The Sunnier Side: Arcadian Tales

by Charles Jackson

Book by Jackson, Charles

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, American, Literature

Paperback

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. Not all books on this page belong to the same author.

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I happened upon this 12-story collection by chance, noticing that a book-eating facebook friend had read it and was impressed. Charles Jackson is a name I mainly knew in connection with his 1940 autobiographical novel about alcoholism, 'The Lost Weekend' (which I haven't read) - made into an Oscar-winning film (which I've seen); somewhat infamous for excising the direct connection between Jackson's drinking and his inner conflict regarding his feelings for men. 

(Jackson would ultimately identify as bisexual - apparently maintaining good relations with his wife and daughters when he finally moved in with his male lover. Not that that made life any easier for him; he would return to being a slave to pills and alcohol. But it does seem to put him in wayward company with Patrick Dennis - minus the humor - and John Cheever - minus the infatuation with the upper-middle class.) 

Somewhat in 'response', perhaps, to works like Henry Bellamann's 'Kings Row' and Edgar Lee Masters' 'Spoon River Anthology', 'The Sunnier Side' puts smalltown-life under the microscope in order to highlight its underbelly. However, being set in the unique mentality of New York, its angst-level appears less chronic than Bellamann's Missouri, Masters' Illinois or even the New Hampshire of Grace Metalious' 'Peyton Place'. 

Still... there's something robotic - and even 'Stepford Wives' - running through Jackson's depiction of everyday folk. People in the town of Arcadia (standing in for where Jackson grew up) are clearly ruled by convention and 'What would people think?, or say?'

This is revealed in the opening story which gives the collection its title. The story opens with a fan letter from a reader praising 'Tenting Tonight' (included in the volume) as a "clean & delightful short story". The fan goes on to 'chastise' Jackson for how he writes elsewhere:

it does sometimes seem a pity that a man with your gifts should dwell so much on the morbid & sordid, neglecting the sunnier side aforementioned & the wholesome.

Jackson's response to the letter is lengthy. He takes pains (with specific illustrations re: surface respectability) in respectfully pointing out that the fan's perspective on humanity is rose-tinted. It's an admirable and fascinating takedown. 

Seen as a whole, the remainder of the volume is a sequential overview of the years Jackson spent growing up in his family. The result is a bit myopic, as the emphasis (not always direct) is on things both sensual and sexual; the hold of existing in a physical form that we simply can't comprehend. 

That reality is brought most explosively forward in both 'Palm Sunday' (exhibiting the volume's best construction), in which Jackson and a sibling telepathically share the 'experience' they had with the town's choirmaster (why is it always the choirmaster?!) - and 'The Benighted Savage', which has Jackson's father, out of the gate, walking in on and becoming infuriated by his son's act of masturbation:

"Don't you know what you're doing to yourself! You'll be stunted, finished, an idiot in the crazy house, with ruined health, dead! Feeble-minded, with tuberculosis of the spine or paresis or something!"

Fairly hilarious... and mind-boggling in its cluelessness. (It's no real surprise, later, when Dad ultimately - but mysteriously - disappears from the family.)

Jackson rises above himself when he effectively explores larger issues: the effect of WWI on the town and its two isolated German residents ('How War Came to Arcadia, N.Y.'); the sudden appearance of a sadly neglected / abused uncle ('A Night Visitor'); Jackson's love of language and the world of newspaper publishing ('Sophistication'); and the untimely death of an older sister ('Rachel's Summer'). 

Bottom line: These aren't bad stories. The writing is engaging and flows smoothly. In terms of what he actually published, the writer's output was meager. Jackson is decidedly but not all that justifiably obscure. He had talent - as well as overwhelming personal issues that perhaps only his biographer was able to illuminate. 

NOTE: I read the original publication; not the more-recent reissue, which substitutes a few stories for others.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the first inclusion in this collection, titled the same as the entire work, Jackson writes, "...by identification alone, the novelist has made us realize something about ourselves, which, under the same circumstances in real life, would not have occurred to us: we would have behaved no better than anybody else." Throughout my experience with The Sunnier Side, I did find myself identifying with most of the stories, minimally with some, widely with others. With some of the stories, I saw, in my mind's eye, people I know or have known. With some, I saw myself so clearly that I was taken aback. Essentially, I believe that Jackson achieved his intention of leading readers to look within and question ourselves.

