Months and Seasons - Wendy's Book Review

These were adults with too much time on their hands. And didn’t they know that the projector, sound system, and speakers were all Japanese? Their dancing shoes were probably from Mexico or China. America’s jobs were going elsewhere and Americans were just dressing up and playing like kids. Gas prices were high. General Motors was going broke and laying off thousands - and these people were dancing. -From Months and Seasons, Dracula Slinks Into the Night, page 14-

Christopher Meeks stories are full of people who push through the obstacles of life and overcome their deepest fears in order to find joy in living. Months and Seasons, Meeks second collection of short stories is a delightful book which introduces the reader to characters who are ordinary, but in their ordinariness remind us of the common threads which bind people together.

In the story Catalina, we meet a man who is traveling to Catalina via a catamaran. He is grieving the loss of his son.

For the full hour-ride, Daunus sat outside, looking rearward into the gray wake. At one point, a white baseball cap landed in the wake. Someone lost it. His chest felt constricted. Breathing was hard. he’d given this country everything, including now his son. -From Months and Seasons, Catalina, page 37-

He meets a woman on the boat who optimistically tells him that Catalina is ‘like a persimmon - unexpected fruit on a naked tree.‘ The man’s discovery that there is still beauty in the world, despite his devastating loss, allows him to go forward into his life. This simple story is an example of the hope which Meeks infuses into all of his stories as his characters confront their fears of aging, mortality and the sometimes insurmountable challenges of relationships.

In some stories, the characters must battle their own inner demons to make sense of the world and their place within it. In A Shoe Falls, Max must evaluate his marriage to Alice - a woman who clutters the house with her shoes. He wakes from a dream about owing a cab driver $150,000 and thinks:

…if the ride was getting so expensive and monotonous, why hadn’t he asked the cab driver to let him off? Why hadn’t he done more than sit there, bouncing in the back seat pondering his sanity? He was a passive man, goddamn it. -From Months and Seasons, A Shoe Falls, page 72-

Max’s inner journey in this story looks at how one man (who could be any of us) examines his “dreams” in the face of his reality. Will he be able to overcome regret for what he has does not have in order to accept what is?

My favorite story of the collection is Breaking Water - which opens with a supermodel awakening from open heart surgery. Merrill appears to have lost everything of importance in her life - her career as a model, her marriage, and her vision of who she is. She must begin again and turns toward art school as a possible answer.

She also couldn’t draw knees well, or a cat’s mysterious stare, or the hope she had had on her wedding day at the Unitarian Church where the minister’s smile had stretched exactly from pupil to pupil - proportions as perfect as Michelangelo. Merrill, however, could draw losing. It was a mere scratch through a face or a line down the middle of one’s chest. -From Months and Seasons, Breaking Water, page 136-

Merrill’s story is one of falling down and getting back up again; of finding hope in the midst of despair. It touched me.

And this is perhaps the strength of the collection - in showing us the lives of these ordinary characters, Meeks exposes what is human in all of us. Who has never felt life was not living up to expectation? Or looked at the years unraveling and wondered if we had the time to do everything we wanted? Or experienced a loss so big that hope seemed irretrievable? Or found our fears so encompassing we felt paralyzed to overcome them? Meeks explores these ideas with humor and sensitivity, and creates a collection hard to put down.

For those readers who love short stories, Months and Seasons is a must read. Highly recommended.

Meeks’ is also the author of a previous collection - The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea.

At the end of Months and Seasons, Meeks includes an excerpt of a new book he is working on…a novel-in-stories titled The Brightest Moon of the Century. I read this excerpt and was hungry for more. Meeks characterization of the title character, Edward, reminded me of John Irving’s Garp. I have added The Brightest Moon of the Century to my watch list!

Wendy's Challenge Plan and List

January 1 - December 31, 2008

UPDATE October 22, 2008:

I am happy to report I have completed this challenge! I read 8 individual short stories (2 more than my goal) and 3 collections of short stories. What a fun challenge this turned out to be. Thank you, Kate for hosting!

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Could you resist this button? Come on, be honest. You couldn't. And neither could I...that, and I love the art of the short story.Kate at Kate's Book Blog (and A Curious Singularity) has come up with the 2008 Short Story Challenge. And she's made it flexible and individualized...AND she's given it its own blog. So there you go. I'm in.

