so much more to come.

Swamplandia! approaches

Just a heads-up on a title I'm more than a little excited to get my hands on. Swamplandia!, by the frighteningly talented Karen Russell, hits bookstore shelves February 1.

Here's an author who demands your attention. A few years ago, The National Book Foundation named Russell one of their '5 under 35' authors to watch and the New Yorker included her in their '20 under 40' list this past year.

I was bowled over by her marvelous first collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, and one of the stories from that collection, Ava Wrestles the Alligator, is the starting point for the new book.

Here is what I wrote about St Lucy's: http://reednext.blogspot.com/2008/01/st-lucys-home-for-girls-raised-by.html

You can also read a recent interview with Russell from Powells.com here: http://goo.gl/osI61

Put down the Girl Who Ate My Lunch books. Cast aside the graying Grisham, the predictable Patterson and the insipid Sparks. All hail Karen Russell. All hail Swamplandia!

Just a couple of things to tell you about

First off, congrats to Leif Enger, whose wonderful So Brave, Young, and Handsome was awarded the High Plains Book Award this past weekend.
http://highplainsbookawards.org/ (Oddly, as of this writing, they haven't updated their site with the winners.)

I loved this book and you can read my gushing post about it here: http://ow.ly/t47R

Further kudos go out to a group of authors recognized by the National Book Foundation as notables in their 5 Under 35 selections, http://www.nationalbook.org/5under35_2009.html

Two of them have been read and reviewed here: Ceridwen Dovey's Blood Kin (http://ow.ly/t41e) and Karen Russell's marvelous debut short story collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves (http://ow.ly/t40M)

As I type this, I see Hilary Mantel has been awarded the Man-Booker Prize. I've no idea who she is but, obviously, I should acquaint myself with her work. http://www.themanbookerprize.com/

Also, The Huffington Post, which has always given a lot of space to books and authors has expanded and has a devoted books section now:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/books/