While I may have inwardly shook my head in judgement at a character, upon further reflection, I found that it was more appropriate for me to judge myself. His stories are disturbing in this sense; they led me to question and even, at times, to feel shocked at how shallow my unmeditated view of the world can be. One of the great flaws of humanity is our quickness to condemn others for that which we are no better. Bravo, Jackson. Your stories have given me the opportunity to recognize a weakness within me, and, by way of this recognition, I hope that I've taken a step toward becoming a more objective person. I recommend this collection to all and look forward to moving on to his novel The Lost Weekend.

[Heronimo Gieronymus · Rating 4 out of 5]

As is certainly typical, my introduction to Charles Jackson was by way of THE LOST WEEKEND, his devastating autobiographical novel about the mire of alcoholism. As is not doubt also typical, I came to the novel many years after seeing Billy Wilder's beloved Hollywood adaptation numerous times. It was the writer Nick Tosches who hipped me to the fact that Wilder's film woefully neuters Jackson's novel, altering it to the point of unrecognizability, making it palatable for the sensitive normies to whom popular cinema must make its concessions. So I went and I damn well read it. Well, Christ, indeed! I am a recovering alcoholic myself - a "low bottom drunk" in recovery parlance - and nothing I had read before Jackson's novel had found anything near-like the evocative and poetic dexterity to artfully encapsulate the harrowing ordeal that was my life in active addiction in a manner what edifies. THE LOST WEEKEND is one of the great novels of the 20th century. It will be intriguing to many like myself who responded to THE LOST WEEKEND similarly to how I responded to it, that THE SUNNIER SIDE, Jackson's subsequent collection of short stories, primarily focuses on the small town New York childhood of Don Birnam, the same alter ego protagonist of the earlier aforementioned novel. This sense of continuity or through-line is probably the principal draw of THE SUNNIER SIDE, which is otherwise a somewhat typical Sherwood Anderson-inspired collection of not-quite-idyllic-but-nonetheless-kinda-idyllic reminiscences. But don't get me wrong: the strong stuff here can be piercing and wise, it's just that there are definitely longueurs ("The Break" is especially lame). For a book published in 1950 and reflecting life in the early 20th century, THE SUNNIER SIDE is definitely a little forward-thinking. One critic at the time, as Blake Bailey's introduction informs us, referred to it as THE SEAMIER SIDE. We cover a lot of ground: pedophilia, homosexuality, masturbation, adultery, the specter of teen pregnancy etc. Jackson discusses all these matters in as indirect and tasteful a manner as possible, keeping things exceedingly roundabout; an instance of inconvenient (actually convenient) menstruation is so vaguely established we risk having no idea what the issue is. This is a curious collection, as Blake Bailey has not only offered us an introduction but is also performing a somewhat odd act of editorial curation. You see, Charles Jackson did indeed publish a book called THE SUNNIER SIDE and we do indeed get most of it. However, two stories Bailey thinks are weak (and suspects Jackson also thought were weak) have been excised, w/ two stories that were published subsequent to the original THE SUNNIER SIDE subbed in. While this may seem somewhat dubious, it is imperative to mention that the second strongest piece in the collection (and a very, very, very strong piece it is) is the last one, ''The Boy Who Ran Away," one of the subs. This is the piece where Jackson really excavates the darkest depths of resentment, self-pity, and inward loathing so germane to the toxic spiritual state of the alcoholic. It is a devastating piece that captures a dire state (or a version thereof) I know only too well, and the piece that is most clearly by the same man who wrote THE LOST WEEKEND. As for the strongest piece in the collection! Oh boy. The eponymous story. Story? Essay? Both, I guess. It opens the book and is one of the finest things I have ever read. Everyone should be made to read it; especially those who write or aspire to write fiction. I don't really feel like I need to say more about it than that. It is utterly superlative. It cannot help but make some of the more meager pieces that follow seem quite slight indeed. Slices of life are not perhaps conducive to comparable demonstrations of artistic and intellectual virtuosity. Certainly not as consistently evinced here.

[Blane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent collection of Jackson's mid-(20th) century short stories that rip away the wafer-thin veneer of "normalcy" identified with small town American life. The inhabitants of Arcadia, New York stumble through their lives in search of...something...but never seem to find it.