Short Story Club Idea for Writers or Nonwriters Who Love Literature

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Delicious coffee cake paired with a cherry blossom latte from our favorite coffee shop. Note the wonderful cherry in the cup.

During COVID, I joined a book club at the library. We met in the evening once a month on Zoom instead of the library. It was the first and only book club I’ve ever belonged to, and it was perfect for the times. Because lockdowns meant I couldn’t work, I had extra time on my hands. I tried to write, but I was too anxious to produce much of anything. But I could read, so I looked forward to each Zoom gathering and the chance to meet with fellow readers who also loved to discuss books. At the end of each discussion, it was nice to “leave the meeting” and not have to get in my car and drive home. Best of all, I felt that reading and discussing books would help me grow as a writer, even if I couldn’t write. Later, I would hear other writers talk about their struggles to write during COVID. But when the lockdowns ended and the book club returned to meeting at the library, I dropped out.

I missed talking about books with fellow readers, but I also wanted something that was more focused, tailored to me as a short story writer. Then, I read an article by an essayist who said she and a couple of her fellow essayists liked to read the same essays written by well-known writers and discuss them. They looked at tense, point of view, structure, pacing, use of literary devices, and anything else they wanted to discuss. I attended writing webinars where instructors used mentor texts to model whatever writing technique they were teaching. I came up with an idea: Why not a short story club? One that would focus on the writer’s use of all the literary techniques in a writer’s toolbox.

So, I talked to a friend of mine who used to teach AP English. Because I knew he loved to discuss literature and because he was a busy guy, I figured he’d love the idea of a short story club. He did.

We take turns choosing a short story and meet up every five to six weeks at a local coffeehouse. We discuss anything and everything about the writer’s techniques. I learn a lot and my hope is that I will become a better short story writer. (Maybe I should call this my Coffeehouse MFA.) I know that much of what we discuss will end up in my writer’s toolbox, perhaps to be incorporated in some manner in one of my future stories. My friend hopes to write when he retires, so he is adding to his toolbox too.

If you want to form your own short story club, here are some ideas to get you started:

  • Take turns picking the short story. Be adventurous. Cover different time periods and genres and cultures. If someone ends up not liking a story, at least it’s not a whole book.
  • Read the story at least twice. I read a story a few weeks before we meet up, then again a day or two before our meeting.
  • Make a paper copy of the story so you can annotate, highlight, and underline. (My colored erasable ink pens get a workout!)
  • Meet up at a local coffeehouse, so no one has to worry about hosting (or cleaning his or her house or baking the treats).
  • Make time to visit before and after you discuss the short story. It’s fun to catch up with friends.
  • Depending on the size of your group, allow an hour to an hour and a half.
  • My short story club consists of two people, but you can go bigger.

Short stories we’ve read so far:

“Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, “Virgin Violeta” by Katherine Anne Porter, “The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off” by Raymond Carver, “The Wilderness” by Ray Bradbury, “Tomorrow in Shanghai” by May-Lee Chai, “A Trifle from Life” by Anton Chekhov, and “Warpath” by Jeffrey Masuda.

***

My two favorite books from my book club days:

A five-star book

Red at the Bone by Jacqueline Woodson. Shortened synopsis from Amazon: As the book opens in 2001, it is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody’s coming of age ceremony in her grandparents’ Brooklyn brownstone. . . . But the event is not without poignancy. Sixteen years earlier, that very dress [now worn by Melody] was measured and sewn for a different wearer: Melody’s mother, for her own ceremony — a celebration that ultimately never took place. Unfurling the history of Melody’s family – reaching back to the Tulsa race massacre in 1921 — to show how they all arrived at this moment, Woodson considers not just their ambitions and successes but also the costs, the tolls they’ve paid for striving to overcome expectations and escape the pull of history.

For an informative podcast (and to wonder, Why isn’t this taught in school?) listen to Blindspot’s Tulsa Burning. Listen to the podcast first. If you understand the horror of what happened in Tulsa, you will have a greater appreciation for Woodson’s powerful novel.