I've chosen option #5 - the custom option. And here is my plan:

I. Read six (6) individual short stories by authors I have not read before and which I will choose as I go along.

1. Black Ice, by Cate Kennedy (finished January 21, 2008; rated 3.5/5; read my review)
2. The Overcoat, by Nikolai Gogol (finished March 1, 2008; rated 4/5; read my review)
3. Landscape With Flatiron, by Haruki Murakami (finished April 21, 2008; rated 4/5; read my review)
4. The Kiss, by Anton Chekhov (finished May 14, 2008; rated 5/5; read my review)
5. Free Radicals, by Alice Munro (finished May 25, 2008; rated 4/5; read my review)
6. Mr. Bones, by Paul Theroux (finished June 28, 2008; rated 3.5/5; read my review)
7. Natalie, by Anne Enright (finished July 26, 2008; rated 2.5/5; read my review)
8. An Ex-Mas Feast, by Uwem Akpan (finished August 24, 2008; rated 4.5/5; read my review)
   

II. Read a minimum of three (3) collections chosen from these books:

1. Springtime on Mars, by Susan Woodring (finished June 28, 2008; rated 5/5; read my review)
2. The View From Castle Rock, by Alice Munro (finished September 26, 2008; rated 4/5; read my review)
3. Months and Seasons, by Christopher Meeks (finished October 22, 2008; rated 4.5/5; read my review)
   
4. Selected Short Stories of William Faulkner, by William Faulkner
5. The Country of Pointed Firs and Selected Short Fiction, by Sarah Orne Jewett (let it be noted that I have already read The Country of Pointed Firs and won't re-read it, but all the other stories in this collection are up for grabs)
6. Open Secrets, by Alice Munro
7. Tooth and Claw, by T.C. Boyle
8. A Private State, by Charlotte Bacon
9. Friend of My Youth, by Alice Munro
10. All Aunt Hager's Children, by Edward P. Jones

The View From Castle Rock, by Alice Munro - Wendy's Review

These are stories. You could say that such stories pay more attention to the truth of a life than fiction usually does. But not enough to swear on. And the part of this book that might be called family history has expanded into fiction, but always within the outline of a true narrative. With these developments the two streams came close enough together that they seemed to me meant to flow in one channel, as they do in this book. -From The View From Castle Rock, Introduction-

We can’t resist this rifling around in the past, sifting the untrustworthy evidence, linking stray names and questionable dates and anecdotes together, hanging on to threads, insisting on being joined to dead people and therefore to life. -From The View From Castle Rock, Epilogue-

The View From Castle Rock is an interesting combination of fiction and truth - Alice Munro delves into her family background, digging up her ancestors and her childhood to create a series of linked stories which explore family connections, poverty, adversity and understanding of ordinary lives as part of a bigger history.

The collection begins deep in the Ettrick Valley, just south of Edinburgh Scotland. Munro visits a cemetery on a cold, rainy day and locates the headstones of her relatives.

Also, among various Laidlaws, a stone bearing the name of Robert Laidlaw, who died at Hopehouse January 29th 1800 aged seventy-two years. Son of Will, brother of Margaret, uncle of James, who probably never knew that he would be remembered by his link to these others, any more than he would know the date of his own death. My great-great-great-great-grandfather. -From The View From Castle Rock, page 6-

In this first story, the reader is introduced posthumously to the characters who will make up future stories in the collection. Each new story moves the reader further into the present. In the title story: ‘The View From Castle Rock‘…Munro gives the reader a glimpse into what prompted the emmigration of her family from Scotland to Canada. A young boy follows his intoxicated father up the steep, uneven stone steps of an ancient castle and onto a roofless tower.

The sun was out now, shining on the stone heap of houses and streets below them, and the churches whose spires did not reach to this height, and some little trees and fields, then a wide silvery stretch of water. And beyond that a pale green and grayish-blue land, part in the sunlight and part in the shadow, a land as light as mist, sucked into the sky.

“So did I not tell you?” Andrew’s father said. “America. It is only a little bit of it, though, only the shore. There is where every man is sitting in the midst of his own properties, and even the beggars is riding around in carriages.” -From The View From Castle Rock, page 30-

Munro’s strength in these early stories is her ability to set place and time for the reader. She writes lush descriptions and peoples her prose with complex characters. When Walter, a young boy aboard a ship bound for America, writes in his journal ‘And this night in the year 1818 we lost sight of Scotland‘ the reader feels the anticipation as well as the sadness of saying good-bye to one’s homeland in search of a better life. Munro uses real documents (such as Walter’s journal) to help piece together the history of her family and there are times when it is difficult to ascertain what is fact and what is fiction.

