August 9 - "L.T.'s Theory of Pets"

Sunday’s with Uncle Stevie“L.T.’s Theory of Pets”
by Stephen King
Everything’s Eventual (2002)

* * * (Good) Realistic

L.T. shares the story of how his marriage to Lulubelle ended and of how the pets they bought each other as anniversary gifts became attached to the wrong person.

King wrote in his introduction to this story how it was his favorite of the collection, but I just don’t see it. Maybe it has to do with my lack of an emotional connection to the concept of pets. Actually, in reading why he believes this story has a great impact on the reader – the whole notion of people forging lasting connections with their pets – I’m sure that’s the reason it doesn’t do as much for me. In fact, without that emotional connection, I don’t feel there is much to this story. It is well written and enjoyable enough on a superficial level. It’s just one of those times where a story can’t please everyone (me).

August 4 - "Following the Notes"

“Following the Notes”
by Pia Z. Ehrhardt
New Sudden Fiction (2007)

* * * (Good) Realistic

A father and daughter find a small measure of connectedness and attachment through the music he shares with her.

I think the author was attempting to infuse this story with more meaning than it could hold. I guess, by the end of the story, I felt Ehrhardt was a little heavy handed with the imagery of the father and daughter sitting together at the piano as music gave them peace. In honesty, none of the characters were all that sympathetic. I felt about as involved as the mother who simply decides to leave the pair at the kitchen table in favor of watching TV alone in her room. There was potential here for much more, and I really did enjoy the beginning of the story with the dead car battery and switching of tee shirts (dude, a Ninja Turtles tee is always a great addition to a story).

[This story was read on August 4. The review was not posted until later due to laziness on my part.]

August 1 - "The Wine Doctor"

“The Wine Doctor”
by Frederick Adolf Paola
New Sudden Fiction (2007)

* * * * (Great) Realistic

Dottore Cotrolao had always been skeptical of the wine doctor, Ezio Delli Castelli, and his practice of prescribing wines to cure ails, but was even more surprised when Castelli sought his help with a medical concern.

I thought this was a wonderful, if not predictable, tale of the respect competitors often have of each other’s success. The “real” doctor and the man playing at doctor were both sufficiently realized as characters to the point where you felt as though you understood each character’s point of view. It’s so much easier to become invested in a story when you understand – and empathize – with the characters and their motivations. Also, it’s nice to read a story every once in awhile in which people act with class.

[This story was read on August 1. The review was not posted until later due to laziness on my part.]

July 30 - "The Container"

“The Container”
by Deb Olin Unferth
Minor Robberies (2007)

* * * * (Great) Realistic

Believing a gas leak in her apartment to be the cause of her ongoing headaches, a woman calls the gas department only to find a mysterious container left behind when the workers leave.

My favorite part of the story is the mysterious container left behind by the workers. It sort of just shows up and looks all threatening with its blue liquid and plunger on top. The gas company refuses to claim the object and the closest safe disposal site is states away, so what does the woman do? She pushes the plunger and the story ends. While the act – and container – seem to have little the do with the rest of the story, it’s a strong image to end a story on. Sometimes a great visual goes a long, long way to making a huge impact.

July 24 - "A Retrieved Reformation"

“A Retrieved Reformation”
by O. Henry
The Gift of the Magi and Other Stories (2002)

* * * * (Great) Realistic

Master safecracker Jim Valentine unexpectedly finds happiness in the legit life of a shoe salesman until his past catches up with him when a small child becomes trapped in a time-sealed bank vault.

This was the most Hollywood of stories by Henry I’ve read. The story played out like most movie or television stories today, with a thoroughly predictable and easy to follow flow. There was just the slightest level of Disney suspense, and a happy ending. It’s the type of story that offers no surprises, only comfort and ease of reading. It’s a well-developed formula now, but I’m curious as to how commonplace a story like this might have been back when it was originally written. I would guess it still felt rather light on importance, but was enjoyable for what it was: hopeful. Hope in a better life, in a happy ending.

July 23 - "The Clarion Call"

“The Clarion Call”
by O. Henry
The Gift of the Magi and Other Stories (2002)

* * * (Good) Realistic

Cornered by Detective Barney Woods after murdering a millionaire, Johnny Kernan counts on the detective’s reluctance to arrest a man he’s indebted to. Woods turns Kernan’s arrogance into a way to capture the man with some help from the local newspaper.

The need to brag, or show off, will bring you crashing down every time. I knew that the overly principled policeman would eventually find a way to capture his murderer, but it seemed a protracted way of basically writing and I.O.U. on a napkin and handing it to the man to erase the debt. The story was okay, but once you realized what was bound to happen, Kernan’s repetitive bragging became a bore.

