short stories

Review: The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories

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Cover image of "The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories" by Agatha Christie

The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories

The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories, Agatha Christie. William Morrow (ISBN: 9780062094391) 2012 (first published in 1997).

Summary: Nine early short stories, including a Poirot and the title story, an encounter with Harley Quin.

In addition to her longer novels, Agatha Christie published a number of short stories, often in various periodicals. In recent years publishers have compiled these into various collections. This one was first published in 1997. It consists of a number of her very early works. I’ll give you a brief plot synopsis of each and conclude with my thoughts on the collection.

The Harlequin Tea Set. In this title story, Mr. Satterthwaite’s car breaks down in a small village. While waiting for the repairs, he decides to stop in at the Harlequin Cafe. It puts him in mind of an old friend, Mr. Harley Quin. Whenever he turns up, Mr. Quin’s words would trigger decisions and actions that would prove helpful to others. But e hadn’t seen him in some time. Then who should turn up?

The Edge. Claire Halliwell is a single woman in a small town who devotes herself to her dog and to parish life. At one time, she had fallen in love with Gerald Lee, who married Vivien instead. And then Claire catches Vivien in an affair and faces the choice of what to do with that knowledge.

The Actress. Jake Levitt, a seedy journalist, stops by the theare to see a performance of the famous actress, Olga Stormer. He recognizes her as Nancy Taylor and threatens to tell her story. Only he doesn’t recognize who he is dealing with…

While the Light Lasts. George and Deidre Crozier are driving to a plantation in Rhodesia. This was were her husband Tim had died, and the journey recalls many touching memories…and then an encounter with someone she knew.

The House of Dreams. John Segrave dreams of a House. The next day he meets Allegra Kerr. He believes she is that House. But she will not encourage his affections and will not marry. What is the ark thing he saw looking out from the House in another dream? And what did it mean?

The Lonely God. Frank Oliver has returned to London, alone. One day, he visits the British Museum and spies “a lonely god” on a shelf with which he identifies. He returns often, and then encounters a woman, also drawn to this god.

Manx Gold. Fenella and Juan are cousins betrothed to marry. Their beloved and eccentric Uncle Myles dies. He had found a treasure rumored to be hidden on the island. He sets up a competition for his four living relations but gives Juan and Fenella an extra day before the others arrive to search. There are four chests, and the clues to the location of each are not released until the previous one is found.

Within a Wall. Alan Everard is a rising artist. He is married to a socialite, Isobel Loring and they have a daughter, Winnie. As a crowning work, he sets out to paint a portrait of his wife. Technically, it is brilliant, but there is no life in it. By contrast, a discarded sketch, found by a Miss Lempiere, portrays Winnie’s godmother, Jane Haworth, and is full of life.

The Mystery of the Spanish Chest. This is the one Poirot in the collection. Poirot notes a newspaper story on the Spanish Chest Mystery. The mystery is how, during a party with six people at the home of Major Rich, the body of Mr. Clayton ended up stuffed in the chest, discover the next day when a servant spotted a pool of blood beneath it. He asks his secretary to collect all the details of the case. Shortly after, his friend, Lady Chatterton invites him to her house and introduces Poirot to Mrs. Clayton, the widow. It turns out, Major Rich was her lover and she wants Poirot to prove he wasn’t the murderer, even though it was in his house and his chest.

Of all of these, “The Harlequin Tea Set” and “The Mystery of the Spanish Chest” were my favorites. The others reveal Christie’s early efforts as a writer. All are diverting stories, to be sure. Several involve lovers triangles. However, I suspect they will be of greatest interest to Christie fans, like me. Others might just say, “Meh!”

Review: The Idol House of Astarte

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Cover image of "The Idol House of Astarte" by Agatha Christie

The Idol House of Astarte (Miss Marple short stories), Agatha Christie. Open Road Integrated Media (ISBN: 9781504082297) 2024 (originally published in 1928, 1932).

Summary: Miss Marple solves a murder occurring before witnesses with no obvious assailant and no weapon found.