Also, a five-star book

It Takes One to Know One by Isla Dewar. My reading of this book was a happy, very happy accident. The book I was supposed to read was It Takes One to Know One by Susan Isaacs, which is a crime thriller. I didn’t make note of the author’s name, so when I ordered the book, I bought the wrong one — a wonderful mistake.

I loved Dewar’s take on the title. Her book is downright funny, even though the humor sometimes comes from a place of sadness and longing. The book is not a crime novel, but there are some small mysteries that need unraveling. Dewar is a Scottish novelist, and authors from the British Isles do the type of humor I like so well. Perhaps living on small islands in very changeable weather, and being surrounded by eerie and unearthly beautiful landscapes, and being subjected to numerous invasions and attempted invasions since the Roman Empire, makes one cultivate a sly, irreverent sense of humor in order to appear unflappable.

My son, who rarely reads fiction, read this book and laughed out loud. My daughter-in-law also loved it.

Listening to Oliver Twist While Driving across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and Other Thoughts about Charles Dickens

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I listened to this recording. Flo Gibson did an excellent job.

I recently drove to Petoskey, Michigan, to see my mother, then five days later drove back again. I always listen to books on CD when I drive to my mother’s. I visit my local library and check out more books on CD than I will need for the round-trip ride because on rare occasions, I start listening to a book and either I don’t like it or I don’t like the reader’s voice. Because I specifically wanted to listen to Oliver Twist, I played that first. I liked the reader’s voice, which was a perfect pairing for such a tale as Oliver’s story. And, I liked the Dickens novel well enough, so I kept listening.

During my twenties I read mostly British literature written before 1900 — Dickens, Daniel Defoe, George Elliot, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen, William Makepeace Thackeray, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the Bronte sisters, among others. I like to refer to that as my “early Brit-lit phase.”

Oliver Twist has many of the elements found in the Dickens novels that I so enjoyed when I read them in my twenties. The secondary characters are interesting, quirky, and sometimes so delightfully nasty that I truly enjoy their downfall. The plot threads are complex and engaging — twisting, turning, separating then rejoining, surprising me, yet making me sigh, “But of course!” There are the Dickensian themes of poverty, cruelty, and snobbery. The heroes have to rise above their circumstances, like poverty or the sins of others, which they are blamed for and held in contempt for, even though they’ve had no part in the events that have befallen them. And, of course, there are the good-natured, kindly characters who help along the way. But in Oliver Twist, the good, especially the women, are portrayed as sainted angels upon the earth — too good to walk upon the lowly soil. But thankfully, for the long-suffering Oliver, it’s beneficial they do because they are able to discern in Oliver all that is noble and good and become his staunch allies. (I guess one sainted person can always recognize another.)

I didn’t, however, like Dickens’ portrayal of Fagin, the criminal ringleader. Fagin is Jewish, and Dickens hammers that point over and over again, continually referring to Fagin as the Jew, rarely using his name Fagin. It wasn’t necessary to describe the character as Jewish because Fagin’s religious or ethnic background has no bearing on the story. It’s a racist stereotype.

On the other hand, Dickens’ novels often exposed the wretched conditions faced by the poor. I was struck by the theme of poverty in Oliver Twist and how relevant it is today. Characters could be arrested for sleeping in doorways. Adults and children in the workhouses and poorhouses were overworked, underfed, and mistreated by the people who ran those “charitable” institutions. The poor were labeled lazy and stupid, and believed to be one step away from a life of crime. By creating one narrative — that all poor people were undeserving — society could dismiss the poor with one wave of its hand and justify their mistreatment. With his fiction, Dickens spoke on behalf of the poor and forced Victorian society to face a harsh truth. But sadly, we haven’t come far. As I listened to Oliver Twist, it struck me that those same prejudices and stereotypes are still being repeated — this time about the poor and homeless in our current society.

