I would be telling a huge lie if I said that I don’t look at th analytics for my blog. Somedays, it is like a score sheet to see what works and what doesn’t. The one thing I have learned in the last year is that people only pop on my site to look at the Short Story Reviews. I have also noticed that in the past year, the average time on my site went from 15 seconds to 1 minute. I am flattered that people are spending their time here.
The other thing that happens is every now and then, an old post will get a couple of hits, and I have to remind myself what I wrote. Some of my old reviews can be rather cringy, a little too harsh, or just wildly off base. I try to leave them alone, not make any edits, as a testament to the moment that I created the piece.
I am surprised when a non-review post gets a couple of hits, which I take as a very high compliment. I can’t shake the fact that when I sit down to write a blog post, I still think of it like 2000 and I just started my first Blogger account. You know, in the Wild West days of overly confessional bloggers sharing every aspect of their life. That trend came and went, along with the literary glory that came with it. But still… posting is like reliving the creative enthusiasm of a twenty-five-year-old trying to connect with other people, and especially writers, all over the world.
“The Spit of Him” by Thomas Korsgaaed is a competent story. I believe that it accomplishes what is was created to do – fulfills its purpose of being – puts forth an idea and illuminates on it. Yet, it just didn’t feel like it came together.
In short; Kevin, a ten-year-old from the wrong side of town, walks to the right side of town during a rain storm to sell stickers door to door. Kevin comes to a home wherein the couple that lives there knows who Kevin’s father is, a local drunk, and what Kevin’s father has done, had some sort of accident with a car while eneberated. The man plays and toys with Kevin, insulting the boy, which Kevin doesn’t fully pick up on, while the woman tries to shield Kevin from this form of shaming. In the end, the man gives Kevin a large amount of money for the stickers and sends him on his way.
I say that the story accomplishes what it was after, as it makes it’s points about class, money, generational shame, moral superiority, the lack of understanding, and societal bullying. How some people think they can get away with abusing others, and then pay them off and all is forgiven. I even understand the shame that Kevin feels, and the conflicted emotions with being given money by someone who insulted him. I see all of that, and those issues are important.
But I am still left with the feeling that it didn’t all come together, and that’s what I am still puzzling over. I think the short quick answer is that no one learns anything in the story – the status quo continues. The man doesn’t change, he still feels morally superior. The woman, though annoyed at the man’s actions, isn’t going anywhere either. That leaves Kevin, and though he contemplates how much rain makes a flood as he waits out the storm in a graffiti covered bus shelter, he doesn’t display gaining a new understanding which would allow him to return home changed.
That just makes this a story about a “happening” between characters.
(The short story “That Girl” by Addie Citchens appeared in the February 12th and 19th, 2024 issue of The New Yorker.)
Illustration by Derek Abella
Oh, it’s so much fun reading something that reminds you how powerful a short story can be. In a very deft, strong, subtle and powerful voice, Addie Citchens presents a complex and compelling narrative, as well as a fascinating character in Theo. “That Girl” is the type of story that, at the same time, inspires me to keep writing, and also reminds me how high that bar is to create something inspiring.
I could say that this is a story about first love, but that description would be disservice to all the elements and themes in this story. Maybe not love, but it is about the discovery of passion and desire where it never existed before. Of kindness, and menace, and doing something that’s been deemed wrong but at the same time awakens the knowledge of the larger world around you, and how could that be wrong?
Citchens’ takes us on Theo’s journey, which begins during her summer before she goes into ninth grade. One hot day she meets Shirlee, an older girl who should be going into eleventh grade but is still in ninth. This first section perfectly works at setting up the whole story, showing the desire, motivations, and direction of the characters. And the world these characters occupy is a place where violence is always just below the surface, and these girls are aware of it, and how powerless it can make them. It is easy to understand how and why Theo finds Shirlee’s kindness and understanding so intoxicating, especially for a girl who feels isolated in her loneliness.
As I have been thinking about this story, and there are so many things to talk about, but I have been marveling at Citchens’ language, and her structuring of this story. Reading the piece, I never felt like a word was wasted. The language was pared down to the most essential and powerful. I was on Theo’s journey, and it would take time, but never did I feel like my time was wasted. (I can’t explain it, but I felt like Citchens respected the reader more than any writer I have read in a very long time.) And the structure of the story was in the mold of the “hero’s journey” but never for a second did it feel contrived or predictable. This was a brutal, at times, but honest journey that laid out it’s points so well, that when the story concluded, I knew the choice that Theo had to make, but I was still left heartbroken for her.