The Tuesday Night Club was Miss Marple’s idea of entertaining hospitality. Invite a group of guest over to share mysterious occurrences which Miss Marple would attempt to resolve. None were as unusual as the one related by Dr. Pender, the local clergy.

Years before, he was the guest at a weekend party held at the estate of an old college friend, Sir Richard Haydon. The estate is named Silent Grove for a grove of trees leading to a clearing with a summer house Sir Richard has named the Idol House of Astarte. The guests, in addition to Dr. Pender, are Sir Richard’s cousin Elliot, the beautiful Diana Ashley, to whom Sir Richard is attracted, and a Dr. Symonds.

The Idol House intrigues Diana, and she proposes, in effect, an orgy. Dr. Pender, understandably helps nix this idea and instead, they hold a much tamer costume party. During the party, Diana disappears. The guests search for her, passing through the ominous Silent Grove. They find her at the Idol House. She is wearing the dress of a priestess of Astarte. She dances before the house. A spirit seemingly has taken possession of her! She warns others away but Sir Richard approaches, then falls to the ground. Elliot rushes over, finding him dead, stabbed in the heart. But a search yield’s no weapon. And no one was around Sir Richard when he fell.

Then the police investigate, but the death proves a mystery to them. Dr. Pender even believed it may have been supernatural forces at work. But not Miss Marple! She identifies the murderer who, in fact Dr. Pender knew. The murderer subsequently confessed to Dr. Pender shortly before dying.

Christie does all this in a 25 page short story. Christie first published the story in a mystery magazine in 1928. Later, it was part of a collection, The Thirteen Problems, stories told by different members of the Tuesday Night Club. It makes a great standalone as well as a teaser to get one to buy the whole collection!

Review: Hangman’s Holiday

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Cover image "Hangman's Holiday" by Dorothy L. Sayers

Hangman’s Holiday (Lord Peter Wimsey, 9), Dorothy L. Sayers. Open Road Media (ISBN: 9781453262535) 2012 (first published in 1933).

Summary: Mysteries in short story form featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and wine merchant Montague Egg plus two other tales.

Sometimes there is something uniquely satisfying about reading a mystery in one sitting. If this is you, Hangman’s Holiday is just the thing. In this collection, Dorothy L. Sayers includes four stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, another six with the peripatetic wine merchant, Montague Egg, and two other stories.

The Lord Peter stories open the collection with a man troubled by a doppelganger and a condition in which all his organs are in reverse position. The next story takes place in Basque Spain in which Wimsey becomes involved in saving a woman thought to be bewitched. The third story occurs at a masquerade ball where quests dress as one of the face cards in a deck of playing cards. One of the guests is found strangled and Wimsey finds the killer by noticing a trick of the light. The last story involves a missing string of pearls and their similarity to the berries of mistletoe.

Montague Egg is a traveling wine purveyor. The first mystery is on its face an account of a customer poisoned by one of his wines. He solves the mystery and identifies the killer by a count of empties and a change of manners. In the second, Egg happens to be at a shabby pub when news comes of a murder in the vicinity. Egg’s familiarity with the practices of a profession come in handy in identifying the murderer among them. The in the third story, one of Egg’s sales calls turns into a murder investigation when he finds his prospective customer dead with his head bashed in. Clocks and automotive garages figure in this one.

“One Too Many” turns on Egg’s knowledge of train tickets, helping catch an absconding banker. Then Egg helps track down who killed an Oxford Master. In this case the man who cried ‘Wolf” too many times was the real murderer. Finally, Egg helps an impoverished child sell her pet only to have it return. When he tracks down the new owner, he discovers murder.

The first of the other stories concerns a man who believes a serial killer is trying to kill him. The last story focuses on a character who kills his blackmailer, only to discover he has a new one.

My favorites were Wimsey in Basque country and Egg solving the case of the poisoned wine. It’s been several years since I’ve read any Sayers and these stories reminded me how much I enjoyed her. And I loved the character of Montague Egg!

Review: A Rare Benedictine

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Cover image of "A Rare Benedictine" by Ellis Peters

A Rare Benedictine, Ellis Peters. Open Road Media (ISBN: 9781497671676), 2014 (first published in 1988).