July 21 - "To Do"

“To Do”
by Deb Olin Unferth
Minor Robberies (2007)

* * * * (Great) Realistic

A woman becomes obsessed with creating lists of things to do.

As a man who enjoys making To Do lists, I can see the appeal and understand the obsession that can develop in creating such lists. I don’t know that I’ve ever taken the process to the extreme of making lists of lists, but I can remember some lists with subchores under others. And what help are they, really? Funny thing, though, while reading the story I was thinking of how helpful it would be to make a couple of lists right then. The story is a nice slice of real life, relatable to many, I’m sure.

July 20 - "Transients in Arcadia"

“Transients in Arcadia”
by O. Henry
The Gift of the Magi and Other Stories (2002)

* * * (Good) Realistic

Harold Farrington and Madame Beaumont meet at a secluded hotel in Aracadia where they develop a friendship when they reveal their true identities.

I’ve thought about how “storybook” it would be to meet someone while on vacation with whom I developed such a strong connection that we would get together again after leaving that place. I think a lot of people go somewhere else, like on vacation, thinking that they will finally be able to be their “true” self and find someone that would notice that “better” version and fall in love with them. The two characters in this story take that idea to the other extreme – are pretending to be people they aren’t in real life. In that they find a connection through a similar deceit they become a bit too clichéd, but it’s still a good story with a happy ending.

July 18 - "Shoofly"

“Shoofly”
by Richard Matheson
The Incredible Shrinking Man (1994)

* * * * * (Excellent) Realistic

An irritating fly sends Pressman into a rage as he destroys his office attempting to kill the elusive insect.

Oh, it’s the little things that can become so frustrating. Matheson does a fantastic job of showing how someone can become obsessed by a distraction and take that distraction to an unhealthy extreme. It is both funny and sad because I’ve been in so many similar situations. It’s an interesting story because with each new attempt to kill the fly you know the man is going to fail – there are still more words in the story – but you become part of the action and eventually begin to hope the same hopes and feel the excitement of each new attempt to kill the beast. And I love the name Pressman gave his first weapon, the “Prospectus of Doom,” a client’s rolled prospectus. It just sounds so legal and threatening.

July 13 - "Essential Things"

“Essential Things”
by Jorge Luis Arzola
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa
New Sudden Fiction (2007)

- (Bleh) Realistic

A man recalls the time he and two friends ran away from their village to sail across the sea to freedom.

I’m trying very hard to think of a single thing I enjoyed in this story. Honestly, there is nothing. The story is no more than a collection of incoherent memories – which may or not be true – that does nothing more than bore me. An essential thing this story is not.

July 10 - "Ma, a Memoir"

“Ma, a Memoir”
by Lynn Freed
New Sudden Fiction (2007)

* * * (Good) Realistic

A daughter deals with her mother’s faltering mind while her father is in the hospital with cancer.

It’s a sad story. It’s made all the more sadder by the fact that there is probably very little fiction involved in a story such as this. People die and people struggle to remember. Getting to the point in life where 60 years of happiness can become so confused…

I did enjoy the imagery at the beginning of the story:

“He’d got away. Only as far as the hospital, but still she’d been left behind. Once, she would have got into her Fiat and revved and revved and gone off in a puff of blue smoke to find him, to catch him out in the arms of another woman, perhaps. Sixty years of marriage had only heated the furious war between them.”

Even at war you get the feeling there was love there.

July 8 - "So Far from Anything"

“So Far from Anything”
by Benjamin Percy
Esquire, October 2007

* * * * * (Excellent) Realistic

Taking his eyes from the road for a second results in the narrator hitting and killing a man with his truck. The man contemplates the consequences of this momentary lapse of attention.

This story is an excellent example of writing in the second person point-of-view. The prose is vividly clear and descriptive, and it is easy to mistake these sentences for thoughts that could run through your own mind. I liked how each part of the story added a new layer to the overall tale. The simile that ends the story is fantastic, taking the seemingly unconnected fishing trip and hooking it nicely into the main action of the story. Everything about the story is well executed.

I was suspicious of the formatting – the story told line by line at the bottom of each page of the magazine – but the page breaks worked to add a poetic lyricism to the piece. I doubt this approach would work for just any story, but here it succeeded, presenting it in a memorable, likeable manner.

July 4 - "How to Tell Stories to Children"

“How to Tell Stories to Children”
by Miranda July
No One Belongs Here More Than You (2007)

* * * (Good) Realistic

As part of an unusual family dynamic, Deb acts as mother to the daughter of friends and experiences all of the complications of raising a child.