And there are layers and layers to this story. I haven’t touched on half of them; mother’s and daughter, religion, sexual assault, growth and confidence, generational abuse… But also love, compassion, validation, and just listening… But I don’t to spoil this work, and ruin the magic spell that this story is. Addie Citchen’s “That Girl” is the best thing I have read in a long time. It is technically well crafted, beautifully written, and I love the character of Theo and wish I could learn more about her journey in this world.
Photo illustration by Hana Mendel for The New Yorker
First of all, when I read a story that has to do with a grown man and a large insect, I can’t help but think of “The Metamorphosis” by Kafka. And I have run into more stories than I can count about men and bugs. (Kafka created a secret literary genre that no one talks about.) It’s unfair to Patrick Langley that I immediately made that comparison when I started reading “Life with Spider,” but when I finished the story, I think Langley was counting on me to do that, so he could mess with my head.
“Life with Spider” is a story about Fletcher Hardy and his bug-like creature called Spider, even though it is not a spider. We are told off the bat that Hardy, not his real name, has given permission to the narrator to tell the story, provided that we aren’t able to figure out who the “real” Hardy is. It’s an interesting framing of the story as everything that Fletcher says and does, in essence, is told to us second hand. Several specific details are given about Hardy; who his family is, where they live, what he does, and what they do, and so on. It made me wonder if the narrator was lying to “throw me off.”
Either way, we learn that Hardy is being visited by a six-legged insect like creature, which will not leave him alone. Hardy convinces his friend, the narrator, to help get rid of the creature. I don’t want to give away too many details, leave a few surprises, but I am sure you can surmise that Hardy and the narrator survive, as they are telling this story.
I enjoyed this story even though it did befuddle me. I mentioned the one above about the details and if the narrator was reliable. But the big question for me about this story was, what was Spider? Did it represent something specific? Was it death? Since the two main characters were young men transitioning into adulthood, was Spider a metaphor for their transition? Possibly, Spider was a manifietation of their friendship? Was I supposed to think about Kafka? Am I thinking too hard about Kafka? And the story had a “Dead Chick in the Basket*” ending, which maybe made sense? Or maybe it wasn’t supposed to make sense?
What “Life with Spider” reminded me of was some of the more fantastical stories from The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami. Both had a sense of play, humor, and the humans in the stories react with a relative sense rationalism to their extreme situations. I didn’t need “Life with Spider” to make sense or tie up all the loose ends neatly, because the enjoyment was trying to figure out a mystery that would never get completely solved.
* “Dead Chick in the Basket” refers to a clichéd writing device where the final paragraph of a short story contains new information about a character which is meant to make the reader view the actions, statements, or feelings of that character in a different light. The first known use of this device was in J.D. Salinger’s short story “Just Before the War with the Eskimos.”
(The short story “Poor Houdini” by Anne Carson appeared in the January 29th, 2024 issue of The New Yorker.)
Illustration by Lauren Peters-Collaer
Well, yeah!
“Poor Houdini” by Anne Carson is the type of short story I love falling into. Why beat around the bush here; This is a fabulous story that happily reminded me how much fun it is to be engaged and enthralled by the ways a writer takes words, and language and plays with it, creating mood, atmosphere, and a lyrical mist which surrounds their story. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into with that first paragraph, but by the end I was ashamed that I wasn’t aware Anne Carson before today.
I guess there is a through line of a story here; a female poet, romantic entanglements, a crow, the rescue of a woman from a collapsed balcony, and the writing of sonnets. Picking apart this story seems antithetical to what this story exudes; which is a sort of lived life that is filtered through a poet’s eyes, and their reactions to those events. And these events can and should be explored more, but I only have so much time.
Because what grabbed me was the language and how it danced to life. “There is stillness after rain. Rank risings rise. Trees drip. Street lamps loom. Night takes on a polish, a pure power.” I know this feeling, this setting, and it’s as if I can touch it with my fingertips, yet it stays magically elusive. Carson weaves these words, and I couldn’t shake the feeling of melancholy, as this is a world of people looking for connections with each other, but nothing seems to land the way they want or expect. But they keep moving forward, not exactly flailing, but grasping – at least the poet does.
I know that I am not doing the story justice, and this isn’t so much a “review”, as it is more a “gush.” I think part of my reaction to “Poor Houdini” is that it also brought up in me the memory of being young, in college, and the world was still able to be discovered, emotions could be surprisingly new, and it mattered to attempt to create something out of that jumble of life. I can’t completely put my finger on it, but it felt very close to what Anne Carson wrote.
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