Summary: Three short stories set prior to the Chronicles, explaining how Cadfael became a monk and his early adventures.

At the beginning of the Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, he is already a Benedictine monk of some years. We learn of his crusading and sea-faring past. But we are without a clue as to how he became a monk. In the Introduction to A Rare Benedictine, Ellis Peters explains that she decided not to write a novel going back to his crusading days, as it would interrupt the chronological flow of The Chronicles. But she eventually did write a short story recounting the story of Cadfael’s entry into the monastic life. That story, and two others that precede in time the first of The Chronicles, make up A Rare Benedictine.

A Light on the Road to Woodstock

Cadfael, one of the fighting men of Roger Maduit, has returned to England with the triumphant King Henry after years abroad, and most recently in securing Normandy for the King. He’s completed his service to Roger, but has no plan for what comes next. When Roger asks him to escort him to Woodstock for a trial over claims made by the Abbey at Shrewsbury to land Roger holds, Cadfael agrees. As it turns out, the case is shaky at best for Roger. In a plot of which Cadfael has no part, Roger sends men to waylay the Abbey’s representative until the trial is over. If he doesn’t appear before the king, the land by default goes to Roger.

The plot succeeds, but there is also an attempt on Roger’s life. Cadfael saves him. When the king does not show up, Rogers plans unravel. The ship sinks that is carrying all the king’s heirs. The delay affords Cadfael the chance to retrace the steps of the assassins. Not only will he find Brother Heribert in the process, but a plot that goes to the heart of Roger’s house. Having heard earlier of the Benedictines from Roger’s clerk, and that they do not bear arms, Cadfael, both weary of arms and disgusted by intrigue, leaves his sword at the altar….

The Price of Light

Hamo FitzHamon has reached the age where his loose life is catching up with him and he realizes the day he will face his maker is approaching. To improve his chances and secure some effectual Benedictine prayers, he donates an ornate pair of candlesticks for the church altar, along with funds to keep them lit. But two things happen when FitzHamon and his household come to deliver the gift.

First, his wife asks for a sleeping draft from Cadfael. But it is not for herself but her husband, so she can slip away for a tryst with one of her husband’s servants, which Cadfael overhears. Then, the candlesticks disappear from the altar. Cadfael finds them in a sack of lavender in his workshop. And he identifies the thief as one of the maids, Elfgiva. She has good reason. Her fiance, Alard, had agreed to make the candlesticks in exchange for his freedom. Hamo FitzHamon reneged, and Alard escaped. As we have often seen in other stories, Cadfael quietly works to set things to rights, helping reunite the separated lovers in the process.

Eye Witness

It’s time to collect the Abbey’s annual rents. While a young apprentice clerk fills in for Brother Ambrose, William Rede collects the rents. Madog, the boatman is the next to see him as he pulls him out of the Severn. Someone knocked him unconscious and threw him into the river to drown. His assailant robbed him of the purse with the rents.

But Cadfael figures out that there was a vantage point from which the crime could have been witnessed. He discretely puts about this fact about with the hopes of springing a trap to catch the thief.

The stories all seem to turn on the human follies that trip up wrongdoers. And we see Cadfael’s shrewd use of folly against the perpetrators to bring about just ends. Strikingly, there are no murders, although two murders are attempted.

While we learn of how Cadfael becomes a monk, I still had one question. Where did he learn his herb lore? Wikipedia indicates that it was from the Middle East, and that is plausible, but I cannot remember it being mentioned, and Wikipedia cites no reference. What is clear is that this shrewd, yet holy, monk will be a force to be reckoned with in the Abbey at Shrewsbury.

Review: The Star Diaries

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Cover image of "The Star Diaries" by Stanislaw Lem

The Star Diaries: Further Reminiscences of Ijon Tichy, Stanislaw Lem. Harper Voyager (ISBN: 9780544079939), 2012 (First published in 1971).

Summary: Ijon Tichy’s voyages across the galaxy, satirical short pieces of science fiction by Polish writer Stanislaw Lem.