I’ve read eight of Charles Dickens’ novels, and the one I rank as his best is Great Expectations, which was serialized from 1860 to 1861 in a weekly publication. The story of Pip and his rise and fall lacks the full-on sentimental mush found in Oliver Twist (although a bit of sentimentality can be found). Pip is a much more complex character, whose desires and dreams get in the way of his own happiness and cause heartache to those he loves. Pip’s growth as a person and his final realization and acceptance of his faults is a much more nuanced and mature story than Oliver Twist, which was written and serialized from 1837 to 1839. I’ve read Great Expectations twice, and I’ve listened to it three times. Each time I revisit the novel, my appreciation for the genius of Great Expectations grows. I think Dickens was truly at the height of his story-telling prowess when he penned Pip’s story. I plan to read more of Dickens’ novels, so if I change my mind, I’ll blog about it.

Others choose A Tale of Two Cities as Dickens’ best, but not me. I tried reading that novel twice in my twenties and didn’t finish it either time. A few years ago, I started listening to it on tape. I thought I might appreciate it more as an older adult. Nope. I was ready to stop less than halfway through because my aging hadn’t improved the novel. But my son called one night when I was out walking my dogs, listening to A Tale of Two Cities. Turns out he didn’t like the novel either, but he read the whole book anyway. “Well,” I told him, “if you can take it, I can take it too.” And I finished listening to it. But I didn’t grow to like it. A couple of years ago I started reading The Old Curiosity Shop, but I couldn’t finish it. Partly because the character Daniel Quilp is the most evil and vile character I’ve ever come across in a book. (Granted I don’t read horror books or stories with serial killers.) And partly because I couldn’t stand the unrelenting suffering Little Nell faces.

But Dickens is one of my favorite authors. He is a master of dialogue, irony, humor, satire, social commentary, melodrama, metaphor, and characterization. His memorable characters spring to life from the pages of his books. This, along with his delectable plots and vibrant dialogue, makes his stories perfect for dramatization as miniseries and movies.

I also like The Pickwick Papers, David Copperfield, Hard Times, and A Christmas Carol, which I read or watch every Christmas. In a month or so, I want to listen to David Copperfield, which I read about forty years ago, because I have a copy of Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver on my to-be-read pile. I loved David Copperfield when I first read it. But I wonder — after reading it again — if I will I rank it with Oliver Twist or Great Expectations or somewhere in between.

***

If you’re a writer . . . you might want to read some Dickens to appreciate his characterization and dialogue. When it comes to creating characters, especially secondary ones, Dickens’ motto could be “Go bold or go home!” Characters like Uriah Heep (a bad guy) and John Wemmick (a good guy) capture the imaginations of readers. Reading Uriah Heep’s dialogue makes my skin crawl.

Dickens’ dialogue can be satirical, duplicitous, menacing, sentimental, comical, and heartfelt. Every time I read Great Expectations, I marvel at how Dickens distinguishes between Wemmick’s office and home personas. Wemmick’s transformation by degrees as he leaves his employer’s office and walks home is mesmerizing. Wemmick’s mannerisms, opinions, and especially his way of speaking undergo a radical change. Wemmick knows he must be one man at work, but that he can be another man at home.

Lay vs. Lie, Other English Language Difficulties, and Friendships

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I love the encouraging signs that grace the walls of elementary classrooms.

This morning I woke with a fright. My eyes popped open, my lungs inhaled a small gasp, and my brain muttered, “Gotcha!” I’d suddenly realized that I’d probably used the wrong verb in a sentence in the blog I’d written and posted the night before. I’d written my dog Ziva laid on the floor, when I should’ve written my dog Ziva lay on the floor. (My snarky brain could’ve warned me last night while I was writing, but where’s the fun in that?)

Before my eyes could focus, before my head cleared, before I even made coffee, I googled lay vs. lie. I had indeed committed a verb-usage faux pas. And before I got up from the computer, I fixed the mistake in yesterday’s blog.

