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Now Playing

by Shellie Zacharia

4.28 of 5 stars 4.28 · rating details · 29 ratings · 7 reviews

Shellie Zacharia's debut fiction collection

Paperback, 156 pages

Published October 20th 2009 by Keyhole Press (first published 2009)

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May 23, 2010 Alice Osborn rated it 4 of 5 stars

It's rare to find a literary collection of short stories that's so darn readable and fun. Such is the case with Shellie Zacharia's Now Playing, her debut fiction collection. Inside you'll find stories about a kid cutting off her nose, a yard sale gone wrong, a lonely 6th grade teacher who steals a cardboard cutout of a lead singer from a music store, continuing ed sewing classes taught by a 4th grade loser, experimental disco theater,a shoplifting four-year-old, and more. Sure these stories are...more It's rare to find a literary collection of short stories that's so darn readable and fun. Such is the case with Shellie Zacharia's Now Playing, her debut fiction collection. Inside you'll find stories about a kid cutting off her nose, a yard sale gone wrong, a lonely 6th grade teacher who steals a cardboard cutout of a lead singer from a music store, continuing ed sewing classes taught by a 4th grade loser, experimental disco theater,a shoplifting four-year-old, and more. Sure these stories are funny, but they are also poignant and real. Zacharia's settings include a mix of urban and suburban: bowling alleys, community ed classrooms, art galleries, sheets, playgrounds, and Bed Bath and Beyond.

These characters yearn to live out loud and take chances in the middle of their working lives. They could be your sister, your next door neighbor or maybe yourself. Most of Zacharia's characters are women in their mid-thirties who have careers that they're somewhat satisfied with, but know that they played it safe while their former classmates took greater creative risks. Perhaps without even realizing it, they are all looking outside of themselves for the answers, while what they're missing could be unearthed if only they looked deeper. Some may not agree with her happy or satisfactory endings, but Zacharia manages in a few pages to make her characters reach some peace and decide with optimism the right course to take for them.

Zacharia allows us a peak into their daily grind right at the moment they are turning a corner. Philip Gerard, author of Writing Creative Nonfiction is fond of saying, “Everything was fine until you showed up," to referring to storytelling. The "you" refers to the catalyst, which can be a person or thing that drives the story to inspire the main character get up off of the couch and do something. Once her characters get going they don't stop.

Many times this "you" is the past. How many times have you wondered what would happen if you ran into an old school chum and you hadn't been exactly nice to them? Could you write an honest, yet scathing complaint letter like Lucy does in “Luckily, Lucy Sims Has No Stamps.” Or what would you do if you had to review an ex-boyfriend's play? What kind of meeting will it be? Zacharia explores this exact thread in a few of her stories starting with the titular "Now Playing."

In this story, the main character, a writer, has been assigned to write a review her old boyfriend's experimental play for the independent paper she works for. The fun ensues when she's late because she let a neighbor badly cut her bangs and because of that she didn't get her 3-D glasses and playbill, which are both necessary since this is an experimental play. As the show continues, our character can't figure it out and is wondering what she's going to write about it her review. She finally decides what to do without being unethical.

One of my favorites was "Cardboard Ben" when Nikki, a schoolteacher steals a cardboard cutout of her old high school classmate, Ben Stevens, who is now a famous singer and guitarist. The funny thing is that store clerk lets her steal Ben because he's "mainstream" and they get new cardboard music stars in all of the time. She keeps CB (Cardboard Ben) in her living room, talks to him, and wants him to become her muse, but she soon sees that it’s bordering on obsession when she mentions him frequently during class. A telling line is when Nikki's friend, Vivian warns her, "It would be better if you said you were making out with Cardboard Ben. Don't trade love for crafts. That's what my grandmother did." By the end, Nikki does the right thing.

A few of the stories have interconnected characters and Zacharia is very clever in making their plot lines overlap without forcing them to. I would have wanted to see more interconnected stories since she had started down that path and then stopped. Descriptive titles, dialogue, and quick brush strokes that reveal the core of a character are three of Zacharia's main strengths. As a reader, you remember her details about her characters because they are quirky, extreme and make total sense because people are unpredictable and do funny things all of the time. When it comes to her titles, she loads up on description, like a poet would, so that she doesn't need to be so expository within her narrative. This way the reader knows exactly what to expect and they can get comfortable fast. These are the opening lines in "After Carlos the Continuity Expert Quit the Movie and Headed to Costa Rica': which we know right away is a description of Carlos.

