Ploughshares Fall 1995: Living Rooms

by Ann Beattie (Editor)

journal

254 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 1995

About the author

Ann Beattie (born September 8, 1947) is an American short story writer and novelist. She has received an award for excellence from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a PEN/Bernard Malamud Award for excellence in the short story form. Her work has been compared to that of Alice Adams, J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, and John Updike. She holds an undergraduate degree from American University and a masters degree from the University of Connecticut.

Reviews

[M]

This anthology collection focuses on the actual spaces occupied by the characters, breathing a life and semblance into the spaces we occupy - and often seem to not notice - in our daily existence. A "shotgun" wedding brings two different families together in Caroline Langston's story, while a cave trek helps highlight a couple's age differences in Frederick Barthelme's tale. The creepy kid at summer camp gains a following thanks to writer Steven Rinehart; a docotr willingly allows his patient to seduce him in his office, thanks to Tom Jenks. Devon Jersild explores a local neighborhood through the eyes of the egg-throwing pranksters, and Tony Ephrile allows the real Mr. Hyde to narrate a tale of bargaining woe. Marc Vassallo's teenaged protagonist uncovers the trophy room of his three-legged grandfather during on summer, James Lilliefors send his newspaper man to a new city to connect with the office belle, and David Wiegand selects a San Francisco art gallery to host a doomed love between gay men. A painter's apprentice seeks to learn about her parents from her tutor , according to Laura Furman; William Henry Lewis introduces an African-American boy to his father for the first time at a local gathering. Paul Brodeur's man must deal with the aftermath of relationships following an island car wreck, Ray Isle sends a couple up against depression during a drunken holiday party, and Leslee Becker uses a mock advertisement to set up a cattle rancher with an out-of-town date on his 50th birthday. A home barbershop becomes a scene of familial frustration in Tess Gallagher's contribution, and Jessica Treadway uses a cold hockey rink to play a game of relationship "what-if" between her characters. Despite initially having to fight through the initial story, this anthology brings in some great down-home yarns. The snippets of life are true, as are the characters living them out in these chosen rooms.

[Sandy]

some interesting stories... So far, 'The Dissolution of the World' by Caroline Langston has been the most appealing... it reminds me of 'A Member of the Wedding', a beautiful classic american novel about the early twentieth century south. Can't remember the author of that one. Anyway, this story reminds me of it...
And one that takes place on the Outer Cape, 'Aftermath'. A place I know well and will forever be entwined with...

I liked 'Shades', by William Henry Lewis. There were several lines I found really extra-ordinary: pg 152:
"My mother told me he left with the rumble of the trains. She was a wise woman and spoke almost as beautifully as she sang. She spoke to me with a smooth, distant voice, as if it were the story of someone else, and it was strange to me that she might have wanted to cry at something like that but didn't, as if there were no need anymore.
"She said she lay still after he left, certain only of his sweat, the work shirt he left behind, and her body calming itself from the silent insistence of his thrusts. She lay still for at least an hour, aware of two things: feeling the semen her body wouldn't hold slowly leaving her and dripping onto the sheets, and knowing that some part of what her body did hold would fight and form itself into what became me nine months later."

Other than that... not sure I think these stories are as noteworthy as Ann Beattie seems to think... but reading them all none-the-less.