Lay vs lie is my nemesis. I should’ve double checked my usage (I always do). But when I wrote the sentence, and later reviewed the sentence, I was confident I’d chosen the correct verb. Confidence can be wonderful. I work hard on being okay with being confident. Telling myself — You can do this and It’s okay to believe you can do it. But when it comes to lay vs lie, I should’ve known that if I felt confident, it was fool’s gold. You’d think that as many times as I’ve looked up the difference between lay and lie, the answer would stick, but it doesn’t. My uncooperative brain refuses to record the information for future playback.

Why did I think laid was the correct choice? Because I thought about a T-shirt that a high school classmate used to wear that pictured a smiling egg lying in a nest, with a caption that read, You’d smile too if you’d just been laid! Well, the egg had been laid and was resting in the nest, so, of course, my dog laid on the floor because she was resting there. What I’d failed to consider was the egg had been laid by a hen, but no one laid my dog on the floor. She lay down all by herself.

My classmate wore that T-shirt to high school in the 1970s. For a long time, the double meaning of You’d smile too if you’d just been laid! escaped me. But it was the mid-1970s, and I went to a small rural-suburban high school. I’d wanted to ask my classmate what her shirt meant, but I was too afraid of sounding stupid. When I finally figured it out, I was glad I hadn’t asked. I would’ve been laughed at as the naive eleventh-grade girl who didn’t get a simple sex joke. This is also the reason, even decades later, I can still picture that classmate wearing that T-shirt.

I have a dear friend who struggles with lay and lie. She also confessed that effect and affect trip her up. “Hey,” I said, “me too.” And we were both English majors and English teachers. We don’t like to publicly admit that sometimes English grammar stumps us. When we make an error, we feel the shame more deeply. We see ourselves with red capital A‘s (for Abuser of Language) blazing on our chests. We hear people’s thoughts, “Egads! She was an English major and teacher?”

For years I avoided telling people I was an English teacher because I discovered this made them uncomfortable. Once a co-worker admitted to me that she was originally afraid to talk to me. She worried that if she used bad grammar, I would think poorly of her or even correct her. She told me she was relieved when I did neither. I told her that as an English teacher, I felt an extra sense of pressure to speak perfect English, and that if I didn’t, people would think poorly of me. We became good work buddies, speaking freely without fear of grammatical judgement.

I had another friend who struggled with the use of apostrophes in creating possessives. I remember the day I first met her in the law office where she worked as a paralegal. I’d just been hired as a second paralegal, and my new boss took me back to meet her.

“Sandi,” my boss said, “this is Vickie, the new paralegal. She was an English teacher.” I winced. I wasn’t sure why he’d felt the need to include that.

As soon as the boss walked away, Sandi said, “You might as well know right now, I struggle with using possessive apostrophes.”

I knew immediately Sandi was an extraordinary person — someone who was willing to lead with her grammatical weakness, and to a complete stranger who’d been identified as an English teacher! She was a woman who faced danger head on.

“I can never remember how to use lay and lie correctly,” I said. “And while we’re at it, effect and affect trip me up, too.”

Sandi laughed, a throw-your-head-back, deep-from-the-belly laugh. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship that lasted until she passed away, leaving a hole in my heart.

Grammatical shortcomings make for better friendships than grammatical perfection.

But I still blush when I realize I’ve committed a grammatical error. I still had to correct yesterday’s blog before I could do anything else this morning.

And how’s this for confidence? I wonder if my correction: And to show her support, my dog Ziva lay on the floor and listened, is correct. (I’m using the past tense of to lie.)

I also struggle with restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses. What is your grammatical Achilles’ Heel?

My Beta Critics Take a Snooze

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My granddog, Nellie
My dog Ziva

I’m reading through a manuscript of short stories, one hundred fifty-two pages, double-spaced, Times New Roman, one-inch margins. I’m reading each story out loud, listening to the beat of the words and the rhythm of the phrases and clauses. This is a good way to find discordant sentences. It’s also a good way to find typos, misused words, and missing words. It gives me more time to agonize over commas. Sometimes I add a few words or sentences because something needs saying, and other times I snip a word or two because I’ve been redundant. Or I snip a sentence or two or three or a whole paragraph because I’ve discovered they are little darlings masquerading as part of my story.

