Short stories from a pair of masters
Elizabeth Strout is a master of silences and small-town resignation. Penelope Lively has a wry ability to skewer 鈥� and the generosity to pull back before things get vicious.
Both award-winning writers both offer new short-story collections with plenty of insight into people whose lives haven鈥檛 turned out the way they hoped. The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories, by the Booker Prize-winning Lively, and Anything Is Possible, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Strout bring perspective to our current moment but blessedly, no politics.
Lively鈥檚 characters hail primarily from the British middle class and its state of perpetual uncertainty; Strout鈥檚 from the kind of rural left-behind town newly prominent in thought since the November election. (Each collection also, coincidentally, sets one story in Italy.) Both writers offer an unusual combination of a generous heart and an unflinching gaze, a mix of perspicacity and grace both uncommon and needed.
Strout鈥檚 last novel, 鈥淢y Name Is Lucy Barton,鈥� was about a woman who fled poverty in Amgash, Ill., to become a successful writer in New York. 鈥淎nything Is Possible,鈥� is a series of linked stories similar in format to Strout's Pulitzer-winning novel, 鈥淥live Kitteridge.鈥�
The stories follow the school janitor, a kind man who used to be a dairy farmer before his farm and home burned down one night; the school guidance counselor, who used to be known as one of the 鈥淧retty Nicely Girls鈥�; her sister, who married richly and creepily; Charlie McCauley, a Vietnam Vet who suffered from PTSD; and Lucy鈥檚 brother Pete, who stayed in the tiny, run-down home Lucy fled all those years ago. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 know them, since I was in school in Hanston, but they were the kids that people would say, Oh, cooties!, and run away from,鈥� Patty Nicely tells her husband. In 鈥淪ister,鈥� readers get more understanding of what went on behind the closed blinds in the Barton home.
It鈥檚 not necessary to have read 鈥淟ucy Barton鈥� to follow the residents of Amgash, Ill. 鈥� although for those who have, 鈥淎nything Is Possible鈥� offers additional news of characters like Marilyn McCauley, Charlie鈥檚 wife, and Mississippi Mary, who nursed her cheating husband through cancer and then, once he was well, ran off to Italy with a man 20 years her junior. Lucy Barton puts in an appearance with her first trip home to Amgash to see her siblings.
Lively, author of 25 previous books, has written everything from award-winning novels and children鈥檚 books to memoirs, essays, and books on gardening. Her delightfully titled, 鈥淭he Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories,鈥� travels from a bird living in a garden in Pompei to a grocery-shopping trip with an elderly former spy and her young home-care aide. (The title story is markedly different in tone from the rest of the collection.)
鈥淵ou know what happened, but you don鈥檛 always see what happened. Interesting difference,鈥� one character notes. Lively plays with that gap in perspective in various stories throughout the collection.
A little girl makes an unusual friend on a family鈥檚 uncomfortable visit to the new weekend home of a former classmate. In 鈥淭he Bridge,鈥� a woman who built a hard-won life apart from her actor husband faces the prospect of taking him back in now that parts have dried up. Behind his long absences is a tragedy that, for the actor but not his wife, is tinged with malevolence. He loves stories; she is impatient with fiction as fabrications and lies. But which one remembers that long-ago day correctly? 鈥淗ow can something have happened twice over?鈥� his wife thinks. 鈥淥ne way for him, another for me?鈥�
鈥淥h well聽鈥� I鈥檒l cope. I鈥檓 a coper,鈥� she tells herself.
Many of the characters in both collections are copers 鈥� dealing with death, abuse, and fizzled dreams.
In 鈥淎nything Is Possible,鈥� permission to grieve is often received as a moment of grace. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e a Midwestern girl, so you say things are fine. But they may not always be fine,鈥� a character tells Patty, now a widow. 鈥淵ou sure don鈥檛 have to tell what鈥檚 not fine 鈥� and I鈥檓 sure not going to ask. I鈥檓 just here to say that sometimes 鈥� that sometimes things aren鈥檛 so fine, no siree bob. They aren鈥檛 always fine.鈥�
Janitor Tommy Guptill often thinks, without bitterness, about the night that turned his children from the kids who hosted field trips and picnics at their beautiful farm, to the kids who watched their dad push a broom and clean up sick in the school hallways. 鈥淲ell. They had all lived through it.鈥�
Sometimes, that is benediction enough.
