The 2011 Pen / O.Henry Prize Stories

The man has succumbed, and bought himself a Kindle app on the Apple gadgets. DUHH. Just use the Kindle lah. Anyway, that's mine, and I'm not sharing.

For some reason, single short stories available for download on Amazon keep jumping out. The man loves to download those. A hectic schedule means that he can take up to 2 weeks to finish a novel. But thumbing through short stories mean that he can finish it in a night easily. I'm not so keen on them just yet. Anyway, I could steal it off one of his gadgets when he isn't using them. Ha.

Been attracted to the contemporary short stories in a hard copy. Not really a fan of modern fiction, but I'll strive on, just to see what people are talking about these days. A recent flip was 'The 2011 Pen/O.Henry Prize Stories', edited by Laura Furman. The book holds 20 short stories by shortlisted writers, an introduction by Laura Furman, an essay by the three Jurors (A.M. Homes, Manuel Muñoz and Christine Schutt) on their favorites, and the writers' brief thoughts on their work. A thoroughly relishable read. More like a journal that tells me the hows and the whys that decide the flow and ebb of each story.

Honestly, all the stories are good. Short often means that the reader is able to enjoy a concise narrative, a brevity of thoughts and to-the-point without beating around the bush too much. The Jurors and editor have kept it simple and true to its form of a precise length, and meaning conveyed in a single thought or scene. Of course character development may be a tad wanting, but that's not an impediment to the overall message. I give you three personal favorites.

Lily Tuck's 'Ice' writes of married-for-forty-years Maud and Peter's travel on the Caledonia Star to the Antarctic. The author wanted to "try to describe how this strange and vaguely hostile environment might affect a long-married couple." A cruise is something I've sworn off, after three not-very-pleasant experiences on it over three continents. While I'm not keen on watching movies about it like the 'Titanic', unless it's got a B-grade sea monster toppling the cruise ship, I'm not averse to reading stories set on cruises.

Standing on deck next to her husband, Maud takes it for a good omen - the ship will not founder, they will not get seasick, they will survive the journey, their marriage more or less still intact. 

Also, Maud spots her first whale, another omen. She spots two.

Chris Adrian wanted to write stories that imagined how the world would be like in fifteen years. He took the ex's dog with him and spent days in Nantucket, but didn't begin any writing till months after. He "threw out five or six drafts about Nantucket sinking into the ocean or being overwhelmed by intelligent shoes before [he] finally discovered what the story was about - [him], the ex, and the dog." Thus 'The Black Square' was written, about Henry and a black Lab named Hobart (borrowed from Bobby).

"That's stupid," the girl said. She was standing close enough that Henry could see her eyes through the sunglasses, and tell that she was staring directly into his face. 

"So are you," he said. It was one of the advantages of his present state of mind, and one of the gifts of the black square, that he could say things like this now, in part because all his decisions had become essentially without consequence. He wasn't trying to be mean. It was just that there wasn't any reason anymore not to say the first thing that came into his mind. 

The little girl didn't cry. She managed to look very serious, even in the ridiculously oversize sunglasses, biting on her lower lip while she petted the dog. "No," she said finally, "I'm not. You are. You are the stupidest." Then she walked away, calmly, back to her mother.

Matthew Neill Null's 'Something You Can't Live Without'. Almost a classic drummer tale, of the traveling salesman, in this case, Cartwright during the Reconstruction era as he tried to somehow make a big sale, and ended up getting himself killed. It also seemed appropriate somewhat, for me to be giggling at the fate of the poor salesman by the time I got to the last few paragraphs of the story, which incidentally, is the last story in the compilation.

When the next harvest came, they would have killed Cartwright all over again. The Miracle Plow had failed to increase their yield by any measure whatsoever, no better than the one it replaced. When Cartwright's replacement came down the road three years later, they told him so. He urged on his horses with a grim flick of the traces.