But I’ve read this manuscript out loud so many times that the changes I make now are miniscule. Yet, I’m reading it again, one more time to make sure. Before May 31, I will submit my manuscript to a contest for short story collections. I want it to be as error free as possible. I want each story to be the best that I can make it.

Yesterday evening I sat on the couch with my granddog, Nellie, who listened to me read. And to show her support, my dog Ziva lay on the floor and listened.

The dogs were a willing audience. After all, I’m the giver of treats and walks. And should I have gotten up from the couch, they wanted to be near in case I headed to the treat bowl or grabbed their leashes.

A friend of mine asked, “What did the dogs do when you read to them?”

“They fell asleep,” I said.

“Oh, no,” she laughed, “that’s not good.”

Yep, the dogs keep me humble. But their love is unconditional, especially when reinforced with treats. They are content to be with me, and I love reading to them. They are a kind, loving audience. They don’t care if I struggle with commas, words, rhythms, and little darlings. They don’t care what happens to my manuscript. (Although, if I put it on the floor, Ziva might shred it because she loves to shred paper.)

By the way, after reading one of my stories, I fell asleep too. Nothing like napping with dogs after a good story.

Something Published: “Margaret and Henry’s Dance” appears in the 2024 Freshwater Literary Journal, CT State Community College – Asnuntuck

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My flash fiction story “Margaret and Henry’s Dance” appears in the 2024 Freshwater Literary Journal, which is published by Asnuntuck Community College in Connecticut.

I appreciate all the hard work and dedication of the Freshwater staff. I love that my story appears in a paper journal. It’s fun to hold a book that contains one of my stories or essays.

Although, the Freshwater Literary Journal is a print journal, they do have a way to read the stories and poems online. To read my story click here and click to page 146 or use the search icon and type in 146.

Something Published: “Dog Down the Stairs” appears in The Nemadji Review

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This year’s theme was “Welcome to the 13th Floor.” The cover art titled Secret Tunnel of the Willow is by Amy Bates.

My flash fiction story “Dog Down the Stairs” was selected for the 2024 Nemadji Review, which is published by the University of Wisconsin-Superior. I’m so excited to be included in the Review because I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Superior, a small but mighty force for liberal arts and education majors. Every time I walk onto the campus of my alma mater, happy memories flood my soul, and I feel as though I’m being hugged.

Last night the dedicated editorial staff of The Nemadji Review held a reading for the writers whose works appear in this year’s journal. What a delightful evening! Beautiful prose and poems were read by writers in a cozy and inviting auditorium filled with a supportive audience, followed by conversations with fellow writers while eating scrumptious treats. I had a brownie and a cookie!

I think I’m getting better at these readings. Before last night’s event, I read an essay at another journal launch in April. After I finished my five-minute reading and took my seat, I realized that I hadn’t had an “out of body” experience while reading. Before that, somewhere in the middle of a reading, fear would always take over, and I would become disconnected from the written word. I would no longer be able to put any emotion into the words because I would need all my energy to wade through my fear in order to finish reading. However, last night I did it again — I made it through my allotted reading time without having an “out of body” experience.

Maybe the brownie I ate before I read gave me courage. Or maybe I’ve come to realize the floor isn’t going to crack open and swallow me. Flying monkeys aren’t going to whisk me off stage. And my tenth-grade speech teacher isn’t going to present me with a grade.

I also think, because I keep reading in front of people, my flight or fight mode has relaxed. It’s decided there is no reason for concern. Best to save the adrenaline for real emergencies.

[To read my story click here, then scroll to page 94 of the journal.]

I forgot to have my friend take a photo of me reading. Perhaps that was a convenient-memory slip.

