Through the Safety Net

by Charles Baxter

Baxter dives into the undercurrents of middle-class American life in these eleven arresting, often mesmerizing stories. Whether they know it or not, Baxter's characters are floating above an abyss of unruly desire, inexplicable dread, unforeseen tragedy, and sudden moments of grace.

A drunken graduate student hurtles cheerfully through a snowstorm to rescue a fiancee who no longer wants him. A hospital maintenance worker makes a perverse bid for his place in the sunlight of celebrity. A man and a woman who have lost their only child cling fiercely to the one thing they have left of her--their grief. Lit by the quiet lightning of Baxter's prose, Through the Safety Net is filled with rare artistry and feeling.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1985

About the author

Charles Baxter was born in Minneapolis and graduated from Macalester College, in Saint Paul. After completing graduate work in English at the State University of New York at Buffalo, he taught for several years at Wayne State University in Detroit. In 1989, he moved to the Department of English at the University of Michigan--Ann Arbor and its MFA program. He now teaches at the University of Minnesota.

Baxter is the author of 4 novels, 4 collections of short stories, 3 collections of poems, a collection of essays on fiction and is the editor of other works. His works of fiction include Believers , The Feast of Love (nominated for the National Book Award), Saul and Patsy , and Through the Safety Net . He lives in Minneapolis.

Reviews

[Gabriel Congdon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best collection of short stories I’ve read in a bit.


Man, between the years of about 85’ to 97, the short story form was on fire. This is the era of Deborah Isenberg, Lorrie Moore, Thomas McGuane, and now this guy. These are some of my favorite writers. Plus other people I haven’t read like Tobias Wolff and Alice Munro. It was like during the literary magazine last gasp of air the short story reached its highest pitch.

I’d talk about the book but I have somewhere else to be.

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of stories at their best when they're immediate and when characters are interacting. At their weakest, slowest, when at a distance.

Highlights: a pushy, jilted ex hounds a woman in "Stained Glass"; "Winter Journey" is perhaps the best drunk-driving story I've ever read and an altogether great read; "Saul and Patsy Are Getting Comfortable in Michigan" follows a young couple who take up life in rural Michigan (Saul's voice is great); a couple deals with a lost child in "Surprised By Joy"; interesting presentation of a young child's daily doings in "Talk Show"; a man retires and takes up painting in "Cataract"; and a psychic predicts nonspecific doom for a young family in the title story.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Through the Safety Net: Stories by Charles Baxter is one of his most brilliant short story collections. People who have read my other reviews are probably tired of my raving about Baxter's craftsmanship, warmth, and focus so I will try to restrain myself as well as keep my comparisons to Chekhov to a minimum.

But if you read only one book by Baxter, I suggest this be the one.

And I don't mind if you hold me responsible if you can't stop after finishing it!

[Nikki · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is my favorite collections of short-stories. i don't know why i love it so much. his characters are well developed and you feel as though you have a novel-length relationship with them even if it is a short. he's kinda a cult classic too, with the Saul and Patsy stuff. and i like that about him. i like it that he draws in weird fanatics.

[rhiannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

might not always do it for you, but it’s enough for me. truly lovely.

[Matthew Sun · Rating 3 out of 5]

what differentiates good stories with no plot from bad stories with no plot? this collection will not tell you the answer!

[Lily Farr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paints a beautiful picture of 1980s midwestern suburbia and all of its woes

[Mpho3 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Minnesotan Michigander Baxter is often lauded for his ear for dialogue, but when asked in an interview with The Atlantics's Ryan Nally to supply his 'philosophy of the short story', Baxter offered, "It's not a philosophy but rather a set of instincts or rules of thumb that I can depend on. One of them is that when I'm writing a short story I like to throw characters together into situations that create stress so that as the story goes forward, something in the situation or the characters is forced to reveal itself. I put characters under stress until something rises to the surface. Some hidden thing or beautiful action or enactment of desire or frustration. I try to get these things working fairly fast."

I found this to be true, especially in those stories I found most, "Surprised by Joy" about a grieving couple and "Talk Show," about a difficult time in a family's life through the viewpoint of a child old. "Stained Glass" and "Media Event" are shockingly relevant (damned near prescient given that the collection was published in 1985). I found both near perfect but for their endings, while "Through the Safety Net" surpassed itself because of its flawless and unexpectedly frightening ending.