This is science fiction satire that makes that strains every idea of what is plausible in space travel. Ijon Tichy hops into his rocket and takes off on voyages across the galaxy like we might hop into a car for a spontaneous road trip. And predictably, he sometimes runs out of fuel, bringing further mishaps. The Star Diaries is a collection of short pieces Polish science fiction writer began writing in the 1950’s and added to for this 1971 publication. These are accounts of twelve of at least twenty-eight voyages by our intrepid space traveler.

In each voyage, Tichy gets in and out of difficulties, often in the most improbable ways. For example, in the first story, his rocket develops rudder problems that he needs a spare hand to fix. No problem! Just head into a space vortex and create a double of oneself. Of course, there are unforeseen problems and soon he has a ship full of doubles. Eventually he gets the rudder fixed and the doubles sent back to their own proper time. But not without a certain amount of hilarity.

In other voyages he represents earth’s petition to join a galactic United Nations, a study in bureaucratic tomfoolery. On another planet, he disguises himself as a robot to end a robot tyranny. Squamp-hunting is the focus of another voyage. Lem explores time travel and its problems by a 2166 version of himself visiting the future to persuade him to take his own place and sort out the space-time continuum. Tichy and his time alter ego end up stuck in a time loop. His trip to Dichotica represents a version of an encounter with transhumanists, with much philosophical folderol. His next voyage explores the pitfalls of extra-terrestrial proselytizing. And on a space constrained planet, people are often reduced to their atoms, and then recomposed from stored patterns (I wonder if this is where Star Trek got the idea for transporters!).

What’s really going on here? Is Lem just pulling our leg and having fun? Or is he playing a more clever game of getting his writing past Communist Party censors in Cold War Poland? Many think the latter, which I’m inclined to think credible. He portrays robotic tyrannies and states devoted to evolving their own super-species, and pokes fun at scientific and bureaucratic tensions. Meanwhile, part of the fun is the wordplay in which he creates whole paragraphs of made up words of semi-serious import. He also seems to delight in keeping the reader off balance, alternating between ridiculous satire and philosophical explorations, often in the same story! I also like to think that Lem saw himself in the venturous, resourceful, and intrepid Ijon Tichy.

Reading him, it is fun to imagine a meeting between him and Douglas Adams. Perhaps in another timeline….

Review: Sillies, Fancies, & Trifles

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Cover image of "Sillies, Fancies, & Trifles by Peter Kostoglou

Sillies, Fancies, & Trifles, Peter Kostoglou. Resource Publications (ISBN: 9798385207695), 2024.

Summary: A collection of seven short stories, all with an element of the fantastic, inviting us into the mystery of beauty, the deep joy in the world, and the power of love.

I likely would never have heard of this book were it not for the initiative of a first-time Australian author who reached half way around the world and politely inquired if I would review his book. I am so glad he did, because I was introduced to seven short stories that reminded me of a wonderful collection of George MacDonald short stories published in two volumes by Eerdmans, The Gifts of the Child Christ. I’ve read nothing like it since, until this collection.

“Onawish” opens the collection and begins with the scene of a boy’s birthday party, a boy so eager to eat the cake that he is befuddled with “onawish” or “honorwish” until he finds himself transported to find himself plopped headfirst into a giant cake. Through a series of adventures, he discovers the deep pain his father bears, and a deepened love.

“The Conference of the Trees” follows the courses of two trees from before the “Days of Man,” Shema and Iver who, in seeking to discover what “treeness” is, take very different paths.

“The Boy and His Rod” traces the story of Daniel, given a rod formed of a serpent of great power by a voice in a burning bush, that he might act in the name of the voice to make a great nation. It’s a story of how power may tempt, even the power to do something that seems good.

In “Hanz,” Antigone, skipping through her garden, stumbles, falls, and finds herself in a strange conversation with a gnome in Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Phoebe, in “The Antiquated Mirror” loves being “Queen” over her younger sister until their fights get her sent to her room where she glimpses herself, approaches an antique mirror, and finds herself trapped in it while an evil “twin” escapes into her household.