Photograph as a Collection of Stories

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Photo: Max Youngquist, 2024
Instagram @maxyoungquist

My nephew took this picture. He said that at first he wasn’t very impressed with the photo, but after looking at it for a while, he started to think it wasn’t bad.

I fell in love with his photo from the moment I saw it. “This photo,” I told him, “is full of stories.”

Some photos capture the beauty of a bird on the wing, or a sunset over an ocean, or a flower in the breeze, or a Japanese tea set at rest on an oak table. Those photos can be works of art, and we love them for their composition, study of light, and subject matter, but they are not a story in themselves, though they may evoke one.

My nephew’s photo is a story — even more than that — it’s a collection of stories. “This” I said, “is the kind of a picture a photojournalist takes because he or she is telling a story about a place or event or people.” Then I told him about all the stories I saw in the photo.

My nephew is a wonderful photographer. I love his work. I love to listen to him talk about his digital and film cameras. He develops both black-and-white and color film. He speaks of camera settings, film speeds, and film brands. Focus, depth of field, and lighting. And I understand enough of it because I took art photography and photojournalism classes in college, enough of them to minor in photography, if I’d only been willing to take an art history class. I loved photography, but not enough to make it a passion or career. Today my camera phone is all I need. But my nephew’s eyes are lens, always framing a shot. He has developing fluid coursing through his veins. And like a true artist, he experiments.

And with this photo, he has inspired me. I’m composing a story set inside of this moment he captured.

Photograph as a collection of stories.
Tales about inside and outside, darkness and light, illumination and shadow. Stories of three cars pointed toward different journeys, a bus releasing and corralling commuters. Glassed reflections recounting illusions, faded signs whispering of past triumphs and failures.
Photo by Max Youngquist

[Max asked me to write a blurb about his photo to post on Instagram. What I wrote is in the photo’s caption. You can see Max’s work on Instagram @maxyoungquist]

Book Review: Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe

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[William Morrow, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2022.]

What is this book about?

Last Summer on State Street by Toya Wolfe is both a historical and coming-of-age novel. Set in 1999, the story follows four 12-year-old girls through a tumultuous summer of change. Set during the real-life demolition of Chicago’s Robert Taylor Homes by the Chicago Housing Authority, most of the story takes place in or around building 4950, which will soon be torn down. Twelve-year-old Felicia “Fe Fe” Stevens lives in 4950, along with her mother and teenage brother. Fe Fe and her friends, Precious and Stacia, spend their days going to school, jumping rope, and hanging out. When Fe Fe befriends Tonya, a skinny, forlorn girl with a drug addicted mother, and invites her into their circle of friends, Precious and Stacia aren’t happy.

As the summer temperatures scorch their neighborhood, trouble brews and spills into the streets. Gang wars erupt and residents endure gang shootouts and indiscriminate police violence. Fe Fe’s brother, who has managed to avoid gang life, is wrongly arrested and taken to jail. As Tonya’s beauty becomes more apparent, she can’t escape the unwanted attention of older boys. When the dynamics of Fe Fe, Precious, and Stacia’s relationships change, Fe Fe faces difficult questions about friendship and self-preservation. And as demolition day nears, Fe Fe worries about where her family will be allowed to live.

What makes this book so good?

From the first page, Wolfe’s style of prose, story-telling skills, and well-rounded characters combine to create a gripping and powerful series of events that draws the reader in and holds them throughout the book. Wolfe’s characters face crucial moments in their lives, forcing them to make tough choices in an environment that offers few options. And as her novel unfolds readers come to understand that Wolfe’s characters are complex and evolving.

Fe Fe, who narrates the story, is an adult looking back at her twelve-year-old self and her summer of seismic shifts. Wolfe creates a compelling, believable, and seamless voice for Fe Fe, who tells us a pivotal story from her youth as an adult, but at the same time as if she were still that child. I loved this weaving of Fe Fe’s voice, both young and innocent, but at the same time layered with reflection and maturity. If you’re a writer, thinking about writing a book where a character looks back at an event from their childhood, Last Summer on State Street provides an excellent model for the technique.