Stained Glass 4.5
Winter Journey 4
Saul and Patsy Are Getting Comfortable in Michigan 4
Media Event 4.5
Surprised by Joy 5
Talk Show 5
Cataract 4
The Eleventh Floor 3.5
Gryphon 4
Through the Safety Net 4.5
A Late Sunday Afternoon by the Huron 4

[Paul Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written book of short stories about relationships and the human condition. Not sure that the title was well chosen, these aren't stories about the forgotten per se, but definitely snapshots of everyday relationships.

My favorite, "Saul and Patsy Getting Comfortable in Michigan", which Baxter later turns into a full novel, is about a couple who ends up in mid Michigan (Saginaw), where the husband teaches high school and Patsy works part time at Rexall. They had hoped to be in Boston or Chicago, however, they learn to enjoy central Michigan and what Saul refers to as people's "indifference" to one's position in life, something that his mother in Baltimore abhors, but many would call friendly and non-judgemental. I also enjoyed "Winter Journey", about a PhD student who can't finish and can't tie the knot, "Surprised by Joy", a couple's fight and partial release from the depression of loosing a child, "Cataract", a retired couple see things differently, and "The Eleventh Floor", where a middle aged widower lives without his grown children but with a certain (eleventh floor) perspective on life.

Good writing. Looking forward to reading one of his full novels.

[Anto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy buen cuentista, los relatos que más me marcaron fueron "Sal y Patsy comienzan a sentirse a gusto en Michigan" por la dinámica divertida de la pareja, "Undécimo piso" por la soledad y el sentimiento de extrañeza que transmite; y mi favorito, que de hecho es el ultimo: "Atardecer de domingo junto al río Hurón" el cual logró captar a la perfección la tranquilidad de un domingo y lo que uno, a veces, piensa y se pregunta sobre la vida de cada persona y qué razón los llevó a estar ahí.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent most of this month lingering over these short stories, some of which entered my bloodstream and are now a part of me.

[Dana Jerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Opens and closes (bookended) by some cool stories with some blah in the middle.

[Randi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting set of short stories.

[Rocko · Rating 5 out of 5]

The short story namesake of the this collection dazzles and hits notes of eerie and surprise. The story Gryphon has me reread in my it repeatedly, soaking in the substitute teachers lessons.

[Aviad Eilam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stories too humdrum—even when the subject matter is anything but—to leave enough of an impression.

[Empress · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some reason I have the feeling that I should not like Charles Baxter, perhaps because I find his writing so likeable, and I have the ridiculous notion that I should have to work harder to like someone's writing, or perhaps it's because I have been influenced by other's reviews of his work, and I want to be irritated by it, but I am not, I actually really enjoy what of his I have read so far (except The Soul Thief.)
Yes, it's true that he often uses ridiculous and unbelievable names for his characters and he does have an annoying (and somewhat creepy) young-quirky-girl fetish & tortured old intellectual fixation, but I still like him. There, I said it. I like him. I may even like him a lot. I don't know, maybe it's the Michigan in me, all three months of it.

Anyways, four stars for this collection, and five for a couple of the individual stories, particularly Cataract and Surprised By Joy.

Overall, a strong collection of stories themed by loss, disillusionment, danger, and the occasional peripheral bird.

I must say that I do appreciate that Baxter knows his botanics, and ornithology for that matter.

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Baxter's second book, full of tender and elliptical and bizarre moments and some extremely funny ones. It's obviously an early work ("Stained Glass," which starts out very amusing, ends on a note that I think was overly cynical; "Media Event" is kind of Delillo-esque, which isn't where Baxter's strengths lie), but some of the stories suggest the talent that was fulfilled in his later collections and novels. "Gryphon" and "Talk Show," both about children, are both amusing and memorable, as is "Saul and Patsy Are Getting Comfortable in Michigan," which he later reworked into an amusing and memorable novel full of compassion and insight. These stories, "Cataract," and "A Late Sunday Afternoon by the Huron" all suggest that Baxter would become a master of the magical humdrumist genre, in which nothing magical per se ever happens, but all the minutia of everyday life appear to be bursting with the possibility of transformation.