And I am surely one of the liars the old man talks about, in what I have written about the voyage. Except for Walter’s journal, and the letters, the story is full of my invention.

The sighting of Fife from Castle Rock is related by Hogg, so it must be true. -From The View from Castle Rock, page 84-

Munro completes part I of her collection with the story ‘Working For A Living‘ which recollects of her father’s boyhood in the town of Blyth. Part II introduces Munro herself to the collection in the story ‘Fathers‘ - a painful look at the fine line between discipline and abuse and a girl’s relationship with her father.

‘Lying Under the Apple Tree‘ is about the coming of age of a young girl…the innocence of youth vanquished. The ideas of God, church values (morality) and sin weave themselves through this story. Munro also skillfully introduces nature into her theme of growing up and the recognition of one’s sexuality. Her use of dirt as a symbol is effective in introducing the concept of sex vs. a girl’s fantasies vs. the realities of love.

“Dirt,” my sister whispered to me when I got home. “Dirt on the back of your blouse.”

She watched me take it off in the bathroom, and scrub at it with a hard bar of soap. We didn’t have running hot water except in the winter, so she offered to get me some from the kettle. She didn’t ask me how the dirt had got there, she was only hoping to get rid of the evidence, keep me out of trouble. -From The View From Castle Rock, page 203-

In ‘Hired Girl‘ Munro continues to explore the idea of a young woman on the cusp of adulthood. In addition she builds on the idea of place - physical place vs. one’s place in society. This concept of there being barriers between classes, is one of the main themes of Munro’s collection and in ‘Hired Girl‘ she emphasizes this idea.

I did not yet understand that maids didn’t have to find their way anywhere. They stayed put, where the work was. It was the people who made the work who could come and go. -From The View From Castle Rock, page 231-

The final stories of Munro’s collection are dedicated to her early marriage (’The Ticket‘), and her maturation into a woman who is capable of looking at her history and life in the harsh light of reality (’Home‘ and ‘What Do You Want to Know For?‘). Munro’s recollections of her father in his later years and the home where she grew up being modernized, are touching exposes on what it means to finally be an adult and no longer be protected by the innocence of childhood. Munro writes:

The past needs to be approached from a distance. -From The View From Castle Rock, page 332-

The View From Castle Rock does that - in exploring her roots, Munro has succeeded in creating a unique blend of stories which look at one family’s history in the context of a bigger picture of what it means to live on the edge of poverty, connect to family, and create a life with meaning and understanding.

Recommended.

An Ex-Mas Feast, by Uwem Akpan - Wendy's Review

The sun had gone down on Ex-mas evening. Bad weather had stormed the seasons out of order, and Nairobi sat in a low flood, the light December rain droning on our tarpaulin roof. I was sitting on the floor of our shack, which stood on a cement slab at the end of an alley, leaning against the back of an old brick shop. Occasional winds swelled the brown polythene walls, The floor was nested with cushions that I had scavenged from a dump on Biashara Street. At night, we rolled up the edge of the tarpaulin to let in the glow of the shop’s security lights. A board, which served as our door lay by the shop wall. -From An Ex-Mas Feast-

Uwem Akpan released his debut short story collection titled Say You’re One of Them in June 2008. An Ex-Mas Feast is one of the stories in that collection - although I read it as a stand alone story in The New Yorker. Jigana, an eight year old who is the eldest boy of his family, narrates the story. He reveals the horrifying living conditions of a street family who rely on their eldest daughter’s income from prostitution to feed them. Jigana represents hope for his family who want him to go to school and become educated. Most of the story takes place on Christmas Day as the family waits for Maisha to return from her work on the streets. The mother offers her children glue to sniff to stave off hunger and reads aloud the names of relatives in an attempt to celebrate the holiday.

Mama took out our family Bible, which we had inherited from Baba’s father, to begin our Ex-mas worship. The front cover had peeled off, leaving a dirty page full of our relatives’ names, dead and living. She read them out. Baba’s late father had insisted that all the names of our family be included in recognition of the instability of street life. -From An Ex-Mas Feast-

Thematically this short story examines survival, family bonds, and the idea of education as hope to elevate oneself from poverty. It raises questions about global awareness of what is happening to families and children on the streets of Nairobi. When Jigana tells of the rich white men driving a Jaguar who “hire” Maisha for a night of sex, the reader feels stunned by the gap which lies between wealth and poverty.

