August 18, 2012: "Constance, Lady Willet"; "Full Circle" / Denton Welch

Because Welch's novel Maiden Voyage has so long been a personal favorite, I approached The Stories of Denton Welch (1985, University of Texas Press) with trepidation and fear of disappointment. A wandering style, heavy on description and aesthetic minutiae, can be less successful in shorter formats demanding more immediate impact. Welch's collection was a happy surprise, loaded with tales direct and forceful. "Constance, Lady Willet" is a touching portrait of an aged, down on her luck "gentlewoman" facing her demons in the local pub. Far from devastating, the character's more gentle/genteel roll downhill seems to be summarized in the title, suggestive of a titled, aristocratic past now grown secondary. The use of her first name may reflect Welch's unfortunate personal snobbery; those who have plummeted in social standing can be further reduced by the overly familiar (and mocking) addressing of/by their Christian names.

"Full Circle" is an altogether different tale, part ghost story, part moral fable and again, judgmental in Welch's notorious way. (Though a brilliant writer capable of flawless evocations of bittersweet childhood and nostalgic musings, he lived his short life of 37 years often expressing bitter, classist views on his economic "inferiors"). Still, again there is real pathos here as a narrator relives in one night of troubled sleep the horrors of an unknown servant's decades of tribulation. I didn't appreciate the obvious "explanation" closing the story but enjoyed enormously as a darker, more Anglican version of the Rip Van Winkle legend.

August 17, 2012: Dust on Her Tongue & The Beggar's Knife (collections) / Rodrigo Rey Rosa

RRR's short-short stories register initially as fables or dark allegories: most from the two collections cited above are under 5 pages and written in a clean, spare prose style stripped of adornment, further creating the impression of a myth (or village legend) told so many times across so many generations only the general frame remains. In this way they also remind me of fairy tales - how few embellishments, upon consideration, there are in the adventures of Little Red Riding Hood or Hansel and Gretel . . . a red cape, big teeth, a house made of candy. In the same way Rosa dispenses with tone, atmospherics and character development.

In "The Rain and Other Children" the effect can be terrifying, as though the macabre, unreal horrors of fairy tales have somehow managed to intrude upon our real lives, or the overwhelming sensation is of a narrator so detached and disinterested he doesn't bother with anything but the bare facts. Either way you won't find an ounce of sentimentality in any of these stories and withholding such seems cruel in both collections. Overall the tales here are too ephemeral to possess any real power. Exceptions include the above-mentioned story and "Angelica" from Dust on her Tongue, whose title character is characteristically a killer, but one with elegant resignation . . ."An inner voice told her to cease thinking. Things happen; we are only the instrument."

What is The Story A Day Project?

Very simply, small-scale observations on short literary works, written by a Reader, not a critic. The daily format is used solely to encourage myself to indulge in a more fictitious form of life.

August 16, 2012: "Lockheed", "Camp" / James Franco

Actors' forays in to writing are greeted with justified dubiousness by most, especially those with an established onscreen persona of pothead/loser/remedial student. Minds weren't blown here but thespian James Franco's debut collection of short stories - Palo Alto, a nod to his hometown - was far more nuanced than anticipated. "Lockheed" rather poignantly chronicles a self-labeled Science Nerd's induction into the violent, seamier side of Life via a gruesome murder at her "first high school party." The eruption of violence at a misty, wooded cabin is genuinely shocking, more so even perhaps is the author's ability to bring events in to perspective and back to earth through mid-century 16mm lunar film metaphors.

The story "Camp" more succinctly captures the vibe of Franco's collection (which owes a great debt to the insouciant cruelty of Larry Clark's juvenile film protagonists and author Dennis Cooper's doomed youth) - another first-person narrative, this time around encompassing a teen boy's wide circle of friends and their miscreant exploits. Vapid in a tone synonymous with pretension and artifice, the fractured, episode-hopping catalog of dirty deeds at a water-skiing summer camp somehow (??) left me with a very real taste of sour in my mouth. And sadness. In other words, you can judge a book by its cover (dust jacket is fiercely Minimalist, dark and stylized).

August 15, 2012: "Weekend" / Shirley Hazzard

Several of the stories from Hazzard's collection Cliffs of Fall ( Knopf, 1961) center around house guests, visiting friends and relatives encroaching on everyday routines for weekends or weeks on end. The general awkwardness of sharing one's home with anyone not a regular resident is conveyed vividly in the slightly bitter little tale "Weekend". Third-person narration equalizes all parties here - a single sister (visitor) and her brother, his wife and infant son (hosts) - as their pettiness and peeves compete. Behind each character's dismissal of the others' life choices lies a gentle understanding and tolerance, and if nothing else, this brief piece suggests that those who choose to share living quarters (if only for 2 nights) already hold a dearer place in our hearts than the rest of humanity: everyone in the story sighs most contentedly when dinner guest neighbors drive off with their pair of ill behaved pups.

August 14, 2012: "Miles City, Montana" / Alice Munro

Although the author employs her favorite technique here of time-jumps and decade-splintered narratives, "Miles City, Montana" is less outwardly complex than most of the previous Munro stories I've read. A Joycian epiphany occurs near the end of the tale, as the narrator's daughter narrowly escapes drowning, but otherwise this is pretty straight-forward, albeit heightened with the lead character's suburban rebel leanings and an especially poignant brushstroke hint at the future dissolution of a marriage years after a mock argument over sandwich condiments. Typical cheeky Munro, no? As always I marveled at the precise control of the language, the measured emotional cadences, the evocation of place and personality far beyond the power of most mere mortals painting portraits of human timelines.