I’ve always preferred novels to short stories, the longer the better especially for my beloved science fiction/fanstasy tomes. I always thought that short stories were exactly that, too short. Just when you were getting into the story, it came to an end. With time however, the major life style changes took place and there are a few more constraints on my reading time. Short story collections now seem more and more apt for the harried times we live in. More than that, I’ve discovered that the beauty and strength of a short story lies in its ability to contain within its frame the entirety of a story. What limits its form is also its greatest strength. It’s a beautiful paradox which requires a genuinely skilled writer to bring to fruition. And there’s no shortage of great short story writers around, Grace Paley and Alice Munro are but two examples that come to mind. A recent discovery of mine is Amy Bloom, whom I first read through her breakthrough novel Away. As I really liked Away, I was a bit hesitant to start with her short stories for fear of being disappointed. Fortunately, Amy proved to be every bit formidable in short story form as with the novel.
I decided to start with her debut collection appropriate titled Come to Me. The running theme through this collection is love, in all its forms and all the ways by which we seek, destroy and nurture love. But this is by no means a fairy tale collection of maidens and princes with their happy ever after stories. Instead we have stories of flawed people struggling with death (Love is not a Pie, Sleepwalking and Semper Fidelis), madness and illness (Silver Water) and loneliness (Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines and When the Year Grows Old). As I was reading these stories, I marveled at Amy’s skill of making potentially unpalatable stories, more palatable, beguiling even, in their twisted sort of way.
What leavens the potential for despair in her stories is the palpable sense of hope that permeates these stories and the rich empathy with which Bloom writes their tales. In this day and age where a true happy ending begins to seem like a myth, Bloom offers us stories of the next best thing—the possibility of happiness and that all important second chance.
I decided to start with her debut collection appropriate titled Come to Me. The running theme through this collection is love, in all its forms and all the ways by which we seek, destroy and nurture love. But this is by no means a fairy tale collection of maidens and princes with their happy ever after stories. Instead we have stories of flawed people struggling with death (Love is not a Pie, Sleepwalking and Semper Fidelis), madness and illness (Silver Water) and loneliness (Light Breaks Where No Sun Shines and When the Year Grows Old). As I was reading these stories, I marveled at Amy’s skill of making potentially unpalatable stories, more palatable, beguiling even, in their twisted sort of way.
What leavens the potential for despair in her stories is the palpable sense of hope that permeates these stories and the rich empathy with which Bloom writes their tales. In this day and age where a true happy ending begins to seem like a myth, Bloom offers us stories of the next best thing—the possibility of happiness and that all important second chance.
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