Why is this book important?

Wolfe’s beautifully written novel illustrates the consequences of racism and segregation against African Americans. A gripping story, skillfully told in first-person POV by Fe Fe Stevens, Wolfe’s debut novel is filled with sadness and joy, broken dreams and hope. And most importantly, it’s a book that can start conversations and encourage understanding among diverse people. Wolfe’s novel tells the story of segregated neighborhoods, poverty, fear, violence, stripped opportunities, and forced displacement. We live in a political climate where some people want to sanitize history, supposedly to spare white people uncomfortableness. But books like Wolfe’s have a much greater power to build bridges of understanding, hopefully fostering amends and shattering stereotypes.

[PEN Open Book Award finalist; Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year Award winner; Stephen Curry Underrated Literati Book Club Pick; Named a Best Book of Summer by Good Housekeeping, Chicago Magazine, The St. Louis Post Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, Veranda, The Milwaukee Sentinel, Publisher’s Weekly, among others.]

P. S. Re: Raymond Carver’s Stories

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When I posted my thoughts yesterday about the twelve Raymond Carver stories I liked, I discussed, from a craft standpoint, what I believe makes those stories so good.

Someone pointed out to me that some of Carver’s stories were heavily edited by his editor Gordon Lish. I was aware of that, having read about it a handful of years ago. But I made a decision to keep the Carver-Lish editing relationship out of the blog because I wanted to focus on what worked in those stories for me. I wanted to write about what I took away from those stories as far as craft. Also, I have no idea which stories on my list were written by Carver when Lish was his editor, and which stories were written by Carver after he stopped working with Lish. Or which stories might be printed as Carver originally wrote them.

I didn’t want to get into the conversation about Carver and Lish because that wasn’t the focus of my blog. But after thinking about it for a day, I should have made mention of the writer-editor relationship between Carver and Lish, so my readers could decide if they still wanted to read the stories. Because I knew about Carver and Lish’s working relationship before I decided to read the stories, I should have let my blog readers know. However, either way, whether a story on my list is solely written by Carver or one written by Carver then heavily edited by Lish, making it more of a collaboration, I still love these stories and admire their craft. And the stories stick to my ribs.

Random Thoughts about Reading a Collection of Raymond Carver’s Short Stories

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A friend of mine gave me a used copy of Where I’m Calling From: New and Selected Stories by Raymond Carver. She had picked up the book from the free shelves at our library, which is a section of books that have been donated by people who need to make room in their homes for more books. Anyone can come in, peruse those shelves, take what they want, and leave — no library card needed. People can keep the books, pass them along to friends, or donate them back to the library. Note: I’m keeping the copy of Carver’s short stories. My heirs can argue over who gets to inherit it.

My paperback edition of Carver’s stories was published in 1989 by Vintage Books: A Division of Random House. My particular copy has an intense black-and-white photo of Carver staring at his readers. The whites of Carver’s eyes are abnormally bright, suggesting an effect created by the photographer. Carver is neither smiling nor frowning, but looks like he could have done either after the shutter clicked. Every time I look at his photo, I wonder what he is thinking. This book is still in print, but the updated cover art isn’t nearly as interesting as Marion Ettlinger’s photograph of Carver, with its Mona Lisa vibe.

After my friend finished reading Carver’s book, she thought I’d like to read it. Sure, why not. I hadn’t remembered reading any of Carver’s work before. (Probably not the only gaping hole in my literary education. I still haven’t read a single Colleen Hoover novel or War and Peace.)

There is no way I’m going to take on reviewing Carver’s short story collection. Literary critics have done that. But having read the book, cover to cover, I feel compelled to share some thoughts.

