The Murphy Stories

by Mark Costello

.....

120 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1973

About the author

Mark Costello, a native of Decatur, Illinois, is the author of the story collections The Murphy Stories (University of Illinois Press, 1973), which won the St. Lawrence Award for Short Fiction, and Middle Murphy (University of Illinois Press, 1991). The Murphy Stories has received praise and one of its stories, Murphy's Xmas was anthologized in several collections.

Reviews

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was thoroughly impressed by Mark Costello's 1973 story collection The Murphy Stories. The stories all center on Murphy, a middling Midwest academic with a troubled personal life. Costello's descriptions of Murphy's unhappy marriage and empty affairs alternate between harrowing and relentlessly sad, so much so that, given the general similarities between Costello and Murphy, I truly hope for the writer's sake that these stories aren't overly autobiographical.

Although the well-anthologized "Murphy's Xmas" is probably the best known story here, I think the strongest is the first, "Callahan's Black Cadillacs", which shows Murphy (unnamed, yet clearly the same protagonist as the later stories) during his difficult midcentury childhood, when his only adult role models are his Republican bureaucrat father (who devotes far more attention to getting political jobs for locals than minding his own family), pious Great Aunt Hatt (who becomes his foster mother after his parents temporarily move to Chicago for his father's wartime job) and boozy vagrant Uncle Mort, all of whom provide less-than-ideal influences on young Murphy and set the stage for the unhappiness of his adult life, as depicted so convincingly in the later stories.

Costello hasn't been widely published, with just two story collections to his name, which is presumably the result of his focus on teaching creative writing, primarily at my alma mater, the University of Illinois (where I happened to hear him give a reading in the mid 1980s). Based on the strength of The Murphy Stories, I'd say his students' gain is clearly the reading public's loss, as I'd really love to see much more of his work than what's out there. Then again, writing stories as emotionally wrenching as these has to be hard on the writer, so maybe he's personally better off for not having written more than he has.

[Phil reading_fastandslow · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Out of World War Il he swings, flat, flatulent, hemorrhoidal, hyperbolic, sleepy, lazy, squat, penniless, hypertense. My sense of him is dazzled, Pauline, hysterical. Looming before me, he yawns, stretches, thumps me on the head. God is dead, he says and falls back on his bed.

His bed is broad, sour, universal, uterine, vertiginous, pitiless, plenary, profound. He sleeps in attics, basements, hallways, hammocks, tree houses, parks, coal bins, beer trucks, movie houses and in the back of Singer Sewing Machine trucks. Yawning and slamming the door of a Singer Sewing Machine truck, he curls up in the back of it, his sleep a glue in which he rocks jobless, comatose and fugitive, waking in the middle of the afternoon to halitosis, pyorrhea, dandruff, psoriasis, ringworm, anal itch, all of the diseases of sloth, escape, immobility, his sleep a funk, a gunk of which my scolding, optimistic mother would love to cleanse him.”

This compendium edited by Andre Dubus II (nearly forgotten himself) is bursting with criminally out of print authors. One of the first that compelled me to track down their own story collection was Mark Costello, an intricate self-deprecating, irreverent prose stylist in the vein of William Gass.

[Clara · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been hearing people talk about this book for years, telling me I've got to read it. What makes it strange is that these aren't people I usually think of as readers, though of course they read. They are more, I don't know, bohemian than bookish, usually, but I figured, well, people can tell you the same thing for only so long before you've finally got to do something about it. So I tracked down a copy of _The Murphy Stories_ and read it, and it was more or less what you'd expect, somewhat more bohemian than bookish, but still pretty entertaining.

For my money, there are two cycles of stories here, those where the narrator is young and the focus is on ethnicity, the kind of twin poles of irish respectability and lushitude, anarchic vitality. These stories, too, are pretty lyrical-- Costello is a writer not afraid to write flashy sentences, with long multipart parallel predicates, and he indulges that fully here, especially in the first couple stories about an uncle and aunt of the narrator.

The Murphy stories proper feature an adult narrator who may or may not be the grown-up version of the same from the earlier stories, as he struggle with marriage and drink. These stories are less lyrical, though they are structurally inventive, the way that "Murphy Agonistes" incorporates poetry or the strange dreams and whimsies that inflect the other stories. They are good, though there's not much here that you haven't seen before. If the first stories are in the key of Brautigan, these maybe owe more to Kerouac, with a side of Yates.

I'm not sure this book was as novel to me as to some of those who recommended it, honestly. But I liked it, and I think there's a lot here to admire. The story "Strong is Your Hold O Love," which I'd consider a Murphy story, or at least a proto-version of the same, shows remarkable restraint in an era where we are still, apparently, drawing lines between legitimate rape and otherwise. Even though a later story is titled "Murphy's Misogyny," this story, and the others in this book, actually seem pretty hip, in a real way, to the way the narrator's behavior casts a heavy shadow over the lives of the women he interacts with. It's particular to this moment that "Strong is Your Hold" leapt out at me, but it did, and I figure that makes it worth a mention.

[J. Carroll · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh Mark Costello. Your 1970s Murphys Xmas fell out of the cannon in the slick currents of Dexamyl and fatigue, shot to smithereens by a style that now seems as dated as Harvest Gold appliances. Your characters are a teeny bit more likable than Ray Carver's, but you didn't have his range. I really do enjoy this collection, even though I put you on the same shelf with Mark Richard and Harry Crews and Thom Jones. I wish you'd written more all the same, since this one has the grease of the Iowa Writers' Workshop (c.1970) soaking though the paper. Andre Dubus you ain't.

[Mike Polizzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow- savage, breathless, enthralling writing. Even amidst Costello's stylizations there's a lucidity that pulls the reader through, in part from the rhythms built by his ravishing sentences, in part from the apt application of the style. Expressionism breaks into realism, and suits the heart breaking toughness and fragility of his characters.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great forgotten book, a cult favorite -- why haven't more people read this? Very Bruno Schulz. A writers' writer. Probably out of print.

[laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uncle Mort: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
* Reading ‘Teresa’ on the dedication page, I thought that was sweet. Huge pivot to a story dedicated to consistently describing the gross grossness of Uncle Mort
* The way he describes things (ex. who is almost too perfect for the purposes of aunt hatts worry) i loved

Punch & Judy: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
* I was put off by the first page and then consumed by the rest
* The way Costello writes about them fighting through their fathers, the pain playing out as if thats all his marriage has become felt so sad and honest.
* The husband frames the telling of his wife’s past, that her father left ‘his wife’, felt distinct, caring, and revealing of how one can take on the experience of someone you love as if whatever trauma they’ve endured has happened to you
* The paper-bag hyperventilating-garbage evoked such strong visuals for me, her trying to navigate her own shit was triggering his own to the point she was inhaling it. Their worsts were feeding/comforting eachother
* Him also writing with subtle metaphors while infrequently dropping ‘fuck’ ‘shit’ got me.

Strong is your Hold O Love
* This felt violent to read. It felt awful to read. And all too real.

I didnt take notes for the rest of the stories. They overall were abusive and sad and honest. They way he wrote was compelling, but the subject matter felt wrong. I’m not sure about this one.

[Ruben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stories that deal with the dark human nature of the character. I was honored to have taken a class taught by Professor Costello at U of I, he was on of my great professors who certainly shaped how I wrote short stories.

[Nicholas · Rating 5 out of 5]

stylistically one of the most unique and best. very heavy, very beautiful! fave story is murphy's xmas. highly rec