The Letter Writer – M.T. Sharif

We've made it to the final story in this collection.

 I won’t waste time here reviewing the anthology – that’ll be the next post.

I had trouble finding information about the author – he has published more than once, and this seems to be the story that has brought him the most attention.

Concerning this story –

Another little jewel tucked into the end.  Glad it ended up here as it will leave a pleasant taste in my head concerning this collection.

Perhaps it’s the demonizing of the country that has caused the attraction, the curiosity.  Have we also demonized the culture – the people?  I think we have.

Personally, the attention we have paid to the Iranians since the revolution in ’79 (I was 7 and remember the hostage crisis) has caused me to become more curious of the people.  I would hope (but I’m afraid that I am wrong) that most Americans understand that it’s not the people of these countries that harbor ill-will towards us, but it is the governments ( those in power) – and yes, there are people that act of behalf of their government and do terrible things, but they don’t represent the majority thought of the common man.  It’s easy to shout insults across a wall or an ocean, but when you stand in front of someone, attitudes and some of the boldness tends to shrink away and civility thankfully creeps in.

So – this story contains a bit of truth, possibly more than just a bit of truth in what seems to be an unbelievable situation that a common man is subjected to.

 

Alas, there always seems to be a bit of fact in fiction.

The Boy on the Train – Arthur Robinson

I spent a decent amount of time looking for additional works and a short biography of this author and came up empty.  Even tapped into the Literature Resource Center…no dice.

The Contributor’s Notes state that Robinson worked at several newspapers (not sure if he was a reporter…could have been a pressman) and he did mention that when he submitted the story to The New Yorker he was retired and that this was his first published story.

 I enjoyed the story – nice winding piece about how we end up becoming our parents (or father).

I have my own anxieties about raising W that I've shared here but this story doesn't have the pull for me to share more or delve deeper into my feelings right now.  I know for sure there will be plenty of time for venting in the future.  

Strays – Mark Richard

It seems that as this collection winds down, some real gems are surfacing.  

Such a powerful little story – “Strays”.   It’s so tightly written, each word, each sentence laid out perfectly.

Finishing it, I turned to the Contributor’s notes and found this little surprise.

Richard writes:

“I was lucky.  I had not written a word in weeks.  Months.  I had taken an attic room on the beach in Virginia Beach.  It was summer.  I would lay out and these words were in my brain:  At night, stray dogs come up underneath our house to lick our leaking pipes.  Over  and over.  I knew everything in I needed was in that sentence but I would not sit down in front of the machine.”

So to think that Mark was in that attic on the beach less than 20 miles from where I sit now,  gives me a weird cosmic connection to the story – and to the author.  I know it’s silly but I have a tendency to draw obscure connections.

I discovered a wonderful little interview with Richard by Bold Type – but unfortunately I couldn't find a date associated with it.  No matter.  I found some great little quotes to share. – I like the way this guy thinks!

With contemporary fiction, there's just so much of it that it's hard to sift through it all. I don't think people spend enough time reading the old stuff. There are so many contemporary novels that I read, and I think, so and so did this earlier and better. It's also the hallmark of a lazy writer to know all your classics so you can rob and steal and not have to waste your time trying to reinvent the wheel.

Q: You have an extensive work history, what are some of the more interesting jobs you've held?

A: In that, for me as a young person, in lieu of being in a war or something, it was physically and mentally demanding and pushed me to my limits so I could see what I was made out of. I think knowing your limitations is good, and I don't think there are a lot of opportunities for young people to have defining experiences, things that really push you to the edge of your abilities. For me, it was that coupled with the fact that I had been an invalid most of my adolescence. I was eager to overachieve, to push myself, and see what the limits of my new physical self was. I did a lot of different things that served their own purposes. All of them were great places to get material for stories. I didn't know it at the time; I thought I was misspending my youth, that I had wasted my college education and that I was a loser, all of which may be true.

 I pulled these two selections from the interview so that I may offer a little relational comment.  Part of the reason why I am engaged in this BASS project is so that I can be exposed to some of the greatest authors of the last 40 or so years.

 

I’ll put this out there right now – and this is the first time that it has been written here (and we've been here since 2008).  

I’d like to write someday.  

I’d like to write a fine little short story, send it out, receive the rejection letters, revise the story, pout, get angry, send it out again to a different set of magazines that might publish it, get more rejection letters and then repeat this dance over and over until one day, one of these little magazines decides to actually publish my little story.  

That’s what I’d like to do.  And I am spending all this time with these great authors in the hope that their technique, style and general badassness will rub off on me and give me my own technique, style and badassness.

So – there, now that’s out there.  Deep breath.

The second selection I pulled, if you've read some of my other posts, you’d know that there were several periods in my life where I had defining experiences and they did indeed push me to my limits and I hope that one day I can pull from those experiences and place them on paper ( bold above).

So, I was very happy to meet Mr. Mark Richard.  

He’s pushing me.  

I like that.  

I can feel it, it’s almost time.

What Men Love For - Dale Ray Phillips

And now we land here.  A story I really enjoyed.  Again, I can’t place my finger on it – and I’ve given it the requisite amount of thought – as to why this story appeals to me.  Perhaps it is the mother – suffering from mental illness.

Perhaps it is the son – the bridge between the mother and father – working to keep the family together.

Perhaps it is the relationship between the father and the son.

Yes, I think that’s it.

I often think about how W and I will grow older together and I wonder about our father/son relationship.  I am so excited to spend time with him – time that my father never spent with me.

The image that Phillips paints of the father and son riding a motorcycle at night and winding down a road, and leaning hard and fast into a curve…

I want that for W and I in the future.

