Tag: Short Story Reviews

  • Short Story Review: “Upstate” by Emma Cline

    (The short story “Upstate” by Emma Cline appeared in the October 30th, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (Yes, my dear, there will be SPOILERS.)

    Illustration by Dennis Eriksson

    “If God didn’t exist, it would be necessary to invent him,” was the first quote that came to my mind when I read this story. Maybe “Upstate” by Emma Cline doesn’t exactly share the same sentiment as the aforementioned quote from Voltaire, but the short story swims in the themes of sin, punishment, and atonement. The other quote that came to my mind was, “These pretzels are making me thirsty!”

    Yeah, just let me explain…

    “Upstate” is a story about a couple, Kate and Paul, getting away for the weekend (Sunday to Monday) in a small town/country rental house. The piece is told from Kate’s perspective, but the first character introduced is Djuna, the owner of the rental property, and her slew of rules for renting the house. Though Kate found the place, Paul is paying for it, and this is the first example of how Paul takes care of Kate. As the story tells us, Paul is a much older man to Kate’s youth, and they had participated in a hidden affair for some time. But now that Paul is divorced, their relationship is living in the open. As the weekend unfolds, we are privy to Kate’s thoughts on the state of her relationship with Paul, which clearly she has started to question by wondering if they are truly being open and honest with each other. An accident happens, which leaves Kate and Paul’s relationship in a different iteration.

    I appreciate that Cline takes on the idea of morality without ever having to say God, though Djuna is God adjacent for this story. Djuna owns the rental house, and her rules are made explicit, though Paul and Kate ignore them from the moment they arrive by looking in a closet they are told not to open. (In fact, apples are eaten at one point.) Their next transgression is a stain they leave on the livingroom carpet after the couple has sex. Kate attempts to remove the stain, but in the end, it never fully goes away. Kate starts taking on a fear of Djuan, a fear of being caught, or even accused of breaking the house rules. Such as when Paul has his accident in the house, Kate demurs when Djuan calls demanding to know why the lights were left on, and the doors were open – Kate takes Djuan’s verbal punishment. The feeling is that outside of this rental house, Kate and Paul had lived punishment free in the sin of their affair. But in this house, there is a power that comes down on them, which manifests in Kate’s fear. That I found very interesting.

    Yet, there was formulaic aspect to this story that I couldn’t shake, and that stopped me from being invested in this story. Cline’s prose is efficient and very spartan; truly reducing down to the barest elements. At its most basic, this is a story about a couple going on vacation, and realizing that they aren’t right for each other, or at least questioning if they are right for each other. This is territory that has been trodden many times before, which made me desire for the story to get to the next part. And though there was a sly bit of foreshadowing, I found myself waiting for the relationship changing climax to arrive.

    And when it did arrive, that’s why I thought of the other quote, “These pretzels are making me thirsty!”

    For those of you that aren’t dedicated Seinfeld fans, the quote comes from the episode “The Alternate Side.” (I will admit that the quote has nothing to do with the story, but is possibly the most famous part of the episode.) Anyway, Elaine’s subplot in the storyline is that she is dating an older man, who at first she finds very interesting, but soon wants to break up with him. Before she can do that, he has a stoke, rendering him incapacitated, leaving Elaine as his caregiver.

    Maybe not 100% the same, but it is similar enough for me to equate the two. Seinfeld was supposed to be about “nothing” and “no lessons” – a selfish place without a moral compass. “Upstate” was about a world that needs morality, and if it is absent, people in that world will create it. Like I said, it’s an interesting idea, that happens to be transported in a clichéd car.

  • Short Story Review: “I Am Pizza Rat” by Han Ong

    (The short story “I Am Pizza Rat” by Han Ong appeared in the October 23rd, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

    (There are SPOILERS!)

    Photograph by Melissa Schriek for The New Yorker

    As a kid who grew up in the 90’s, I am a sucker for slacker lit. You know, meandering stories, aloof narrators, whacky characters, and a general revelry for nothing happening… you know, whatever… Perhaps Kerouac created this genre of fiction with On the Road and Dharma Bums. And it’s a tough genre to execute. The form appears antithetical to the general format of short fiction and novels, as slacker lit just wants to stay mellow and float on down the road, but to work effectively, it still needs a climax. And it pains me to say this about “I Am Pizza Rat” by Han Ong, which is a charming and enjoyable short story, but lacks an effective climax, and leaves the end of the piece feeling flat.

    And I liked this story and the writing. The narrator is a fifty-one year old struggling writer who lives in New York City, but is out in San Mateo, California taking care of his seventy-six father who recently had a fall and is recovering. The writing has just the right tone of sadness and depression in it, but also a touch of irony and humor which never lets the story go too far in the dark corners. We meet the instructor of a FALLING NATURALLY class, and his pot selling brother, Bun (pronounced “Boon”) the African nurse, members of a Gilbert and Sullivan Group, and the idiosyncratic routine of an elderly father. And there are animal videos. But at its core is a father and son story, and slowly the life of the father is revealed, and the trauma he experienced, and how he made imperfect efforts not to pass that along to his son. And the son is aware that his father tried, and mostly succeed, at ending this cycle of trauma.

