Gregory Spatz

My one regret while reading Half as Happy by Gregory Spatz is that I didn't have the time to savor the stories and the writing quite as much as it deserves to be appreciated. This collection of eight short stories is expertly wrought with a great attention to details and descriptions. It's the kind of collection that could turn anyone into a fan of the art of the short story.

The collection includes:
"Any Landlord's Dream" concerns a couple who rent a house in the attempt to help them recover from a great loss.
In "Happy For You," an older woman contemplates her life during a very early morning call from a son
"No Kind of Music" concerns a failed relationship
"Luck" is about a couple on an Alaskan cruise.
"The Bowmaker's Cats" is about a bow maker and disappearance.
"A Bear For Trying" is about twins and their connection to each other.
"Half as Happy" is about a wife who is losing too much weight.
"String" is about a group of good kids who did something wrong.

Of course, none of these descriptions come close to capturing the magic in these melancholy, complex stories. Their beauty lies in the completeness of the characters. They are fully realized, even in these short stories. The detailed descriptions add to the intricate stories. Don't expect cheerful outcomes where everything turns out for the best in the end. Even when the outcome seems good, or at least acceptable, there are still compromises that are made and burdens that must be born. The characters may not even be aware of their flaws and foibles. They are, all of them, dysfunctional and emotionally stunted, but very human and hurting.

Very Highly Recommended

Disclosure: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from the publisher and TLC for review purposes.



… (mehr)

This is the story of John Franklin, a single-parent teacher in northern Alberta. His oldest son is away at univeristy, leaving John to raise fifteen-yeard-old Thomas. Both John and Thomas are still recovering from the departure of Jane, who has left her husband and children to work in the Arctic. Their "expedition" into this new family dynamic seems as doomed as the famous Franklin search for the Northwest Passage. In fact, Thomas is obsessed with that expedition, to the point of trying to contract scurvy in other to better identify with the explorers.

The Franklin expedition provides an interesting backdrop, or frame, for the modern-day story. John and Thomas are well developed characters, and their relationship is well portrayed. I found the writing style a bit challenging, though. Long paragraphs and/or sentences, and jumps in point of view that sometimes left me playing catch up.… (mehr)

Is it just me or are we in the 21st century becoming fascinated by the attempts made to discover the North-West Passage and especially the story of Sir John Franklin? I know I learned a bit about this in school (many years ago) but in the past decade it seems like every year, at least, another book comes out about Franklin or other explorers who tried to find the North-West Passage. This Wikipedia article has a list of books but I know it misses some that I have read:
Darkness at the Stroke of Noon by Dennis Murphy
Race to the Polar Sea: The Heroic Adventures of Elisha Kent Kane by Ken McGoogan

This book views the Franklin Expedition through the eyes of a teenaged boy, Thomas Franklin. Thomas is fascinated by the details of the expedition. He has plans for a movie and he's drawn extensive pictures as a story board. He even is trying to replicate the conditions experienced by the men on the journey to the point of not eating anything with vitamin C so that he can get scurvy. Thomas is a pretty strange boy but he also has normal teenage hormonal urges. So when his younger female neighbour invites him into her house they start to fool around.

Meanwhile, Thomas' father, a school teacher, is struggling with his own emotions. His wife has left him to work in the north and he's not sure if he wants to try to reconcile or if he should act on his attraction to the mother of a student.

The whole book takes place over a short period of time, most of it just in 2 days, but it seems longer because there is so much packed into it. Both Thomas and his father seemed very realistic to me. In fact, I really wanted to shake some sense into both of them. By the end of the book they each have an epiphany about their life and I was glad about that. However, I was left feeling slightly disappointed by the whole book in terms of how it dealt with the Franklin Expedition. I know that there are still questions about where it went and what happened to the people on it and I suppose this book is as good a supposition as any. I just felt that it kind of petered out after exploring the minutest details.

Nevertheless I would recommend this book to anyone who is curious about that chapter in our history or who likes to read about the emotional lives of men and boys.… (mehr)