because of hearing Ann Patchett reading Proxy Marriage where in William and Bridey are finally brought together 8.5.21 ( )

These stories are like a bubbling brook, comforting and refreshing in its simplicity, with a glint of startling clarity every so often. The details that the author occasionally sprinkles throughout her stories remind me of when painters place small white dabs on the surfaces of water: it's only a small detail but it's what makes the story and the water come to life for the reader and the viewer.

My favourite story was The Ice Harvester, and I was unable to get through Paint due to my own squeamishness at the visceral. ( )

I recently watched and adored a film called Certain Women, directed by Kelly Reichardt. I loved the way the stories carefully, unfolded and discovered that the writer was a novelist and a short story author. I immediately requested this collection and it was as good as expected. I love stories set in the modern American west and Meloy nails it here. I highly recommend it. Here is a taste:

“We left early, heading into a pale sunrise, and somewhere on the winding road through the canyons it turned into a hot, dry day. I sat with my feet on the dash, lead ropes and old race programs on the floor beneath me, and watched the mountains and the impossibly blue sky go by. I'd seen this landscape so much that most of my senses were glutted and one mountain range looked like the next. At other times, and this was one of those, it caught me by surprise and the blue was so vast and bright I couldn't breathe.” ( )

Great cover!

The first story, TOME, was at the high level of the author's best.

The rest, notably with Ranch Girl and Garrison Junction, became predictable, flat, and depressing.

When a short story inspires me to determine how many pages to its ending, I skip a lot.

ps. The dog dies. ( )

Here's the thing: For a while, I was off short story collections, the way you're off fish for a while after your favorite market forgot to de-bone it. I read the ones that got all the accolades and thought, "I don't get it." Meaning, I don't get the stories and I don't get the hype. Lots of short story collections are over my head. They seem abstract and pretentious to me. But, I loved Maile Meloy's "Liars and Saints" so figured I'd give her stories a try. I'm glad I did. Her stories are real, honest, straight-forward, raw. There is nothing pretentious about them. They're not trying to win awards (though they have). There isn't a single story in this collection I didn't like, which is very, very rare. It's like loving every song on a CD.

A couple favorite excerpts:

"I had not wanted a dog, but the children loved him. It was true they did not fight so much now. The day my wife brought him home, my daughter held the dog in her arms and said, 'This is the happiest day of my life.' Children are whores. They will say anything. But I thought it could be true."

"Jo thinks there's something permanently unfinished about Inger--like the missing 'id' of her name, though I guess it's not an id that's missing--and that's why she's never with a man very long; there's an absence in her that doesn't seem to need filling, or that other people can't fill." ( )