If you write short stories, you might want to read Raymond Carver, not because you need to write like him, but because you will learn about craft from him. So here, and in no particular order, are random thoughts about Carver’s stories:

  1. He writes great dialogue, conversations filled with irony, skepticism, avoidance, misunderstandings, and sarcasm — the way angry, unhappy, disillusioned, conflicted people talk.
  2. He writes great first-person point of view narration. It’s not easy to create a character’s narrative voice that can reflect, ponder, and think about the past and the present without becoming oppressive or irritating. It’s a skill that when done right looks so easy, but when done wrong sounds like fingernails scratching on a chalkboard.
  3. He creates characters who come to life, stirring up emotions of dread, disgust, helplessness, loss, confusion, regret, grief, boredom, uselessness, and addiction. Carver has been called a postmodernist and a minimalist. He writes about real life in a stark manner with bruised and broken characters, leaving readers to fill in between the lines, and he doesn’t provide tidy endings. But you don’t need to go all postmodernist to admire and learn from Carver’s character development.
  4. I read Carver’s stories before bed. Some of his characters drank so much alcohol, I worried I would be hungover in the morning. They lit up one cigarette after another, filling ashtrays to overflowing. Occasionally, a joint gets passed around. The dulling of the senses is a motif in many of Carver’s stories, but it’s usually not the story. It’s an atmosphere created, one that made me psychosomatically nauseous as I read through a powerfully told, unsettling story.
  5. I didn’t like all of Carver’s stories. To me, some of them were little more than a short conversation, and I felt something was missing. This was especially true when the dialogue pulled me in, making me want more of a story. Most of the stories I didn’t like were in the first part of the book, but I kept reading because it was Raymond Carver, who is considered one of the finest short story writers in American literature.
  6. But I loved a lot of his stories, usually the longer ones, which were in the second half of his book. My favorites from this collection: “The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off”, “So Much Water So Close to Home”, “Careful”, “Where I’m Calling From”, “Chef’s House”, “Fever”, “Feathers”, “Cathedral”, “A Small Good Thing”, “Boxes”, “Elephant”, and “Blackbird Pie.”
  7. Carver’s story titles throw subtle, understated jabs at the situations in his stories. The title “A Small Good Thing” nods to a sad irony in a tragic story. The title “Where I’m Calling From” is layered with multiple meanings, including its play on the phrase, where I’m coming from. The one-word title “Boxes” is brilliant in its ability to cover the physical and the metaphorical dimensions of a dysfunctional family.
  8. Carver sometimes weaves absurdly unexpected events into the mundane. And they’re believable because Carver believes them. For example, in the story “Feathers” a city couple goes to dinner at a country couple’s house. The country couple have an ornery peacock that likes to come into the house at night, a plaster-of-Paris cast of repulsive teeth that decorates the top of their TV, and the ugliest baby one can imagine. My take-away: Don’t be afraid to throw curveballs in your story.
  9. Even though some of Carver’s characters believe they are happy, they actually live vapid lives, teetering in the balance. So, when a complication occurs, their lives become complete crap, miring them in muck that will stick to them, even should they pull themselves out of the cesspool. The stories I liked best reveal a before, followed by a pivotal change, which lets loose a wrecking ball headed toward at least one of the characters. We don’t get to see the impact; we are left to imagine it.
  10. Less is more. Carver’s stories say so much by not saying all of it. Every word counts for something, and he never nags. I’m reminded of Grandma’s advice: Put your jewelry on, then take one piece off. Or Marilyn Monroe’s advice: Don’t make your hairdo too perfect, or no one will notice the rest of you. You know, just “kill your little darlings.”
  11. Of course, I looked up Carver’s own story. He died of lung cancer. He was an alcoholic, but found sobriety. He had a failed marriage, but found a second love. He died young, at 50, but he achieved a literary immortality.

A shout-out to my kind friend who handed me a collection of Carver’s stories and said, “I thought you might like to read these.” She was right.

And I recently discovered I won’t have to read War & Peace because PBS is airing it as a miniseries, starring James Norton, a dreamy British actor, who I came to adore while watching Grantchester. That means I have time to re-read David Copperfield and Huckleberry Finn then read Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and James by Percival Everett.