In collection reading, since Quarterly Stories: Winter 2013 I've read Susie Moloney's Things Withered, the latest installment of the Alice Munro reading project, B.J. Novak's One More Thing, and the most recent volume of Journey Prize stories. But mostly I've been dipping into single stories in recent months. Partly this was inspired by random samplings of the latest ReLit
Jinny has been standing on shifting ground. Expectations are thwarted: these are times of transformation. This was true, too, in "Gravel" and in "Oh What Avails". But there she is: the space in which she is standing shifts both literally and metaphorically. Things have been all-a-shift for some time now.
The story begins with conflict, the televised debate between Kennedy and Nixon. But "Before the Change" considers other conflicts, closer to home, closer to the heart. "What is that expression? It’s as if he’s got a list of offenses both remembered and anticipated and he’s letting it be known how
Beginning with an arrival and ending with a departure, readers might think "Amundsen" a more conventionally told tale. Random House, 2012 (Thinking about the last story, "To Reach Japan", which began with a departure and ended with an arrival, I mean.) And, yet, both this arrival and departure
Just as "Jesse and Meribeth" seems to be a story about MaryBeth but really reveals so much more about Jessie herself, "Eskimo" appears to be about all the people on the plane with Mary Jo, but it's really all about Mary Jo. Nonetheless, it begins with talk of the passengers
