Inventing the Abbotts

Indigo (1997)

Harper Perennial (1999)

I first became aware of this collection because of the film with the same name. Completely enamored by Liv Tyler at the time (I think this was her second role), I wanted to read where the movie came from....it was 1997.

I saw the book somewhere and picked it up--it had the movie poster tie-in cover even. I began reading the story and stopped. Then I lost the book. I found a copy of it the other day for $1.

There are eleven stories, I've managed to finish five.

"Inventing the Abbotts"
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The longest story in the collection (30+ pages) and the one that could've been expanded into a novella and or novel. But I'm not making any judgements here, I don't like to hear "this could be a novel" at the end of my own short stories.

It remains true to itself--keeping the same narrator throughout--Doug, the younger of the two Holt brothers. They grow up as outsiders in a small Midwestern town, poorer than the Abbott family. Of course the richest part of the Abbotts lies within the three daughters. They are enough to fill the two brothers lives for a very long time.

The story reminded me a bit of The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides--if only for the fascination of the sisters and the elm disease requiring most of the trees to be cut down.

"Slides"
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We get to read the intimate details of Georgia and David's former married life through the seven "dirty" pictures taken early in their life together. They fight for ownership of the slides after they divorce.

"While she made her argument, her hands were in constant motion; and David, lying on their expensive tweed sofa with a coffee mug resting on his chest, watched the sequence of familiar configurations, gestures she had made thousands of times before..."

Herein lies my favorite part of all of these stories. The little snapshots of relationships she seems to capture so well. Everyone knows the sequence of gestures made by someone they love. But I never really realized this until I read that passage.

"Calling"
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Before the advent of cell phones or Caller ID, there was a "secret" little way to check up on someone. The hangup. I mean, or so I've heard (have you read my *69 poem?)...

Two unnamed characters are in that stage of a relationship with "what happens now?" seems to be a looming question. An unanswered question. At first he calls just to hear her voice. Then he becomes a bit possessive and jealous and the calls become more frequent:

"He called her again and let it ring on and on. He lost track of how many times he called her, but them, finally he got a busy signal. The sharp sound startled him, made his heart beat strangely. He dialed again, and got the busy signal again."

Does anyone see the end of this one coming? Keep reading, because you know you want to. Honest, true, and embarrassing moments trump predictability almost every time.

"Expensive Gifts"
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This is hands down my favorite story (read) in the collection, but I can't really tell you why. There are so many details, both visual and auditory that it all jumps off the page and becomes a living, breathing thing.

The current man: "He was standing naked in silhouette, as slim as a stiletto in the light from the hall...the sight of him gave Kate no pleasure."

The ex-husband: "...with curly brown hair and thick, wire-rimmed glasses which he removed carefully before starting to make love. They left two purplish dents like bruises on the sides of his nose."

Her sleeping son: "His hands were curled into fists, and one thumb rested near his open mouth, connected to it by a slender, almost invisible cord of saliva."

The weather: "It had been a luminous soft gray earlier, and now thick flakes, a darker gray against its gentle glow, brushed silently against the panes."

Kate: "...was, in fact, a reflexive liar. She hated to be unpleasant or contradictory, but when she felt that way, a lie, fully formed almost before she began to think about it, fell from her lips."

The details are all too rich. Too expensive. And even though it's not the "gift" the title is referencing, it is one the author has absolutely given. A bonus.

~~J

Lust (& other stories)

(Random House--Vintage Contemporaries 1989, 2000)

I came across Susan Minot two years ago through the film Evening. Then I found a short story by her tucked away in one of the literature anthologies (I keep hoarding). Sold!

"Lust"
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It was different for a girl.

An unnamed narrator tells the story of 16 men. They come across in snapshots and short paragraphs. There is a focus mostly on the sights and sounds--the perception of them, as she looks back on the events of her youth.

The surrender would be forgetting yourself...

The men are events. They have names (all but one)...and the details get jumbled or left out as she revisits and remembers in a stream of consciousness ode to, well, Lust--which becomes a sort of cautionary tale (sections told in second person).

They're all different...But it's like faces; you're never really surprised.
Still, you're not sure what to expect.

But she's not talking about faces here.

"The Break-up"
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Meet Liz and Owen. They have been together for 8 months and seem to be living together in a small apartment in the city. It's hot. The air, the darkness, it is a Friday night in July.

Roused from their bed by a ringing phone--Liz answers and then lets Owen know that Tim is coming over.

