Staus – Mary Ann Malinchak Rishel

Mary Ann Malinchak Rishel – 1940 –

Researching Mary Ann, and I have found once again how the past is drawing a dotted line to the present. It’s a faint dotted line and one that I really can’t describe.

Mary Ann is a writing teacher in Qatar. She teaches for the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar. The photo above shows her has a happy rather youthful looking woman. I’m glad to see that. When I think back to 1978, I sometimes feel as if that time existed in another life. I was 6, and she was probably in her mid 20’s. Seeing where she is now and knowing what she is doing and apparently enjoying herself gives me fresh fuel to add to the fire of the possibilities that still exist in my own life.

The story Staus was one story of 12 that Mary Ann composed as her MFA thesis at Cornell. It was published in The Hudson Review, and pick up by Solotaroff. Further research also states that the story was made into a 10 part television mini-series...this according to the Slovak Studies Newsletter of June 1983.

It was an entertaining story...long, and a struggle for me to get through only because I had to read it in several sittings due to my inability to settle into a time slot for completing it in one session. I don’t think though that splitting the reading had any effect on what I thought of the story/writing.

I am too easily moved by stories and passages about elderly people who are left alone by the death of their spouse. I often place myself into their character and wonder about my future and if it will hold similar situations for me or mine. Do I want to be the one doing the grieving or the one that is grieved over?

I find myself thinking of this rather often.

Overall, I enjoyed the writing and the story of Staus. I read it as it being the future of “everyman”. Tending the grave of the deceased wife, living on, dealing with relatives and the internal conversations one has with oneself after the loss of your external ear (wife). The cultural atmosphere of the story should not be overlooked. I enjoyed seeing some parallels between the story’s and where I have lived.

Score 8 out of 10.

The Return of Service – Jonathan Baumbach

Jonathan Baumbach – 1933 –

Badass!

This was my first reaction to discovering a little bit more about Baumbach through my research.

First, his photo. Check that dude out. Just looks like an author.

Next, his work outside of writing. Co-founder, 1974, co-director, 1974-78, and currently member of the Board of Directors, Fiction Collective.

Instructor, Stanford University, 1958-60; instructor, 1961-62, and assistant professor, 1962-64, Ohio State University, Columbus; assistant professor, New York University, 1964-66; associate professor, 1966-70, 1971-72, and since 1972 professor of English, Brooklyn College, City University of New York. Visiting professor, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, 1970-71; University of Washington, Seattle, 1978-79, 1985-86; Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, 1994.

Woah! And...he married his fourth wife in 2004. Do the math from his birthday, and you’ll see he’s still kick’in it! -Nice-

The story – I remember reading this and learning that it was another short story with tennis in it, I came into it feeling a little –blah-.

Pleasantly though, I really enjoyed this short. It’s simply a tennis match between a father an son. Well, not simply. Of course, the author just uses this to show the relationship between the two...and the relationship they have within themselves to their own selves. As a literate person, I don’t think we would expect that an author would just write a simple story about a tennis game. It seems a bit predictable that he would lay the “relationship” theme underneath it all. He does though and he accomplishes it well. I think we can all see a bit of the relationship we have with our parents in this story. Wonderful last sentence.

“ Waiting for the ball’s arrival – it is on the way, it has not yet reached me – I concede nothing. “

And here is a nice quote by Baumbach

"We are trained to think that personal matters are less important than the global, but in fact the world tends to be too much with us and only of the moment. The personal, which is where we begin and end, is about everything."

Score 9 out of 10

Update on securing BASS volumes

So close but still out there.

So, for my birthday I requested the final four volumes of BASS missing from my collection.

Well, some of them arrived today. If you take a quick peek at the list, you will see that I have updated the statues list to show that 1980, 1981 and 1985 have been added to my collection. What about 1982? Well, the well meaning folks at Better World Books sent the wrong volume. I suppose that it must have had something to do with their internal coding of their holdings. They sent along 1999.

I sent them a nice email explaining their mistake, and I am awaiting their reply.

Alas, completion is still a few days away.

In Miami, Last Winter - James Kaplan

James Kaplan 1951 –

It’s funny. When I read this story I felt as if it had to be created by an old soul. There was a certain depth to the writing that really gave it the weight of experience. Turns out that the writer of the story was very young...late 20’s.