As one of the more “story-shaped” stories in the collection, this tale was easier to follow, and thus easier to enjoy. The strange family dynamic gave the story its hook and kept me interested throughout the story and up to its foreseeable end. For as interesting as the story could have been, things stayed relatively normal – and I know I’ve complained in the past about the strangeness of July’s tale, but that balance between the two is a fine line, easily crossed in either direction, both resulting in stories less than excellent.
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This story finishes the collection No One Belongs Here More Than You. Looking back, I’m less than impressed with the collection as a whole. The stand out story was, “The Swim Team,” a story not read as part of this year’s story-a-day project.

July 3 - "A Kidnapping Story"

“A Kidnapping Story”
by Deb Olin Unferth
Minor Robberies (2007)

* * (Okay) Realistic

A woman thinks of the different outcomes that would result from her actions in a case of being kidnapped.

Talk about confusion. I had to go back and read parts of this story multiple times to figure out what Unferth was trying to say. In an attempt to be cute? the sentences instead became awkward and unclear. I thought the notion of running through the same kidnapping scenario with multiple results was a lot like the great Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books I loved as a kid – without the choice, mind you. Overall, if the sentences had clearer, the story would have been an entertaining, quick little read.

July 2 - "Birthmark"

“Birthmark”
by Miranda July
No One Belongs Here More Than You (2007)

* * * (Good) Realistic

After removing a birthmark from her face, a woman is given the opportunity to see how her husband would react to the mark that was once the exception to her beauty, a mark he had never seen.

I really enjoyed the introductory conversation in this story about the level of pain the woman would feel during the birthmark’s removal. The comparisons, from childbirth to having your jaw reset to having your foot run over by a car, were great and cringe-worthy touchstones. And for the most part this entire story was understandable and enjoyable, not something I could say about most of the other stories in this collection. What a difference a touch of narrative can have on a story.

July 1 - "Mon Plaisir"

“Mon Plaisir”
by Miranda July
No One Belongs Here More Than You (2007)

* * (Okay) Realistic

A woman decides to start her life anew after a new, short haircut. Each small change leads to a larger change, but in the end her life isn’t all that different.

What saved this story (and isn’t that a terrible way to look at a story – “what saved the story”) was the scene near the end of the tale in which the woman and her husband were extras in the background of a movie scene. The dinner they shared in acted silence held the very thing – love – missing from their time together in the real world. It was a strongly written scene that played great on the page, complete with the breaks, and the reintroduction to sad reality, provided with each “cut” yelled from the director. But, a few quirky details and one strong scene do not a pleasurable story make.

June 30 - "The Moves"

“The Moves”
by Miranda July
No One Belongs Here More Than You (2007)

* (Eh) Realistic

Before dying a father teaches his daughter the finger moves to pleasure another woman.

Um, yeah. I don’t honestly know what to say about this page and a half story. If there weren’t the few interestingly worded sentences, I’d have nothing to say about this story. It doesn’t even make sense to me, especially the end about one day passing on these skills to a future daughter. Huh?

June 29 - "Ten True Things"

“Ten True Things”
by Miranda July
No One Belongs Here More Than You (2007)

* * (Okay) Realistic

Dana decides to join a beginner’s sewing class to meet the wife of her boss, a woman she feels a connection with through their phone calls and the lies she’s forced to tell.

The moments are few and far between in which I found enjoyment in this story. I did understand and appreciate the notion that one lie necessitates another and another to the point where one revealed truth actually reveals all hidden truths. And Sue, with her complete lack of understanding in the sewing class – doing the opposite of any given direction – led to some humorous moments, but overall, the story and I simply didn’t connect.

June 25 - "Pompeii"

“Pompeii”
by Leslie Pietrzyk
New Sudden Fiction (2007)

* * * * * (Excellent) Realistic

Two lovers wake in the morning, embraced together and motionless as if entombed under the ash of Pompeii.

A beautifully written and conceived moment before time marches on and a couple must separate. The characters were a bit clichéd, with the woman being more romantic than the realistic man. What makes it work is that in the end, even though the man didn’t have as grand as notions as the woman, he was the one who realized that their time was over, begging for just one day, one hour, one minute more. It’s a heartwarming tale with just a hint of sadness; it’s a love story.

June 24 - "Julie in the Funhouse"

“Julie in the Funhouse”
by Jincy Willett
Jenny & the Jaws of Life (1987)

* * * * * (Excellent) Realistic

The narrator recalls his strange life growing up with his recently murdered sister. As close as the two were growing up, they had grown apart with age and become less happy because of it.

This is another of those books that has been on my shelf for years, unread, and after just one story I can’t imagine why I hadn’t cracked it open sooner. Willet does a great job of taking the unusual and making it seem, not normal, but at least real. I’m sure there are kids raised today by parents less involved than those of this tale, but it is interesting to see the effect the upbringing had on this brother and sister. I guess what really draws me into the story are the misfit characters (see yesterday), especially Julie and her fascination with the All Too True – the tragic, ironic tales of death that foreshadow the conclusion of this story.