Akpan’s writing is stark, shocking and painful. The story, narrated by a child, leaves the reader feeling brutalized. Bookmarks Magazine reviewed Akpan’s collection and writes:

Without flinching or lecturing, Akpan shares the almost unimaginable horrors that threaten Africa’s most vulnerable children. A Jesuit priest, he also evokes the love, grace, and other spiritual values that can emerge from the fight for survival. -From Sept/Oct edition (No. 36) of Bookmarks Magazine, page 32-

Although not easy to read, I highly recommend this short story if only to raise awareness of what is happening to children living on the streets in Africa.

Natalie, by Anne Enright - Wendy's Review

After reading The Gathering, I was eager to read more work by Anne Enright. So when the 21st Fiction Yahoo group chose Enright’s short story Natalie to read and discuss, I was pleased. I read this story on-line at the New Yorker.

Natalie is narrated by an unnamed teenage protagonist who is laying in bed ruminating on her relationship with her boyfriend (also unnamed), Natalie, Natalie’s boyfriend Billy, and Billy’s mother Mrs. Casey. We learn that the narrator and Natalie have a psuedo-friendship of sorts and that Billy’s mother has ovarian cancer.

Although the title suggests this will be a story about Natalie, instead Natalie becomes the conduit for the narrator to reach a conclusion about life and death, and human connections. Natalie’s view of the world is that people are unconnected - they live or die independent of their relationships with each other. The narrator has a more idealistic view of the world. She resists the idea of ultimately being alone and searches for connections with others. Eventually, Natalies influence seems to shift the narrator’s viewpoint:

We are not connected. Because this is what Natalie is saying, isn’t it? That we are alone. -From Natalie-

Enright is skilled at capturing the voice of her narrator and convincing the reader we are indeed inside the head of a teenager. Despite her adept writing, Enright’s short story did not resonate with me. In the end, I felt a complete disconnect with the characters. Given the underlying theme of the story, perhaps this was Enright’s intention…but it didn’t work for me.

I must admit to needing help to work this short story out…and for that I thank the very astute readers at the 21st Fiction Yahoo group. I’d recommend the story as a thought provoking read which will stimulate group discussion. But, if you are just looking for an enjoyable short story, you could probably skip this one.

Mr. Bones, by Paul Theroux - Wendy's Review

My father, apparently a simple, cheery soul, was impossible to know. -From Mr. Bones-

Paul Theroux wrote this short story which appeared on line at The New Yorker in September 2007. The narrator is a man remembering his father from many years previous. Right up front, he tells the reader that not only is his father impossible to know, but that family life is full of disorder and tension. The narrator’s father is a rather passive man, married to a domineering and critical woman, and he begins to practice for his role in a minstrel show. He dons the black face - a mask of sorts - and becomes Mr. Bones.

The story has a disturbing undercurrent, touching on racism, marital discord, and a young boy’s confusion about it all. Theroux’s writing is sharp and observant. He captures the uneasy relationships well; and forces the reader to examine the idea of hiding behind our own masks - whether it be in our personal lives or in front of an audience. As the story comes to its conclusion, the reader is left to ponder its true message.

This big event was just a talent show to Louie; and his white-haired father, who worked on the M.T.A. buses, was just an old guy singing. Yet in our house Mr. Bones had intimidated everyone. He was now someone to fear, saying the things that he normally avoided saying. In his minstrel-show costume, he could be as reckless as he wanted. -From Mr. Bones-

I found this short story stunning in many ways - the writing rich and compelling. But it is not an easy story to understand. Luckily, I read it for the 21st Fiction yahoo discussion group and so I was able to explore its many facets with other readers.

Springtime on Mars: Stories - Wendy's Review

“For years, people imagined they saw canals dug into the planet’s surface. They called these canals proof of life. They worried what intelligent life on Mars might mean to us earthlings, to our safety. But, it was nothing. An optical illusion a cosmic misprint. There’s no life. There’s nothing.” -From Springtime on Mars, page 112-

Susan Woodring’s wonderful book of short stories is a joy to read. They are linked in theme - women growing older and looking back on their lives; loss and hope; the idea of gravity keeping our feet on the ground; searching for meaning somewhere between science and God. All Woodring’s stories take place among ordinary people and families - but they are at the same time people who are extraordinary without realizing it. They could be any one of us. And that perhaps is where these stories gain their power.

Woodring writes with an eye on the small details of life and explores the every day push and pull of relationships. There is sadness mingled in her characters’ lives, but also a twinkle of hope and meaning. I especially liked her female characters - women who still were looking for their dreams.

