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Hunger and Other Stories
In his first collection of short stories, Wilson's characters are driven by a intense yearning for satisfaction of the most basic human desires. These are stories of fathers and sons who cannot get along, of impossible family gatherings where no one measures up, of intensely sexual relationships gone bad, and of the devastation of drugs.
200 pages, Paperback
First published June 15, 2000
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September 3, 2019
Lean and vivid as first love
Mama don't let your babies grow up to be short story writers. They'll sleep in the streets and eat out of the back door of the Ding How Chinese restaurant. They'll face enough frustration to try the patience of Job and enough rejection to make them scream hot tears.
You've got to suffer to be a real writer of tales, and you've got to identify and empathize with people estranged from the good things in life, and you've got to get it all down on the hard drive in a manner both economical and poetic. And you have to polish and squeeze those words until there is nothing extraneous, and make the finished product look as spontaneous and natural as a first draft. It helps to have a way with words and a gift for spinning a yarn, a keen ear and eye and a BS detector to envy the one Hemingway fancied he carried around. Having all this going for you--and Wilson does--you might, just might get a story published in a lit mag once or twice a year, and maybe once in blue moon, somebody at Esquire or The Atlantic Monthly or The New Yorker might write you a line saying two or three positive words about your work before the inevitable, "...but not quite right for us."
The first story, "A Wire Man" is about a man who still flinches at the sight of his father, a self-made, pip-squeak patriarch, a taciturn, hard as steel, entrepreneur full of prejudice. So, the wire man, divorced by his wife and separated from his son, whom he sees on alternate weekends, sets out on his own to establish a business to prove his worth to himself and the man with a strap, but runs into overload, overwork and the snapping of hungry creditors at his heels. It is a story well-wrought, a little too precious in spots, a story with the good and bad guys perhaps too clearly delineated., and it panders some to the lit mag mentality that demands that the ill, the infirm, the old, the rural or the urban underclass be celebrated, but displays a firm sense of story and a fine resolution.
The second story, the title story, is terrific. It is a tale of a man who yearns for love but finds only sex until he spirals down into the love of the lost. It is told with energy, verve, passion, and some cunning, highlighted by a fine turn and a resolution that surprises but is just right. Wilson lets himself go here in "Hunger" and he flies, but his hand is always on the throttle, a pinkie on the wheel, everything balanced and under control, or nearly so--which of course is just right. The hunger is terrific and the prose lean and vivid as first love. A man might write only one such story in his lifetime, but having done so, he is redeemed. Incidentally there is a kind of pleasant and curious critical reflection on page 35 about the previous story, a kind of novelistic streaming together that I think may have been unconscious, the artist weaving his signature.
The next story, "Thanksgiving" is about a man's grandfather who is fading away, the founder of a bra-manufacturing company, a man who knows something the grandson needs to learn, and must before the man dies. It is a beautiful story, philosophically and emotionally satisfying, told in a lyrical style as with a movie camera.
The story, "I'm Invisible. I'm safe. I'm magic.," about a violinist is perhaps the most deeply felt. I know it is the one that moved me the most. It offers insight into how a violinist might think, what he might make of the world of contact sport and rock and roll. It is a sad story about a man who practiced too much, who lived too little, a man who knew not himself, not his son, not his wife. It is beautifully rendered, the exposition coming like layers of strata built up over time.
I'll stop here and observe that this is a fine collection, and that Wilson has a delicate sense of character, a firm grip on story, and an ability to surprise us and make us feel that everything fits. His style is graceful and poetic without being mannered or self-indulgent. By the way, "Hunger" was the title of a novel by the great Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun published early in the twentieth century. And of course Kafka wrote a story called, "The Hunger Artist." Hunger of the spirit and the psyche is an emotion well-known to writers. It drives our souls.
--Dennis Littrell, author of the sensational mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”
Mama don't let your babies grow up to be short story writers. They'll sleep in the streets and eat out of the back door of the Ding How Chinese restaurant. They'll face enough frustration to try the patience of Job and enough rejection to make them scream hot tears.
You've got to suffer to be a real writer of tales, and you've got to identify and empathize with people estranged from the good things in life, and you've got to get it all down on the hard drive in a manner both economical and poetic. And you have to polish and squeeze those words until there is nothing extraneous, and make the finished product look as spontaneous and natural as a first draft. It helps to have a way with words and a gift for spinning a yarn, a keen ear and eye and a BS detector to envy the one Hemingway fancied he carried around. Having all this going for you--and Wilson does--you might, just might get a story published in a lit mag once or twice a year, and maybe once in blue moon, somebody at Esquire or The Atlantic Monthly or The New Yorker might write you a line saying two or three positive words about your work before the inevitable, "...but not quite right for us."
The first story, "A Wire Man" is about a man who still flinches at the sight of his father, a self-made, pip-squeak patriarch, a taciturn, hard as steel, entrepreneur full of prejudice. So, the wire man, divorced by his wife and separated from his son, whom he sees on alternate weekends, sets out on his own to establish a business to prove his worth to himself and the man with a strap, but runs into overload, overwork and the snapping of hungry creditors at his heels. It is a story well-wrought, a little too precious in spots, a story with the good and bad guys perhaps too clearly delineated., and it panders some to the lit mag mentality that demands that the ill, the infirm, the old, the rural or the urban underclass be celebrated, but displays a firm sense of story and a fine resolution.
The second story, the title story, is terrific. It is a tale of a man who yearns for love but finds only sex until he spirals down into the love of the lost. It is told with energy, verve, passion, and some cunning, highlighted by a fine turn and a resolution that surprises but is just right. Wilson lets himself go here in "Hunger" and he flies, but his hand is always on the throttle, a pinkie on the wheel, everything balanced and under control, or nearly so--which of course is just right. The hunger is terrific and the prose lean and vivid as first love. A man might write only one such story in his lifetime, but having done so, he is redeemed. Incidentally there is a kind of pleasant and curious critical reflection on page 35 about the previous story, a kind of novelistic streaming together that I think may have been unconscious, the artist weaving his signature.
The next story, "Thanksgiving" is about a man's grandfather who is fading away, the founder of a bra-manufacturing company, a man who knows something the grandson needs to learn, and must before the man dies. It is a beautiful story, philosophically and emotionally satisfying, told in a lyrical style as with a movie camera.
The story, "I'm Invisible. I'm safe. I'm magic.," about a violinist is perhaps the most deeply felt. I know it is the one that moved me the most. It offers insight into how a violinist might think, what he might make of the world of contact sport and rock and roll. It is a sad story about a man who practiced too much, who lived too little, a man who knew not himself, not his son, not his wife. It is beautifully rendered, the exposition coming like layers of strata built up over time.
I'll stop here and observe that this is a fine collection, and that Wilson has a delicate sense of character, a firm grip on story, and an ability to surprise us and make us feel that everything fits. His style is graceful and poetic without being mannered or self-indulgent. By the way, "Hunger" was the title of a novel by the great Norwegian writer Knut Hamsun published early in the twentieth century. And of course Kafka wrote a story called, "The Hunger Artist." Hunger of the spirit and the psyche is an emotion well-known to writers. It drives our souls.
--Dennis Littrell, author of the sensational mystery novel, “Teddy and Teri”
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review