The story is a look into the life of a young man and his battle with his own identity reflected through the battles he engages in with chess...in particular, an opponent named Harry Urbanic.

This was a long story, and I did feel at times that it could have been shortened.

Kaplan did a wonderful job and bringing the intensity of a heated chess match to the page. The clicking of the chess clock, the lighting and the smells...wonderful atmosphere.

Growing up, and into my mid to late 20’s, I wanted to master chess. I even played it on my fathers Apple...he had a special program that would tutor you in all the attacks and moves. Got me nowhere. Wait...now that I have opened that little memory hole, I remember sitting in the guest room...which had become my room after college and playing chess on that computer and getting buzzed off of Vodka. I’m sure I had some early 90’s music on and it was probably around 1:30 in the afternoon. I’m sure that the game quickly became boring for me and I wandered into other buzzed pursuits. Writing letters, looking at magazines, listening to music or riding a bike.

You know, when I look back on that time, and question the year or more I spent in that room...I learn that the time spent there was really well spent. I learned more about myself then, when I needed it the most...it was the beginning of the education into the exploration of my inner self that continues through to this day. I could go on and on about this, and I am sure I will but I have hundreds of other stories to pull out memories. I’ll let them assist in further entries.

Look at that. All of the above rambling stirred from the discussion of Kaplan’s short story. Thanks James...you done good.

That’s what it’s all about – right?

Score 8 out of 10

Gilbert Sorrentino – Decades

Gilbert Sorrentino - April 27, 1929 – May 18, 2006

This was a really fun little story.

It revolves around a writer... and well... I think it provides the reader with what they would envision a typical writer’s life to be. Drinking, drugs, relationship troubles (intimate and friendships), poor income and to me, what seems to be ever present in the “writer” type stories – a threesome.

The narrator has a relationship over the years with the Steins. He chronicles their ups downs and general “going abouts” in parallel with the events of his own life.

It all seems very 1970’s looking back on it from 2009. I can hear the tinny sounds of AM radio from my mother’s kitchen in 1979. Took me back.

In the research I have done on Sorrentino, he is described as a postmodernist. I am still attempting to discover the exact meaning of that label but I feel confident that I can lump him in there with the collection I will ultimately use to form my final definition. Nice little story to slide in towards the end of this volume.

Score 7 out of 10

Two Scenes – Jane Bowles

Jane Bowles - Born- Jane Sydney Auer (February 22 , 1917 – May 4, 1973)

The Iron Table

Here is an example of where I find the research on the author to lend more to the story after I discover some hidden details. As you can see above, Jane died before these two pieces were published in the BASS. She had problems with alcohol, and according to web sources, her health declined steadily after a stroke at a young age. Research also revealed that Jane spent some time in Morocco with he husband and also had an affair with a women while there. It is with these two discoveries that the first “Scene” makes more sense. Initially, I really didn’t care for the story. I thought it interesting...but nothing special. The small details that are nestled within the scene are given so much more weight that I now know two very important details about Jane’s life.

Wonderful passage at the end of the first scene.

“ A serious grief would silence their argument. They would share it and not be able to look into each other’s eyes. But as long as she could she would hold off the moment.”

Lila and Frank

The second “Scene” really unfolds after the action, and we see development explode when insight into a relationship between a brother and sister is revealed. Jane does a masterful job at cracking open the twisted complex entanglement the two share in a few brief sentences.

“So Lila moved about in the vivid world of her brother’s lies, with full awareness always that just beyond them lay the amorphous and hidden world of reality. These lies which thrilled her heart seemed to cull their exciting quality from her never-failing consciousness of the true events they concealed.”

It’s too bad that Bowles only published 7 short stories. It seems that she found a secret to really conveying tension in a small space...exactly what a good short story requires.

8 out of 10

Intermission

Before I finish out the BASS from 1978, I decided to provide you with two of the small reviews that I wrote for the newspaper. Both articles are courtesy of the Virginian-Pilot.

The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
November 4, 2007 Sunday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
Quality writing praised

BYLINE: JAKON HAYS

SECTION: DAILY BREAK; Pg. E8

LENGTH: 679 words

By Jakon Hays

The Virginian-Pilot

A YEARLONG MISSION to liberate quality writing from the confines of the bottom of magazine stands. That is what Stephen King aimed for, and it's what he delivers in this year's collection of "Best American Short Stories."

