Short stories are short on respect, even for many readers of literary fiction. It doesn't make sense to me. The impression I get from people who don't read much literary fiction is that the stories are all the same, that they are all a stereotypical New Yorker story (as if such a thing exists).
But to someone growing up in the Inland Northwest, where even Seattle was a day's drive and a place rarely visited, John Cheever stories were as mysterious and exotic as anything Tolkien wrote. At the same time, they were so enlightening. I remember catching my breath the first time I read "The Swimmer". Oh my. So that's what it was like for them. It wasn't until years later I found out how close a kinship those characters held to those created by Raymond Carver, someone who my heart breaks for every time I drive through the bleak interior town in which he once lived.
By the time I found Alice Munro and "The Albanian Virgin" in The New Yorker, and then discovered the series Best American Short Stories, I was a goner.
But literary short stories are not limited to what we might call the usual suspects, the reliable tropes.
Fantastical elements in serious fiction is a tricky thing. Go too far in one direction and the result can make a reader unable to keep that disbelief suspended. Go too far the other way and the result can be so close to the real world that the reaction is: Why bother?
Aimee Bender, like two characters in the title story of a new collection, The Color Master, knows how to mix the ingredients together just right.
Her stories are filled with yearning. Some characters do outrageous things, daring themselves to push past acceptable behavior. Even the thought of doing outrageous things, dangerous things, changes the world or the characters, and there is a sense of loss.
Other characters dare themselves to discover, and the result often is a finding of themselves, or love, or both. Often, the stories have healing qualities. Characters are saved or come to new realizations about themselves that make their lives better. They learn to create colors so garments reflect the sun, the moon and the sky. They learn how to mend tigers and why the tigers need mending. A cake that was created to replenish itself learns how to overcome the darkness of the never-ending need to please. A man with a perfect face learns how to find the love of his life. A family that receives unexpected presents learns to cherish what they have.
Some of the stories defy easy explanation. And that’s all right. The moods, the emotions, the journeys that the characters undertake are worth savoring and being allowed to steep into memory. They should not be rushed through. They should be enjoyed.
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