“The Man Who Lived in Darkness” was a personal favorite. A father and daughter are estranged as her father chooses a dark, anti-social and depressing life until her daughter wants to meet her grandfather.

In “Lilies of the Vale” a man tries to “Draw Love,” plucks a lily for a girl he loves, and learns a lesson from lilies of what it means to love.

This last makes explicit what runs through these stories, the lessons of what it means to love in our flawed yet beautiful world and how that fits into a larger way of love, an idea explained in a final word. Peter Kostoglou’s stories carry the echoes of this love, inviting to tune our ears, to quiet ourselves to listen, to look with greater attentiveness at the everyday ordinaries in which extraordinary love is hidden.

I hope this is the first of many such collections from this author. These silly, fanciful, and trifling tales are only so in appearance while carrying profound ideas that capture the imagination and delve the recesses of our hearts.

____________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for review.

Review: That Distant Land

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That Distant Land, Wendell Berry. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2004.

Summary: A collection of short stories about the Port William membership not part of the longer novels.

If you’ve read a number of the fictional short stories of Wendell Berry, it is likely that you have encountered some of the stories in this collection. Stories from three earlier publications are represented here, although some differ slightly in the telling: The Wild Birds, Fidelity, and Watch with Me. I didn’t mind, though. It was delightful to revisit the courtship of Ptolemy Proudfoot and Minnie Quinch, to chuckle when the temperate Minnie determines to “dispose” of the half-pint of Old Darling Ptolemy had bought for lambing, or feel a sense of vindication when Ptolemy reveals he is far from the country bumpkin and gets the last laugh in “The Lost Bet.”

Two of the stories from Fidelity were a particular joy, both involving the lawyer Wheeler Catlett, who worked as hard to preserve the membership as any in Port William. The title work, “That Distant Land” conveys the bittersweet reflections also found in “The Wild Birds” at the losses to modernity Port William has suffered but also his dawning realization that the illegitimate son of Burley Coulter, who Burley wants to inherit his land is also part of that membership, not only by birth but through his care of the land in the company of Burley and others of the membership. “Fidelity,” I think is simply one of the greatest pieces of short story fiction. Danny “rescues” (or kidnaps, in the eyes of the law) Burley from the hospital where he is being kept alive on life support which is merely prolonging his dying at great expense. This was before the hospice movement, and the recognition of how providing a dignified dying in a familiar place is indeed fidelity to the dying. The beauty of what Danny does (not euthanasia but simply allowing Burley a natural death) and the way the membership stands together to protect him from the legal ramifications is both consummate storytelling and thought provoking.

There were several stories I hadn’t read before that I savored. “Making It Home” tells the story of Art Rowanberry’s military service, his recovery from the physical wounds and the mental ones that remain, as he walks home through countryside once again familiar, making it in time for dinner. “The Discovery of Kentucky” is one of those wisdom tales that shows how pompous pretensions can go sideways at the inaugural parade when a float to commemorate Kentucky is manned by Burley and his friends, when best-laid plans go awry and when the float sponsor totally fails to realize how the sign he has posted will be read in light of everything else. “The Inheritors,” which closes out the collection describes one of the final encounters between Wheeler Catlett and Danny Branch. Wheeler, who is slowly failing of body and mind, persuades Danny to drive him to a stock sale and then subjects Danny to a hair-raising drive home on the wrong side of the Interstate. Through it all, one senses an intimacy between the two, a passing of the baton and a blessing as Wheeler comes to the point of relinquishing his membership as Danny fully takes it up.

This is a fantastic collection of 23 of Berry’s Port William short stories, the best thing to read if you haven’t read any of the other works represented here. The arrangement of the stories is chronological and tells the story of a community over nearly a hundred year period. The book also includes a detailed map of Port William and a family tree of the Beechum, Feltner, and Coulter family lines. This is a great accompaniment to the Port William novels, which are indicated chronologically in the table of contents. All told, this work is one more reminder of the great contribution Mr. Berry has made to American literature.

Review: Watch With Me

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Watch With Me: And Six Other Stories of the Yet–Remembered Ptolemy Proudfoot and His Wife, Miss Minnie, Née Quinch, Wendell Berry. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2018 (originally published 1994).