He said it had to do with birds. They had names, beautiful names, and he'd call them out like he was reciting prayer: scarlet-thighed dacnis, chestnut-headed oropendola. The women on the set found it erotic, the way he said these names, but one day he was saying thrush-like schiffornis and then he was gone. He left a message on the director's answering machine. She showed up for the filming of the diner scene for Emilio's Girls and scowled a lot and drank enough coffee that her hands shook. Someone gave her a muscle relaxer, which helped.

Zacharia also has an uncanny ability to express what we are all thinking, but seldom say. In "Making the Bed," Deborah ponders bedding and marriage:

So maybe they are not the finest sheets, but they are worn and washed and stained in the right way, darker where our bodies lie night after night, and someone might say those are love spots and I'd say they were right.

From her style and expertise with dialogue, Zacharia is one of those writers who is constantly observing human behavior while striving to write stories that reveal great connections and deeper truths. She does so remarkably in this collection without weighing down her narratives on a quest to be “literary” because her stories are like songs which all contain a melody, hook and bridge that make you want to listen to them over and over again.
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Jul 09, 2011 Heather Clitheroe rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-reads

It is a good book, but the stories are short - very, very short - and there's just not a lot moving them in the direction of a collection. Which doesn't sound right...it is a collection, but there's a sharp, staccato feeling to the book that I didn't care for. It was hard to sink into any one piece, and the arrangement didn't lend itself to a good, long sitdown of a read.

I think I would have the book more if it had fewer pieces and a little more depth. Zacharia is a good writer; I would like to...more

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Jan 22, 2010 William rated it 5 of 5 stars

Read this over the break. The stories are funny and take surprising turns. She uses interesting forms, esp letters and notes. One story, Dewey Classifies Love, uses the library shelving system to chart a librarian's ill-fated romance. And the linked stories at the beginning of the collection are all excellent.

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Sep 10, 2010 Ampersand Books rated it 4 of 5 stars

Read my review here: http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/dail...

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Feb 05, 2010 Susi rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: flash-fiction

See my review posted on Potomac Review blog:
http://potomacreview.blogspot.com/sea...

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Sep 18, 2011 J.A. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Story collections are always second (or third) on my to-read list as I typically have trouble sticking with them, presumably because of their lack of through-line. But Zacharia's stories have heart and love and humor, which kept me reading her book from story to story. This is still available (I think) even though we've not heard much (or anything) from Keyhole Books in months and months. Certainly worth getting a copy if copies are around.

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Jan 22, 2010 Kathy rated it 5 of 5 stars

A great read. Shellie Zacharia is one of the most original writers I know.

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May 14, 2013 Leah Whitt marked it as to-read

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Jan 22, 2013 Kristi Carpluk marked it as to-read

Nov 30, 2012 Morgan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Nov 09, 2012 Bethany rated it 2 of 5 stars

Nov 06, 2012 anonymous marked it as to-read

Aug 30, 2012 Dzanc rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: published, backlist, keyhole-press

Aug 04, 2012 Bonnie Zobell rated it 5 of 5 stars

Jun 03, 2012 Dean Tuck rated it 4 of 5 stars

Apr 14, 2012 Matt added it

Apr 11, 2012 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: shortstories

Mar 07, 2012 Joyce marked it as to-read

Jan 31, 2012 Caitlyn Christensen marked it as to-read

Dec 03, 2011 Eva rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: undergrad

Feb 28, 2011 Llewellyn marked it as to-read

Aug 19, 2011 Mitzi McMahon rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: collections

Sep 26, 2010 Richard Chiem marked it as to-read

Sep 11, 2010 Aubrey Gokey marked it as to-read

Jun 17, 2010 Cindy marked it as to-read

Jun 15, 2010 Liz rated it 4 of 5 stars

May 19, 2010 M marked it as to-read

Feb 24, 2010 Shelly marked it as to-read

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