    This is all great stuff, which makes the climax all the more disappointing. I read the story twice, and decided that the climax is the last paragraph of the second to last section. See, the father asks the son where he goes when the nurse comes to the house, and the son replies that he goes to the university library and has started writing again, thus gaining his confidence back. Then the narrator goes on to say in the same paragraph, “In stories, books, I’m a sucker for the moment when the dormant character awakens.” As if this ironic “wink and a nudge” of a line is to suffice as the “realization moment” in the “Hero Cycle” where the hero has changed from the events of the story, thus leading to the resolution. Unfortunately, this lands hollow as the action is told to us, and not shown. This choice feels lazy in an otherwise active slacker story.

    Look, endings are hard, and I don’t believe this ending “ruins” the story. It’s just more like a record scratch in an otherwise very good song. There are moments and observations in here that Han Ong shows a deft hand with. Especially with the father/son relationship, which is the core reason I would recommend reading this story.

  • Short Story Review: “Heart” by Shuang Xuetao (Translated from the Chinese, by Jeremy Tiang.)

    (The short story “Heart” by Shuang Xuetao appeared in the October 9th, 2023 issue of The New Yorker.)

    Illustration by Sally Deng

    If you write a story about a parent/child relationship, and then throw in a dying parent, you pretty much are half way to claiming a small place in my heart. My logically analytical side gets thrown out the window, and I am running on emotions. And let’s be honest, if you’re creating art, you want people to have an emotional reaction – it’s like the whole point. I say this because I can be completely biased when it comes to certain subject matters, which can complicate things when I try to review short stories from an objective place.

    Which is why it’s strange for me to say that I didn’t feel an emotional connection to “Heart” by Shuang Xuetao. This is a fine story, well written, engaging, and just odd enough to keep me intrigued with what was happening. And as I was reading this piece, I kept expecting it to “click” into place and tap that raw parent/child emotion in me, but it never came. But I don’t begrudge the story for this, nor am I left feeling that the story “misfired” in its execution. Oddly, I feel this might have been exactly the reaction the story was attempting to create in the reader.

    The story mainly takes places on a medical bus that is driving late at night to Beijing. The passengers are an older man dying of heart disease, his son, a driver, and ER doctor who agreed to accompany the father and son. We learn from the narrator, who is the son, that the heart disease that is killing his father skips every other generation, meaning the son is immune from the fate of his father.

    The tone of the story is straightforward, logical, and there are no literary flourishes. But the events in this story slightly graze the edge of surrealism – just slightly. It’s enough touches to make the story feel that it’s not completely in reality. But still I had to wonder why these touches were there. What did the father’s daily boxing routine really symbolize? Why was the driver sleeping as he drove the vehicle? Also, what about the doctor’s sleeping? Was this all a dream? And the need for the son to have to use the bathroom? Was there a meaning to the son’s self-described laziness and his recent decision to stop working, while the father worked every day; even when he retired, he went and found a new job to keep working? All of these questions left me feeling uncertain, unsettled, and wondering what I was supposed to make of this?

    And then there is a moment in the story where the son wonders what he is supposed to do when his father does pass away. He thinks of all the work that will come with making the arrangements for a funeral; contacting family and people his father worked with, raising money to pay for it all, and cars for the procession. Then the son thinks that once his father is gone, that he will truly be alone and by himself. To that the narrator says, “I guess that’s what freedom looks like nowadays,…” A sobering, and heartbreaking realization, that can also feel overwhelming to the point where one can be left numb, and disconnected.

    There isn’t one way to mourn, and that’s what “Heart” reminded me of. I don’t know what all of these pieces in this story amounted to, but I don’t think Shuang Xuetao is wrong for presenting that either, if that was the intention. Maybe not having a feeling right away is still a sort of feeling. Maybe.

  • Post #1001

    Yesterday, I wrote my 1,000th blog post.

    When I started posting way back in 2017, I was a new father who was working a very stressful job, and I needed a creative outlet of some sort to keep me sane, and also to make me feel like I wasn’t giving up on me. The goal way back then was to write 250 words about a subject; any subject would do, just as long as I wrote 250 words.

    In that first year, I did a grand total of 11 posts.

    Followed by 105 posts in 2018.

    Then I backslid in 2019 with 67.

    But I came back in 2020 with 143 post. Sure, COVID and being unemployed played a big part in my increase in output.

    All in all, I have written 339,000+ words for this blog, and I have kept my sanity by being able to accomplish something each day. I like to think I am being creative still, and clearly a good number of you come by to read the short story reviews, which I appreciate.

    I also appreciate the solid core of early followers; all five of you – two of whom I do know personally – who took the time to read and like what I was doing.

    I didn’t know what I was doing when I started; I still don’t know what I’m doing, and I probably won’t know what I am doing when all is said and done.

    I am also aware that virtually no one will read this, and most likely I’m just talking to myself here. For that matter, I should rewrite my bio, and do a site redesign… I need new pictures, too.

    I don’t say this enough, but you should “like” my blog, and follow it. Also, you should leave comments, and click on the ads.

    While we’re at it, someone should offer me a job – writing reviews or editing at journal. To be honest, someone should publish my stories and offer me a book deal.

    But for the time being, I’m going back to reading some flash fiction (I’m really enjoying SmokeLong Quarterly currently) and crank out some new pieces.