Summary: Six short stories and the title novella centered around the Port William resident, Tol Proudfoot and his wife, Miss Minnie and their life on a rural farm, part of the membership of a rural community.

This one had me at the title, both for its length, and the “yet-remembered” part. For Ptolemy “Tol” Proudfoot was a memorable man–a big man of 300 pounds who seemed to be a-bursting out of his clothes, which looked disheveled within minutes of him donning them. He carefully farmed 98 acres, just enough and not two acres more. He was a good judge of horses and all livestock, as well as a good judge of people. Miss Minnie Quinch Proudfoot was as diminutive as Tol was large, but just as impressive. This book of short stories and a novella trace their life together and the lives they touched from the time they began to court until a few years before death parted them.

The first story introduces both of them and tells how Miss Minnie, who had had eyes for him as he for her, consented to let Tol see her home after the Harvest Festival. “A Half-Pint of Old Darling” renders the amusing story of how Miss Minnie, a local temperance movement leader, got pie-eyed drunk on some Old Darling whiskey Tol had bought for his new calves. “The Lost Bet” recounts the time Tol had the last laugh with a store owner who belittled him. Tol was great with livestock and could drive a horse with aplomb, but struggled mightily with his new Model A. “Nearly to the Fair” recounts their attempt to be driven by Elton Penn to the state fair, never quite getting there.

Tol and Miss Minnie never had children and the hospitality they showed to a homeless father and son during the height of the Depression showed the unspoken heartache between them. As the father and son are leaving, Tol half-jokingly says to the man, “We could use a boy like that.” After they left “Tol put on a clean shirt and his jacket, and cap and gloves. Miss Minnie began to clear the table. For the rest of that day, they did not look at one another.” With an economy of words, Berry expresses the bond between them, the diligence of their daily lives, and the unspoken ache they both felt. The last of the short stories recalls a riotous incident from childhood when the family was gathered at Old Ant’ny Proudfoot’s and the boys managed to dump both a cat and a dog down the chimney resulting in all hell breaking loose with the company. Told a few years before his passing with tears of laughter running down his face, “It was Tol’s benediction, as I grew to know, on that expectancy of good and surprising things that had kept Lester’s eyes, and Tol’s too, wide open for so long.”

“Watch With Me,” the final novella is another incident, from 1916, of those “good and surprising things.” Thacker “Nightlife” Hample was prone to spells. Prevented from preaching at the revival at Goforth Church, he comes by Tol’s place, spies an old shotgun that had been loaded to kill a snake, takes it and walks deliberately away, mouthing threats to kill himself. Tol and his nephew Sam and several others follow as a distance, as Nightlife walks on, oblivious of them while they are far from oblivious to the danger of the shotgun. They follow a day and a night, losing him in the woods only to have him come to the fire where they had fallen asleep, uttering Jesus’ words “Couldn’t you stay awake? Couldn’t you stay awake?” He then leaves, taking them in a big circle back to Tol’s workshop. It’s a fine story of human fidelity and frailty–of friends who drop their work to watch their “teched” community member, not sure what they can do, but realizing they needed to be there, even at risk to themselves. That’s what it was to be a “member” of this community.

This is a wonderful collection I never knew existed, introducing me to an older member of Port William. The fine writing says just enough to suggest the things Berry wants us to see–the wonder of marital fidelity with all its flaws, the attentive care to land and crops, and animals, and people that makes for a healthy place, and the laughable incongruities of life. We witness the gentle respect people show for one another’s fallibilities, where people are protected from the worst versions of themselves, offering them space for redemption and growth. Berry makes us long for what was in this fictional town, and what could be in ours. He gently poses the question of us of what it may be to be the Tol, the Miss Minnie to others. We miss what Berry is saying if we only long for the world around us to be like these people and fail to hear the invitation to be like them ourselves.

Review: Orsinian Tales

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Orsinian Tales, Ursula K. Le Guin. New York: Library of America, 2016 (originally published in 1976).

Summary: A collection of eleven short stories set in the fictional eastern European country of Orsinia taking place between 1150 and 1965.

