Category: short story

I don't know how I feel about "A Bridge Under Water" by Tom Bissell. The writing is descriptive and just captures the newlywed couple in the story perfectly. The man loved games of all kinds. Obscure board games, video games manufactured prior to 1990, any and all word games, but he also enjoyed purely biophysical games such as rock, paper, scissors—the "essential fairness" of which he claimed to particularly admire. He was , however, miserably bad at rock, paper, scissors, the reason being that he almost always took paper. Neither the man or the woman is particularly likeable, however. I admire that they are trying, but both seem selfish at heart, and I can't really identify with either. They are on their honeymoon, married after only knowing each other for about four months. They got married because she is pregnant, although that won't admit that's the reason. Bissell portrays the tension in the relationship well. The argument is oer religion, even though neither is...

Image source: Wikipedia "Housewifely Arts" by Megan Mayhew Bergman really struck me. It's about a single mother whose actions and thoughts seem to be both random and to make sense. She is on a quest to visit her deceased mother's old parrot, a bird that could imitate her mother exactly, to hear her mother's voice one last time. And she's got her seven-year-old son along with her on the 9 hour drive. The mother tells the story in the first-person and she is just so real and honest. If I were a better mother, I would say no. If I were a better mother, there would be a Ziploc baggie in a cooler with a crustless PB&J, a plastic bin of carrot wedges and seedless grapes. If I were a better daughter, Ike would have known his grandmother, spent more time in her arms, wowed her with his impersonation of Christopher Plummer's Captain von Trapp. I've had similar thougts: If I were a better...

I'm developing a true appreciation of short stories. I've only started reading them regularly in the last year or so. I don't feel as connected to the characters of as invested in them as I do with a novel, but each phrase, each action because so much more important in a short piece. I jumped at the chance to review The Best American Short Stories 2011. "Ceiling" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the first selection in the anthology. Obinze is the main character in "Ceiling." He's a married man living in Lagos, Nigeria. He's one of those guys that has it all, beautiful wife and child, nice house, money, fancy car, but he's just not content. He was tired. It was not a physical fatigue—he used his treadmill regularly and felt better than he had in years—but a draining lassitude that numbed the margins of his mind. His feelings are brought home to him by an e-mail from his college sweetheart, the one who...