Series editor Heidi Pitlor took charge of boiling down the bulk of 4,000 stories, but King went beyond his predecessor guest editors, reading hundreds of the stories himself.

In his introduction, King offers an insightful view into the current realities of short story writing, short stories in our culture, and what ultimately drives or forces the authors and editors into the selections they write and choose to include in their magazines. King detects a pulse in the American short story, but it is slowing and the prognosis is not good - partly because authors write what sells rather than writing for the love of writing, creativity and ultimately for their readers. King's compilation is a step-by-step regimen to be dissected and studied in order to learn what must be done to save and revive the short story format.

Working your way into the book, you may find yourself reading what you think is a somewhat plain, flat tale only to have your thoughts overturned in the realization that what you prejudged is a masterful story built on a deliberately flawed foundation meant to collapse in the last few pages. John Barth's "Toga Party" is a prime example of a skilled storyteller revealing his power at the last moment, planting a seed that lets the story remain with you for days.

A view inside a love affair between an Olympic gold swimmer, well into his 40s, and a 16-year-old school girl during the early 1900s is told by Lauren Groff in "L. DeBard and Aliette." Sexuality, power and manipulation, both emotional and physical, are wound into this illicit affair. The story, spanning years, illustrates the cause and effect of triumph over a crippling disease, the insensitivity of conceit and a vision of cruelty people can deliberately inflict on those they love and admire.

The theme of manipulation continues in "Allegiance" by Aryn Kyle. Marital infidelity and parental dysfunction tear and slowly degrade a family as its youngest member struggles to find her way among the dangers of the schoolyard social structure. The cruelty of classmates and the jockeying of her parents for power within their failing marriage can be uncomfortable to read.

Rounding out my favorites in this New York Times best-seller is the story of a retired intelligence operative whose duty it was to spread infectious diseases in countries deemed a threat to America. In "The Boy in Zaquitos," Bruce McAllister simply and skillfully develops a character that allows the reader to see the human side emerge from a being in an occupation that many of us assume to be without soul.

Jakon Hays is a news researcher for The Virginian-Pilot. jakon.hays@pilotonline.com

"The Best American Short Stories 2007"

Stephen King, editor

Houghton Mifflin. 448 pp. $14 (paper)

The series

The annual "Best American" series includes the following, all available now. Most are $28 in hardback, $14 paper. Details:www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/features/best_american/

Best American Short Stories: Stephen King, editor

... Comics: Chris Ware, editor

... Essays: David Foster Wallace

... Mystery Stories: Carl Hiaasen

... Nonrequired Reading: Dave Eggers

... Science and Nature Writing: Richard Preston

... Spiritual Writing: Philip Zaleski

... Sports Writing: David Maraniss

... Travel Writing: Susan Orlean

on the bandwagon ...

* "The Best American Science Writing": Gina Kolata, editor (Ecco/HarperPerennial, $14.95)

* "The Best Buddhist Writing 2007": edited by Melvin McLeod and editors of the Shambhala Sun (Shambhala, $16.95)

* "Best New American Voices 2008: Fresh Fiction from the Top Writing Programs." Richard Bausch, ed. (Harcourt, $15). The programs, in the U.S. and Canada, include those at George Mason University, Hollins University, the University of Virginia, and Virginia Commonwealth (though none of this year's contributors is from any of those schools).

The Virginian-Pilot(Norfolk, VA.)
November 23, 2008 Sunday
The Virginian-Pilot Edition
SECTION: DAILY BREAK; Pg. E3

LENGTH: 560 words

Footnotes

Guest editor Salman Rushdie admirably delivers a cross-section of short fiction in the 2008 "Best American Short Stories" (Houghton Mifflin, $14). Among the 20 from The New Yorker, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly and the like, established authors such as Alice Munro, Tobias Wolff and Kevin Brockmeier find their works next to offerings by newer standouts such as Katie Chase and Miroslav Penkov. Her "Man and Wife" and his "Buying Lenin" comfortably disturb the reader with writing that lingers. (Jakon Hays, The Pilot)