This is a lesser-known collection of Ursula K. Le Guin short stories published after her Earth-Sea books, where I first encountered Le Guin many years ago. These are set in an imaginary country, not in another world, but in Eastern Europe in the fictional country of Orsinia. The eleven stories span a period between 1150 and 1965, although not in chronological order.

The first story, The Fountains, suggests the basic theme running through these stories. An Orsinian scientist comes to Paris for a science conference, and takes the opportunity to escape and view the Fountains of Versailles, only to return once more to his hotel and the surveillance of the secret police. This and the other stories chronicle the efforts of people to exert their own freedom against the restrictive circumstances of their lives. A military man excels in his career only to realize he’d sacrificed what and who he’d loved forty years earlier in The Lady of Moge. A clerk with a family longs to be a musician, and despite counsel, determines to keep working on a large composition that will take him years to finish and may not provide any economic benefit. Others seek work that will help them move beyond survival, or love that seems out of reach. In The House, a divorcee comes back to her first husband to re-establish a broken relationship.

The stories pieced together trace the history of this country from a feudal power to an eastern bloc country. Many of the stories portray what seems a relatively dismal life of eking out an existence under some kind of authoritarian regime. The sense of this all was trying to find some glimpse of happiness in a life that is hard and then you die. Characters seem to seek the transcendent in a world where this doesn’t exist.

No doubt these are finely crafted tales. But the disconnected character of the stories, the jumbled chronology, and the bleak outlook of the stories failed to capture my interest. Remembering the Earth-Sea books, The Lathe of Heaven and The Left Hand of Darkness, I anticipated more. I didn’t find it here.

Review: Olive Kitteridge

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Olive Kitteridge, Elizabeth Strout. New York: Random House, 2008.

Summary: A collection of short stories set in a small coastal village in Maine, centering around an aging and abrasive middle school teacher, Olive Kitteridge.

Olive Kitteridge is characterized at one point in this book as having “a way about her that was absolutely without apology.” Her son at one point described her moods as capricious and that she never accepted responsibility for the ways she affected others. She was tall and imposing, irascible and difficult. And yet. She could cut through niceties to help a young man ready to take his life, or truly sympathize with a widow while her own husband was a vegetable. What you saw was what you got, and yet there were hidden depths to her that could catch you by surprise.

Olive Kitteridge and her husband Henry live in the small coastal town of Crosby, Maine. Olive is a middle school math teacher and Henry a pharmacist. Elizabeth Strout develops Olive’s character through a series of chronologically arranged short stories featuring different people in the town. Olive is not in every one of them but recurs throughout the book, intersecting with a number of the characters as she retires from teaching, sharing life with Henry, a most accommodating husband, as they go through life’s changes and grief’s, including a son for whom they built a house, only for him to move across country at his wife’s behest, only for her to divorce him, and then for him to return to New York and a new marriage. Olive grieves so much she won’t drive past the house, leading to an improbable adventure at the local ER.

The stories explore the challenges and comforts of marital love, the infidelities of mind and body of different villagers, including Henry at one point for his pharmacist assistant Denise. There are heartbreaks and verbal wounds that are not easily healed. But one thing you will never find is hypocrisy from Olive. One of the highlights was when Olive overhears her new daughter-in-law making fun of her clothes. Most of us would fume and pretend we had not heard. Olive goes into the daughter-in-law’s closet and deviously ruins several articles of clothing. She can be maddeningly matter-of-fact in her acceptance of life’s hardships. What else ought one expect of life?

Despite all the flaws and foibles and failures of individuals, Strout portrays a community that somehow coheres, that is there for each other in the hardest moments. She creates a place and a character rooted in that place in Olive–the houses she builds, the tulips she plants, the donut shop she and Henry loved to get donuts from. Olive and the others endure loss and glimpse their mortality, making there way through life and finding what comfort they can in each other.

In the end, we see a character who seemed utterly certain of herself, who does not change, but turns her honesty upon herself and comes to more settled terms with the person she is, and the possibilities of her remaining life. There is both fine writing and fine insight into the human condition here.