Tim is Owen's best friend and is apparently in the throngs of a bad break-up. He's drunk and walking the streets. When he finally makes it there the snatches of a story begin about Sonia.

Sonia and Tim and there not so perfectness but "Nothing's perfect." (Thanks, Tim)

Liz listens as they sit in the dark. Owen doesn't really pay attention to the bleeding drunk heart of his best friend.

She was trying to keep him talking.
One of her theories was that people should talk all the time.

We find out that Tim was ready to propose, and he puts his anger squarely on Liz. This is how things go. After Own walks Tim out we find out that he is going to try to get Sonia back and had a warning for Owen:

"He also told me to watch out with you."

"What do you think he meant by that?"

"The Knot"
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Told in four tiny sections we get to follow a couple as they are Happy (delusional), Fighting (facing reality), Apart (still mad), then finally Recovering.

Peter and Cynthia do a great job at representing a lot in just five pages. It's heavy in dialogue and realizations. It may be my favorite of the ones I've read by Susan Minot.

Sparse but filled with truth.

"The Man Who Would Not Go Away"
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Rounding out her collection, is a story that seems to happen mostly in the head of our narrator. She is not crazy, her thoughts are based on reality. She's coping. She is trying to "get over" a man.

Still, traces of him remained. At first, it was his name. I avoided the people he knew.

Very relate-able. I would say. Kinda gave me the same feeling as that episode of Sex and the City when Carrie keeps seeing Big after their first break-up. My heart was saying, "I hear ya, sister."

She seems him everywhere. Or the energy of him is everywhere. The restaurant--she feels she is sitting in the same chair she sat in one time with "the man." He materializes in other people when she goes to the movies (to escape).

When she meets a guy at a club, he happens to be a guy she only knew through "the man." So when he taps her on the shoulder she feels herself blush as she realizes who he is.

This is not what I expected. This is not what I thought he'd leave behind.

When she is finally able to find some time alone, not bombarded by the ghosts of "him" she realizes that she really never knew him at all.

My favorite lines come near the beginning of the story: Uncertainty is like a drug. It quickens the blood, wears on the nerves.

~~J

Soft Maniacs (stories)

(Simon & Schuster, 1999)

I may be cheating a bit here, or "back-blogging"...but I thought it was important to talk about the first collection of "short literature" I ever fell in love with...or can remember falling in love with...

The year was 1999 and as a wayward student at a university, when someone says, "Hey do you want to go to a reading?"...you go. It doesn't matter whether or not you know the author/spoken word mistress. You just GO! So I did.

Maggie Estep read to us from her current (at the time) collection of stories--and I was hooked... Maybe it was the "style," maybe it was the "concept," maybe it was Maggie herself.

When I found my own copy (at a used bookstore less than a month later) I was quite excited. I brought the book back to my dorm room and the next thing I remember is my group of friends and I sitting in a circle reading from it...aloud.

(We also took turns reading each other's sexual astrology from a different book, but that's another story altogether)

There are nine semi-related stories in Soft Maniacs where we get to follow two different women (Katie and Jody) as seen by the men they love/ruin...it's actually narrated by them (the men).

It's a gritty, dirty romp--a very quick read. The story I remember the most (and tell people about when I talk about the book) is "The Patient:"

"The bullet traversed my prefrontal cortex and went out my right temple, but I'm fine. I've better than I ever was, actually. They tell me I've, in effect, lobotomized myself. And I understand perfectly that this should be disastrous. I should be upset. But I'm at peace.

...Because I know, better than most, girls are trouble."

In Addition To:

(or I have to change this thing up or my head might explode)

It was a great idea: read everything ever written by a single author.

It may be the best idea ever, really (right up there with Nutella or White Chocolate Peanut Butter) BUT it takes a greater person to accomplish such a feat.

Maybe one day I will be able to say I've read all F. Scott has written, but not this year (or next year or the year after that)...

Instead I'm going to continue this blog but with a twist--I am going to include other authors. More short stories written by said authors...it will be more about the short story as a literary form.

Yay Short Stories!

This way I can include classics and "new ones" and all the stuff in between...like the sandwich I want to consume right now....I don't have the two delicious spreads mentioned above--but I'm sure I can find SOMETHING to nom nom nom.