I want him behind me holding on for dear life, trusting me, learning what it is to be a man.

It’s going to be wonderful and I simply can’t wait.

Concerning Dale Ray Phillips –

He writes in the contributors’ notes:

“My theory of writing is a simple one: write to make the hair on the back of a reader’s neck stand up.  This can be accomplished with either plot or revelation.  I am one of those writers who should probably write and not talk about his work.”

Because I am so fond of this story and appreciated the style of writing, I thought to discover a little more about Phillips.  It’s true, it appears that there isn’t much of him out there talking but I did find a wonderful interview with him conducted back in 2002 and published in 2003.

The full interview can be found here : http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-111113806/old-times-haw-interview.html

I decided to pull a few passages from it to highlight here because I believe they are important.

The interview was conducted by George Hovis and Timothy Williams as their shared several pitchers of beer at a restaurant.

“I think anyone who wants to be a writer should read at least one story a day. When I was young, in the summers I was working in a cotton mill, as a dyeweigher, right? Haw River, North Carolina, third shift. I'd come home. There was a library in Burlington. And it had Best American Short Stories and O. Henries. And for some reason, I thought, well, shit, what year to start with? 1955 was when I was born, so I thought, I can't be responsible for anything before my birth, okay?

So I climbed up on the roof and took a lounge chair up there. And some gin. And I'd lay up there. I was into suntanning. Look what it did to me. I'd lay up there and drink and read until I got sleepy.”

I decided to include this passage for the obvious reasons – but there is a secondary reason too.  After graduating from Norwich I lived with my father, step-mother and ½ sister in New Jersey.  I was welcomed into their house with open arms and for the first 6 months of living with them I was basically getting used to the real world again.  This was the summer of 1994.  A good portion of that time was spent reading classic Russian literature in the backyard under the hot sun drinking either beer or scotch.  Alcohol mixed with 90 degree temps leads to a pretty quick buzz and only a few pages being read. But those were some of the best books I ever read. Phillips sat on a roof – I sat in the back yard.

Learn to be your best critic. Don't be in love with every sentence you write. At one point, you have to sit down and read it as if your worst enemy wrote it. Go easy on metafiction. An experimental story is about the writer and the way it has been twisted. A traditional story moves me. When you read something really good, what happens to the back of your neck? It's a mammalian response. Your hair stands up. That's what you want to happen in the reader.  

Look at those last few sentences – the man sticks to his technique. Props!

Meneseteung - Alice Munro

This is my fifth encounter with Munro included in the BASS anthology.  

You can find my previous encounters here:

Spelling

Wood

Monsieur les deux Chapeaux

Circle of Prayer

I've been pretty brief with my writings on Munro and I will continue here.  I did find a bit more enjoyment in this story but I still cannot find true pleasure in reading her.  I still have 14 more encounters with her up to the BASS of 2012, and would suspect that she will be included in future editions of the book.  Perhaps over the next several years I will learn to appreciate her.

On a side note: I absolutely love the new picture I found of her.

The Management of Grief – Bharati Mukherjee

I gave a decent amount of thought as to what I could write about this short.
I initially thought that I could write about how I have made it to middle age without ever having to grieve and as I started typing, I realized that there was a trigger for grief and I could still be experiencing some sort of grief at the loss of my father due to the divorce.
I've written about my anger towards him and how I am still wrestling with forgiving him.  Now, as he is in his final stage of life, the grieving process over losing him will be one that is stretched out over years as he slowly fades away.  My management of this grief is strange and I wonder if I am actually managing it in a healthy way.  I talk to M about it, I talk with my brother –in-law and sister about it, I write about it in my little book I am now putting it out there (here).  
Is what I am feeling even grief though?  
Maybe it’s not.  
I just don’t know.  I do know that almost a day doesn't go by where thoughts of him in one form or another don’t cross my mind. Sometimes they are good thoughts but mostly they are thoughts of anger.  Just plain being upset with him and what he did all those years ago.

Displacement – David Wong Louie

In the contributors notes Louie writes that this story is about his own displacement.  I really enjoy what he has to say about the development of this story, his memory of its creation and evolution.

“With my other stories I can easily remember how each part evolved in the writing but the particulars of this story’s origins escape memory.  I cannot call back the clear-headed instant Mrs. Chow first walked across my imagination, nor the image or detail from which she bloomed.  I don’t remember a single crisis in the writing of the story, though I’m certain I suffered, as always, through many.  I suspect this haziness of memory isn't a matter of forgetting at all, but has everything to do with having known the story, in some deep way, even before I wrote a single word of it.  When the characters were new and strangers to me, when the story’s events were still surprising, they were at the same time familiar.  Nothing stands out about the story’s writing because this familiarity won’t allow it – in my memory the story wasn't revealed in steps, by a process, but was a piece that simply arrived, something had.  The Chows’ story is about refugees, people off balance, whose dislocation is not just spatial but cultural psychic, and emotional; it is, as I understand things, the undefined, unarticulated unease I have known my whole life – my own displacement.”

I don’t think many of us can make it through our lives without feeling a little out of place.  I’m one of the fortunate ones.  White male in America.  Yeah – not too tough sometimes.

I've written enough about my displacement – which was of my own choosing – and in the end was wonderful.  It altered my life. I need to find ways to displace myself more often.  Displace my mind.

I have found creativity and discovery in some of my displacements and I feel at some times that I am not displaced enough.  

I push myself into a physical displacement on the mornings that I run and in those mornings, I find something…something…something – not quite sure what it is yet – but it’s good.

Perhaps what I feel physically is a little bit of that unarticulated unease Louie writes about.  I know that it’s possible to displace my mind – I just gotta figure that out.