short stories
a man in contemplation is seen “as if he were the warden of
his own identity,” cherry trees “toss extravagant flounces
of blossom” to the pavement. Such intimacies extend to
every nook and cranny of the writing, bringing to life a
breathing, throbbing, three-dimensional world in which
everyday people doing everyday things become, somehow,
grander than the picayune facts of their existence. As with
the “catharses” of James Joyce, each story hinges on some
peculiar twist or surprise of fate, honestly earned, and yet
each sentence Mantel lays on the page is, in some sense,
cathartic: perfectly rendered, emotionally resonant and
exquisitely lapidary, as permanent and incontrovertible as
a final verdict. — Rick Levin
The Assassination of Margaret
Thatcher by Hilary Mantel. Picador, $16.
Hilary Mantel is the
sort of writer who makes
other writers want to
quit writing. Her prose is
magnificent, resplendent,
inimitable; it flutters off the
page like a kind of breezy
but acute argot, effortlessly
meshing
conversational
shorthand with British
pomp and registering the
subtlest tones of class
and gender and domestic
conflict. But she is, first
and foremost, a fantastic storyteller, given to details and
observations that cause her fiction to burst alive in the
reader’s mind.
Her short story collection, The Assassination of Margaret
Thatcher, is packed with moments that catch the breath: a
pair of unlikely attic windows are described as “surprised,”
A Manual for Cleaning Women:
Selected Stories by Lucia Berlin. Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, $26.
Restless yet assured, frenetic yet searching, the short
stories of Lucia Berlin tap out like spooling subtitles
deciphering the mad gibberish of unreconstructed reality.
Berlin, who died in 2004 at the age of 68, lived a crazy life
— itinerant childhood, boho youth, odd jobs, marriages,
divorces, addiction, recovery, restless relocations across
the U.S. and into Mexico — and her stories grab bits and
pieces of this wooly existence, patching them together
J. Michaels
Staff Picks
160 EAST BROADWAY # A (541) 342-2002
Of local interest is Megan Kruse’s Call Me
Home. Oregon writer, an uncommonly powerful
debut novel.
Also in fiction, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara.
Astonishing, challenging, upsetting and profoundly
moving.
And it’s a big year for rediscovering the short
story. Three collections, two American women
and one South American woman: A Manual For
Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin (see review this
issue), The Visiting Privilege by Joy Williams, The
Complete Stories of Clarice Lispector.
In non-fiction: Andy Goldsworthy Ephemeral
Works 2004-2014, Hold Still by Sally Mann,
Maira Kalman’s Beloved Dog, Thing Explainer:
Complicated Stuff In Simple Words by Randall
Munroe and Mario Vargas Llosa’s Notes on the
Death of Culture: Essays on Spectacle and Society.
The Shedd Institute
www.theshedd.org - 541.434.7000
Shedd Theatricals 2015
“A romantic
sensation”
Luc a
di Lammermoor
Cole Porter’s 1934
musical comedy classic
Anything Goes
Dec 11-20
541.434.7000
theshedd.org
Christmas at The Shedd 2015
New Year’s Eve
& January 3
Swinging On A Star
541-682-5000
eugeneopera.com
December 10 & 13
eugeneweekly.com • December 10, 2015
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