I believe: love deep, give marshmallows and other treats to children, and sleep as long and often as you can, but wake early, eat breakfast. I’m sixty-eight years old; I’m not going backward. -From Morning Again, page 27-

Woodring has had her short stories published in a number of literary magazines and anthologies. She is also the author of the novel The Traveling Disease. This collection was published by a small press: Press 53. If you only read one collection of short stories this year, I would recommend this one. Beautifully crafted with a deep sense of American life and what it means to be human, Springtime on Mars will captivate you.

My thanks to Susan Woodring for sending me a signed copy of her book.

Highly recommended.

Free Radicals, by Alice Munro - Wendy's Review

She hadn't had time to wonder about his being late. He'd died bent over the sidewalk sign that stood in front of the hardware store offering a discount on lawnmowers. -From Free Radicals-

When Nita's 81 year old husband Rich drops dead outside the hardware story, Nita grieves and wonders how she could have outlived him given her terminal diagnosis of cancer. Then an intruder arrives - and Nita's view of life and death changes.

Alice Munro has crafted a short story about grief and moving forward after the death of a loved one. She also explores the creativeness of the human mind, especially when confronted with our own demise. Carefully constructed (although at times feeling a bit contrived), Free Radicals leaves some questions unanswered. I read this story on line at the New Yorker for 21st Fiction Yahoo Group. Not everyone in the group came away from it with the same interpretation of events. This is one thing I enjoy about a well-written short story - the loose ends, the questions that perhaps have several different answers. Free Radicals is a story which appears simple on its face, but has many levels of meaning below the surface.

Recommended;

The Kiss, by Anton Chekhov - Wendy's Review

The most ill at east of them all was Ryabovitch - a little officer in spectacles, with sloping shoulders, and whiskers like a lynx's. While some of his comrades assumed a serious expression, while others wore forced smiles, his face, his lynx-like whiskers, and spectacles seemed to say: I am the shyest, most modest, and most undistinguished officer in the whole brigade!" -From The Kiss-

I read this masterful short story of Chekov's for The Russian Lit Yahoo group, and found it accessible and enjoyable.

Ryabovitch and his officers are billeted in a small town and find themselves invited to tea at a General's home. They go reluctantly, feeling perhaps they have been invited out of obligation and nothing more.

In a house in which two sisters and their children, brothers, and neighbours were gathered together, probably on account of some family festivities, or event, how could the presence of nineteen unknown officers possibly be welcome? -From The Kiss-

But once at the gathering, they begin to enjoy themselves - talking to the ladies, drinking and dancing. All, that is, but Ryabovitch - a shy, naive man who feels uncomfortable in the presence of women. When he leaves the main room and wanders into a darkened library, however, Ryabovitch is astonished when a woman rushes up to him and kisses him on the cheek. Obviously having mistaken him for a secret paramour, the woman leaves without a word - and Ryabovitch is left to wonder who she is as the darkness of the room has prevented him from recognizing her identity.

Chekhov takes this singular event and weaves a story of obsession, expectation and disappointment. Although written in the early part of the twentieth century, The Kiss feels like a modern story of intrigue and romance. Chekhov's skill at creating character and dialogue resonates with the reader.

I read this story as part of a collection from The Essential Tales of Chekhov, edited by Richard Ford - and plan to read the rest of Chekhov's short works before the year is out. I can highly recommend The Kiss to readers - it is a simple story, but one that delights.

Landscape With Flatiron, by Haruki Murakami - Wendy's Review

“Anyhow, let’s wait till the fire burns out,” Miyake said. “We built it, so we ought to keep it company to the end. Once it goes out, and it turns pitch-dark, then we can die.” -From Landscape with Flatiron-

This short story, part of a group of stories entitled After The Quake, occurs over the course of one night with three friends sitting around a bonfire. Miyake is an older man with an obsession in building the perfect bonfire. He befriends Junko, a young woman who lives with her boyfriend Keisuke and is estranged from her family. Whenever Miyake is going to light a bonfire, he calls Junko to come down and watch it burn; and the two of them have an unusual connection. Junko’s boyfriend, Keisuke, is a musician who lives in the here and now and has difficulty understanding Miyake and Junko’s relationship.