~~J

"Outside the Cabinet-Maker's"

FROM: The Fitzgerald Reader: A Collection of His Finest Work
[1963 Scribners] Edited by Arthur Mizener, pgs. 297-301

(room in an antique dollhouse)

Originally published in The Century Magazine (1928), this one is just under 1,500 words and is the shortest "short" story by F. Scott I have read thus far. It might be his shortest even, I'd have to do research to find out if that is true.

Either way, it is charming and has nothing to do with love-lost, but instead the imagination of a little girl and the relationship between father and daughter take center stage. None of the characters are named even, so it's enchanting.

An automobile stops and out pops a lady, who disappears into a Cabinet-Maker's shop to conduct business. Revealed through the story is the reason she is there--and F. Scott even puts the key sentences in French.

(I had to look these up, and it didn't bother me one bit)

A gift for the little girl is being bargained for--and it can't cost more than "Twenty dollars." Father and daughter stay outside and construct a magical story together, while watching the people moving about the neighborhood:

“Who is the lady?”

“She’s a Witch, a friend of the Ogre’s.”

The shutter blew closed with a bang and then slowly opened again.

“That’s done by the good and bad fairies,” the man explained. “They’re invisible, but the bad fairies want to close the shutter so nobody can see in and the good ones want to open it.”

“The good fairies are winning now.”

“Yes.” He looked at the little girl. “You’re my good fairy.”

Finally the lady comes out and the Father finds out that the gift costs more than they hoped, at twenty-five dollars--but apparently it will be made anyway.

As quickly as it began, it is over. Short and very sweet. Refreshing.

~~J

"A New Leaf"

from: Perrine's Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense

edited by Arp and Johnson (8th Edition, 2002)Pages 439-453

Welcome to 1931. Or at least that's when this particular story was first published in the Saturday Evening Post. I found the text in one of the used literature anthologies I seem to grab whenever they are within reach.

"A New Leaf" is in a chapter dedicated to "Evaluating Fiction." The student is instructed to pay close attention to things like plot, structure, characterization, theme, point of view, symbols, allegories, fantasy, humor, and irony (did you catch all that?).

There are even eight questions that follow to direct thoughts. Good stuff. Nevertheless, I shall ignore all the rules and opine on the story as I normally do.

By far, my favorite section of the story occurred first--opening scene as Julia spies Dick Ragland, as he briefly stops to speak to the man she is having dinner with:

She sat there, a well-behaved women of twenty-one, and discreetly trembled....

"He's without doubt the handsomest man I ever saw in my life."

"Yes, he's handsome," he agreed without enthusiasm.

"Handsome! He's an archangel, he's a mountain lion, he's something to eat. Just why didn't you introduce him?"

If I had a dollar for every time...okay. I don't think those words have ever left my mouth, but I am dying to use the line as soon as possible.

But, of course, Dick is trouble. He's not well-received. He's a drunk. Which is all the more reason for Julia to fall madly and deeply, despite the fact that he shows up both drunk and hungover for the first planned meeting.

The rest is predictable. Well, maybe not exactly--but there will be disappoint and it is rather anti-climactic, even though F. Scott throws in a bit of mystery when we hear of the final action through another character.

"Better let it all alone in the depths of her heart and the depths of the sea." Aye, aye captain.

~~J

"Bernice Bobs Her Hair"

from: The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald

edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli (Scribners, 1989)Pages 25-47

(original artwork from the Saturday Evening Post)

Originally published in 1920, I wasn't sure what to expect from this story--I knew it was one of F. Scott's most read/discussed and just the title alone makes me think of flappers, short hair, and prohibition.

You too?

Well, it turned out to be fantastically accurate in the "game" of womanhood. (unfortunately) Think Mean Girls (or Heathers or any other coming-of-age story where the girls carve each other up).

I can't reveal the end, but it's good--and I didn't see it coming...

Marjorie made no answer but gazed pensively at her own image in the mirror.

"You're a peach to help me," continued Bernice.

Still Marjorie did not answer, and Bernice thought she had seemed too grateful.

"I know you don't like sentiment," she said timidly.

Marjorie turned to her quickly.

"Oh, I wasn't thinking about that. I was considering whether we hadn't better bob your hair."

Bernice collapsed backward upon the bed.

Oh yes, there will be scissors...especially since a boy is involved (Warren), but I am very curious about the 3,000 words F. Scott reportedly removed from the story in order to get it published.

Which makes me think of my own work and what I submitted to several creative writing programs in hopes of being accepted. This line of thinking is not related to story specifically, except for the art of editing.

I guess you just "know" what to cut and not to cut? (pun intended).

~~J