I decided to shake things up and not read last week’s New Yorker short story. Instead, I read the most recent offering from One Story – a story by Robert McCarthy called “Stag.”
I’ve been a One Story subscriber for a couple of years now. I like the concept: each month they send me one story in an easy-to-carry little booklet.
I’ve had mixed feelings about the stories, but mostly I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read. They tend to be less experimental – less odd in their structure – then a lot of the New Yorker stories. Some of the subject matter is off-beat (those are actually the ones I tend to like), but they’re told in a good old-fashion story telling way. Some of my favorites are “Hurt People,” “The Tennis Player,” “Sir Fleeting,” “Harriet Elliot,” “We Bluegills,” and “Safe Passage.”
Unfortunately, “Stag” didn’t blow me away. That may be because of the blue-collar nature of the story. I’m not really a blue-collar fiction aficionado (expect, of course, for Raymond Carver).
I also found the whole scene with the deer strange. If a deer breaks into your home
and you successful escape the room with the deer, why would you go back in? And, would you really wrestle the deer to the ground and break its neck? Me: I’d be calling someone on the phone.
But what do I know? The author says he based the deer episode on something he read in a newspaper. And that brings me to one of my favorite parts of One Story – the online author Q&A. So if you want to read what the author has to say about his piece, go here.
Complicity, to the narrator, “…indicates an unspoken understanding between two people, a kind of pre-sense, if you like. The first hint that you may be suited, before the nervous trudgery of finding out whether you ‘share the same interests,’ or have the same metabolism, or are sexually compatible, or both want children, or however it is that we argue consciously about our unconscious decisions.”
Last year I wanted to try writing something a little darker than I had before. I banged out a short story called “
If I were to start reading poetry I’d start with Charles Bukowski. I came across a poem of his on writing. It rocks…
yawned themselves to
The story takes place in England, just outside of London. It revolves around three people in their early fifties – Amanda, Susan, and Chris. When they were children, their parents used to send them to be looked after by their Godmother, Vivian. Vivian lived in a big, old, somewhat-exotic mansion. As the story unfolds we learn that Vivian has recently died, and her will states that Susan, Amanda, and Chris are allowed to take whatever items from the house the want. Susan, Amanda, and Chris – who haven’t kept in touch or seen each other for years – arrive at the home together to see if they can uncover anything of interest.