“The trouble is, I don’t have a damn thing to do with anything fifty thousand years ago - or fifty thousand years from now, either. Nothing. Zip. What’s important is now. Who knows when the world is going to end? Who can think about the future? The only thing that matters is whether I can get my stomach full right now and get it up right now. Right?” -From Landscape With Flatiron-

Much of the story revolves around a philosophical discussion between Miyake and Junko. It is important to understand that Murakami wrote this story shortly after the Kobe earthquake; and the themes of death, an uncertain future and the larger meaning of life resonate throughout the prose. I have heard many interesting things about Haruki Murakami’s literary works - but until I picked up this short story on line at Ploughshares, I had not read anything by this writer. Murakami’s prose is full of symbolism and beautiful imagery. Initially the story’s meaning completely eluded me…but I read this for the 21st Fiction Yahoo group and discussing it with the group gave me insights I had missed on my own. My appreciation for the story grew as we discussed the various parts of it.

This is a writer who I am curious to read again. I would recommend this short story with some reservations - for many readers, it may be a frustration in trying to tease out the symbols and understand the underlying messages (which I admit I am still working through). But this is an excellent short story for group discussion, and the writing itself is worth the effort.

The Overcoat, by Nikolai Gogol - Wendy's Review

Thus flowed on the peaceful life of the man, who, with a salary of four hundred rubles, understood how to be content with his fate; and thus it would have continued to flow on, perhaps, to extreme old age, were there not various ills sown among the path of life for titular councillors as well as for private, actual, court and every other species of councillor, even for those who never give any advice or take any themselves. -From The Overcoat-

The Russian writer, Nikolai Gogol, published this short story in 1842 - a tale about a poor Russian official named Akakii Akakievich who is the ridicule of his department. Akakii lives entirely for his duties as a copier. His co-workers laugh at him and abuse him. He often has bits and pieces of filth on his uniform due to his "peculiar knack, as he walked in the street, of arriving beneath a window when all sorts of rubbish was being flung out of it." Akakii's coat is threadbare and he is finally forced to have a new overcoat sewn for him by Petrovich the Tailor. The cost of the overcoat is exorbitant for Akakii, but he scrimps and saves, denying himself food and other basic necessities until he is able to purchase the coat. Overnight, he becomes respectful. His co-workers fawn over his beautiful, new coat - and even throw him a lavish party in celebration. But, disaster falls upon Akakii ... his joy is short lived when the coat is stolen.

Gogol's short story takes an interesting twist as Akakii seeks help to recover the overcoat - going first to the police and then an "important personage." He is lost amid a barrage of bureaucracy:

..."don't you know etiquette? Where have you come to? Don't you know how matters are managed? You should first have entered a complaint about this at the court: it would have gone to the head of the department, to the chief of the division, then it would have been handed over to the secretary, and the secretary would have given it to me." -From The Overcoat-

The Overcoat is a story about a common man who is beneath everyone (much is made in the beginning about Akakii's name which comes close to the Russian word kaka - translated as "poop"), but who rises in esteem simply upon the purchase of an overcoat. He falls again with the loss of this possession, and must appeal to the government for assistance - which does not come. The ending (which I do not want to reveal to those who have not read the story), implies that the common man will ultimately rise above his persecutors. Gogol pokes fun at those in power, showing them to be insubstantial and shallow despite their titles. He allows Akakii to come out on top - demonstrating it is not material gain which grants one power.

I enjoyed this short story which is perhaps more of a parable.

Recommended; rated 4/5.

Black Ice, by Cate Kennedy - Wendy's Review

"For everything poisonous there's something else nearby to cure it, if you just look around." -From Black Ice-

Cate Kennedy's short story Black Ice was published on line at the New Yorker in September 2006. It is a quick read and written in accessible language. The story's narrator, a young boy by the name of Billy, disturbs the reader with his tale of rabbit trapping (he sells them to a neighbor as dog food). Billy's father has an edge of violence about him and although we do not have details of the boy's home life, the reader can assume he is raised with a firm and unforgiving hand. The tension in the story arises when a woman buys a vacant and crumbling home near Billy. She scoffs at the "local color" and wrinkles her nose in disgust at the idea of Billy's rabbit hunting. And although their interactions are brief, the reader is left with a distinct feeling of unease regarding Billy and the woman's differences in perspective.

Black Ice is a disturbing look at class conflict, as well as an environmental treatise of sorts. It uses nature as a symbolic and stark backdrop to human dissension. Billy is described in terms that equate him to the furry rabbits he quickly dispatches ("I made myself small as a rabbit and moved through them on my soft scrabbly claws.") which makes his ultimate behavior something the reader sees as destined to happen.

I am glad I will be discussing this with a group of readers at 21st Fiction Yahoo group because I think there are deeper elements to the story I may be missing.

Rated 3.5/5.