"Last Stories," by William Trevor

What more can I, or anyone, say about the late great author William Trevor’s writing, and especially his short stories? He, along with fellow geniuses Alice Munro and V.S. Pritchett, rule the world of short stories. In my 12/24/10 post on a collection of Trevor’s stories, I described them as “perfect”; I always put him on my various lists of “best” and “favorite” writers. I was sad when Trevor died in 2016, at age 88, but glad that I could always revisit his stories. Now we have a new book, “Last Stories” (Viking, 2018), and as soon as I saw announcements and reviews of the book, I knew I had to read it. The stories are as wonderful as ever. I had already read a few of them that were published in the New Yorker, but was glad to re-read them, as well as to read the ones I had not seen before. Because at this moment I seem to be stuck in the simplistic mode of “His stories are so, so, so good…you should all read them!”, which is a truly inadequate response, I am going to borrow the words of S. Kirk Walsh’s San Francisco Chronicle review (May 27, 2018): “…the author charts the unremarkable lives of men and women who rarely leave their small towns, usually in Ireland and England. As he deftly excavates his characters’ inner worlds, Trevor once again produces a sort of subtle alchemy on the page.” Further, Walsh writes, “Like Alice Munro, Trevor magically compresses these private narratives, advancing through lifetimes in the mere space of 10 or so pages.” Walsh also reminds us that Trevor once, in an interview with the Paris Review, defined the short story as “the art of the glimpse,” and this description resonates with me. As I have written before, the best parts about Trevor’s stories are his portraits of very real characters and his seemingly low-key style, a style that steals into the reader’s mind and heart. In “At the Caffe Daria,” we read about two women who were childhood friends, and what happened when one’s husband left her for the other. Now that he has died, they briefly reconnect, and we learn what happened before and after his death. The story is sad, and delineates the fragile relationships among the three main characters. In “Making Conversation,” a marriage is imperiled when a married man is in a relationship with another woman, and his wife comes to tell his mistress about the marriage. “An Idyll in Winter” is about a broken love story, and what happens when it is revisited. And “The Women” tells of a teenaged girl finding out the unlikely truth of who her mother is; this story is inflected by social class and adolescent self-consciousness, as well as by the heartbreak of the mother who just wants to see a glimpse of her daughter. The other stories in the collection are equally compelling. As I describe the book and its stories, I feel again, as I said at the beginning of this post, that my comments are extremely inadequate to convey the exceptional quality of Trevor’s stories. So maybe I will just repeat what I said above, bluntly but with heartfelt enthusiasm, “His stories are so, so, so good…you should all read them!”

PBS's "Little Women"

PBS recently showed a three hour production of Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women.” My friend B. had seen it before I did, and she was not enthusiastic about this production, especially decrying the last hour, which she felt rushed too quickly through the later parts of the characters’ lives, skipping years at a time. I partly agree with this assessment, BUT – perhaps being overly sentimental – I still enjoyed it, including (I admit) weeping through several parts of it. The acting was good (although I couldn’t help remembering the terrific 1994 film directed by Gillian Armstrong and featuring a star-studded cast: Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, Kirsten Dunst, Christian Bale, Gabriel Byrne, and Susan Sarandon). Of course I loved being reminded of this book, so cherished by so many, and read and reread multiple times, especially by young girls and women. We loved the gumption of Jo, and dreamed of being writers like her. We worried about Beth’s ill health. We got annoyed at Amy’s occasional brattiness. We loved that Marmee and her minister/soldier husband and their four girls were so close, and so kind, but with interesting quirks as well. There was romance as well. Who among us didn’t have a little crush on Theodore “Laurie” Laurence? One part I think the production wisely downplayed was the very moralistic, didactic preachy aspects of the novel. I remember rereading it some 25 years ago after a long time away from it, and being surprised by the heavy, transparent, unapologetic preachiness embedded in the charming and inspiring story. I have read that Alcott didn’t necessarily believe in or endorse a lot of that, or at least wouldn’t necessarily have featured it so strongly, but that her editors and others encouraged it, because such “lessons” in fiction, especially for young readers, were considered important at the time that the author wrote. Still, nothing could turn me against this treasured and often reread novel, and it was a pleasure to see the new KQED production. And sometimes it is enjoyable to weep about a story!

"Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces," by Michael Chabon

This post is for Father’s Day today. Happy Father’s Day, everyone who is a father, stepfather, grandfather, uncle, or in any way in a father-like role, and to those who love and are loved by them. I have a very good impression of the writer Michael Chabon, who lives in Berkeley and therefore seems like a kind of neighbor; although I haven’t met him (I once briefly met his wife, a well known writer herself – Ayelet Waldman), I have only heard good things about him. But the fact is that I haven’t read much of his fiction. It is work that I can see in the abstract is very good, but I just don’t relate to. Too male? Too magical/fantastical? I don’t know exactly why, but despite trying a few times, I just haven’t connected to his fiction. However, I do like his nonfiction, especially essays, when I occasionally run across them. I just finished his recent very short collection of essays, “Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces” (HarperCollins, 2018), and enjoyed it. The books starts with a compelling essay, “The Opposite of Writing,” which tells of the author's encounter, early on in his career, with a famous male writer (I wish I knew who!) who told Chabon that he would have to choose between writing and having children, and advised him not to have children. He said that each child would subtract a book from a writer’s lifetime production. This is quite interesting to me, because women writers and readers have discussed this topic -- whether one can be a writer and a mother -- for many, many years, but we usually hear that male writers who are fathers are able to take the time they need for their writing, mostly because they often have a wife or other partner or family member to do most of the childrearing and even to financially support the male writer, in many cases. I am a little torn about this discussion, as on the one hand I admire a male writer who grapples with these issues and doesn’t treat them as women’s issues only, but on the other hand I feel a bit like he is appropriating an issue that women writers have long discussed, and not acknowledging a kind of male privilege he has in the whole discussion. However, I have had the impression, even before reading this book, that Chabon is a dedicated and evolved father, so it is not surprising that he didn’t have to think long before deciding that he didn’t buy the older writer’s reasoning, and that even if he had, he would have chosen to have children. He went on to have four children and publish 14 books. He has some fun, in this essay, with speculating about whether, if he had not had his children, he would have published 18 books. Of the other essays in this collection, the most striking one is “Little Man,” about Chabon’s son Abe, who is fascinated, almost obsessed, with fashion, dresses with flair, and seems not to care that he is out of step with his middle school classmates. Chabon supports his son’s passion by accompanying him to Paris Men’s Fashion Week, where Abe feels he has found his people. The other essays are mostly about the author’s children and such topics as grappling with racism and with sexism. Chabon also writes about baseball and his mixed feelings about his son’s playing in Little League. The book ends with a touching essay on Chabon’s own father and their relationship.

"When God Was a Rabbit," by Sarah Winman

As I wrote on 6/5/18 in my post on Sarah Winman’s novel “Tin Man,” I liked the novel so much that I wanted to read more by her. Accordingly, I found and read her first, highly acclaimed novel, “When God Was a Rabbit” (Bloomsbury, 2011) and was definitely not disappointed. Winman’s voice – sincere, straightforward, thoughtful, a little whimsical in a very understated way, and very humane – caught me up immediately, as did the plot and the charming, eccentric, and believable characters. The main character is an imaginative young girl named Elly; the other main characters are her brother Joe and her best friend Jenny. The story is bursting with vivid and compelling characters: others of Elly’s family members, people who are so close to the family that they might as well be family members, friends, lovers, and more. The story takes place between 1968 and the recent present (early 2000s). It begins in England and then toggles between England and the United States, New York City in particular. Some events of recent history are important components of the novel. There is much evident love among the characters, as well as confusion, pain, and sadness. The writing is exceptional. Oh, and that title? When Elly is small, she names her pet rabbit God, and that rabbit is a talisman for her even in later life when it is long since physically gone.

"Tin Man," by Sarah Winman

Sarah Winman’s fiction is new to me. I also did not know much, if anything, about her as a British actor who has appeared in many films, plays, and television shows. But her new novel, “Tin Man” (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2017) completely grabbed my attention and wouldn’t let go. It is the story of an unusual triangle of friends and their relationships. Ellis and Michael are childhood friends who become lovers. Annie is the woman who later marries Ellis and welcomes Michael as the third member of their close (but nonsexual in the case of Annie and Michael) mutual relationship. On the face of it, such a very close, happy, longlasting relationship among the three (an apparently bisexual man, a gay man, and a straight woman) seems unrealistic or at least very unusual, yet Winman makes us believe in it, and rejoice in it. At some point, though, Michael disappears, and not until years later do we find out what happened. We also learn of the family backgrounds of the three, especially of Ellis and Michael. Ellis’ parents had a difficult marriage, but his mother Dora had a streak of strength and independence that served her and Ellis well; Dora also became a source of strength and nurturance to the young Michael, who badly needed her surrogate mothering. The characters are all compelling, and the story is both believable and mysterious. The writing is exceptional. Although I often or even mostly read authors I already know, I occasionally “discover” new (to me, at least) authors, and it is always a joy; Winman is the most recent writer in that category for me. Now I plan to find and read Winman’s earlier two novels. (No, I don't know if the fact that Tin Man and Winman rhyme is significant, and if so, how, but I would assume it has something to do with identification with the character.)