[Sanam · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the most part, a great collection about for the most part, sad, married people. My favorites are "Surprised by Joy" and "The Eleventh Floor." There's something I really love about the last paragraph of "Surprised by Joy":

"She looked at him. In the midst of the sunlight he was hugging his darkness. She stepped down the zigzag path to the car leaving him there, but he followed her. Once they were both in the car, the dog inside the ranch house began its frantic barking, but it stopped after a few seconds. She took Jeremy's hand and scanned the clouds in the west, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east, trying to see the sky, the beckoning clouds, the way he did, but she couldn't. All she could see was the land stretched out in front of her, and, in the far distance, all fifty miles away, a few thunderheads and a narrow curtain of rain, so thin that the light passed straight through it."

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Baxter's stories are absolutely jammed with imagination. They're just so bizarre that they're enthralling. I do love the way he handles child characters in "Talk Show" and "Gryphon." I love how "Talk Show" centers around Louie's toys as the death of his grandmother unfolds in the adults around him. It is a wonderful way to have a child report this. "Gryphon" is particularly interesting as well. I like how Baxter uses the "I later learned" to shift perspective briefly to be able to bring in elements that the child narrator cannot understand at that point in time. Good way to handle it but still stay mostly in the child perspective. Odd, in a good way, that the imaginative elements in the story come from an adult substitute teacher rather than the children. Interesting and refreshing.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a big fan of the two novels I've read by Charles Baxter, I was excited to read his short stories, and they did not disappoint me. Though less plot driven than his longer fiction, these tidy ruminations on Midwestern life rang very true to this MIchigan man. His range of narrators is impressive, as he deftly shifts from a confused little boy dealing with his grandmother's seat to a fame-obsessed geek, just to name two. And the brief title story is brilliant, evoking the mood and paranoia of our current cultural moment in just four pages. I highly recommend this to fans of the short story.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the risk of gushing, Charles Baxter is one of the greatest short story writers in America. Everything about these slight-at-first-glance stories is close to perfect: language, pacing, even the order in which the stories appear.

I'm deeply grateful for Baxter, and will be buying this collection... they're utterly re-readable stories. I hope everyone who loves to read will read this collection.

[Dani · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the stories in the beginning and then for whatever reason they were not as interesting so I put this book aside. The were fine stories but they didn't make me thing and perhaps were a bit expected. Well I picked the book up again to finish and I enjoyed the last few stories more than I thought I would. I liked the last story which was a ode to Sunday. Overall it was a nice read but did not standout. Perhaps I need to reread the stories since so many loved this book ....

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

They're all unique short stories yet all have Baxter's distinct voice. The last one is my favorite. It's metafictional (ooh a multisyllabic word!) I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have Charles Baxter write about me. If he asked me for permission to be a character in a story, I'd give it to him. Even though he'd have to write about the ugly stuff, I'd trust him to get the good stuff too. He'd be accurate. I sound like I'm in love with him.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Stained Glass", "Saul and Patsy...", "The Eleventh Floor", "Gryphon", and the title story were all really strong pieces that held humor and discomfort side by side. Talk show is quite good for those interested in writing children in stories.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Winter Journey" was a stand-out. Recounts a sad night of calm and detached inebriation and divinely assisted car ride to collect an estranged significant other. Hyper-realistic AND uncanny, with cut-a-way, on the verge of something, gong-like endings.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm always looking for new short stories to like, and I don't even know why I picked this up, but I loved it. Baxter is like the 80s version of Cheever. Great stories, excellent writing. Gave me a lot to think about while delighting me with imagery.

[Richard Jespers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great but often quiet stories. The last one is narrated by a man in a park who is watching everyone there. He says, “There is no story here,” but that’s the story: the bucolic but eventful afternoon in the park.

[Aileen · Rating 4 out of 5]

great modern day short story teller.

[Molly · Rating 1 out of 5]

Charles Baxter, I don't believe you or your characters. You grate on me. Oh how you grate.

[Tim Lepczyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just remember some really good stories in this collection.