Stone Mattress: Nine Tales, by Margarat Atwood. Nan A. Talese/Doubleday 2014

 

Normally, in a collection of short stories, I consider them hit or miss; I find many of them fall flat for me. But this- by one of my favorite authors- is 100% hit. I loved every single one. They deal with aging and death, revenge and some small amount of fantasy.

The first three are intertwined tales, dealing with characters who all interacted in their youth, and how their lives have turned out. An aging poet, who finds that an interviewer is actually interested in his old girlfriend, who wrote fantasy books that he despised, but won incredible success. That woman is dealing with her late husband’s spirit. The other woman in the triangle the poet and the fantasist found themselves in returns, at a funeral.

Other tales include a man who buys at auction storage lockers and finds more than he wanted; another where an author has one best seller- most of the rights to which he signed away in return for his rent being paid. The title story is one of cold revenge. The last story I found disturbing- not because the blind protagonist has Charles Bonnet Syndrome and hallucinates little people around her; she’s fine with that. But rest homes around the world, including the one she lives in, are being assaulted by groups of young people who, upset with the mess the elderly have made of the world the young have to live in, are blockading the gates and preventing supplies from entering, then insisting all the staff leave- and are, finally, entering and killing the oldsters. I found this story so disturbing because I am well aware that us boomers are leaving the world in a sorry state, and that the younger generations hate us, even those of us who had little to do with the creation of said mess. I can easily see her story becoming reality. These are the most memorable of the stories, although they are all good, my favorites being the first three.

This is Memorial Device, by David Keenan. Faber & Fabruer, 2017

In a sort of literary “This is Spinal Tap”, this is a (mostly) gentle parody of a small town music scene of the 80s. Memorial Device is a post-punk band in small town Scotland, a scene where everyone is working class and no one gets famous except in the local area. Told in typical music bio form, the story unfolds though 26 interviews with various band members, friends, family, and hangers on. I’ve read a fair number of books about musicians and music scenes, and this oddly structured novel is spot on in tone and form. I had a hard time following who was who for a while, but Appendix C lists every character and tells who they were. Yes, the novel has four appendices, one of which is a thorough index (the other two are a discography and a list of the bands in post punk Airdrie). The book has a subtitle that’s damn near a chapter in itself: “An Hallucinated Oral History of the Post-Punk Scene in Airdrie, Coatbridge, and Envirions, 1978-1986” - that pretty much tells you what the book is about.

There is pretty much no plot, but the characters drag you in- even when you know they will come to a sad end. They are pretty typical of rock memoirs; hard drinking party animals who have myriad sexual adventures and are trying to become punk rock stars in the vein of Iggy Pop. But the band members are committed; they aren’t just in it for the chicks, so to speak. It’s not just parody- and it’s not laugh out loud funny, more OMG I recognize that character funny- it’s also coming of age for the teen fans. It’s not the easiest book to read; the format is choppy and a character’s story may unfold through a number of chapters by people, at various places in the book. It very much captures the feel of fanzines from the era. I very much enjoyed it! Four stars.        

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Inheriting Edith, by Zoe Fishman. William Morrow, 2016

Maggie is a professional house cleaner with a degree in English. She’s had other jobs, but she prefers cleaning in Manhattan- it pays a lot better, it gives her time to think, and she has been a compulsive cleaner since she was a child. She is the single mother of a precocious two year old, and has just gotten the surprise of her life: she’s inherited the Sag Harbor beach house and money of a friend and former client that she has been estranged from for years. Along with the house comes Edith, the 82 year old mother with a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. The will states that Edith is to remain in the house she shared with her bestselling novelist daughter, who has taken her own life.

Edith and Maggie both have severe doubts about this situation. Edith feels she needs no help, nor does she need strangers in her house. Maggie feels she’s in over her head with caring for an elder. But they gingerly build a relationship, and Edith asks Maggie to help her write down her life story before she forgets it. In the process, they both realize they have things in their pasts that they need to deal with before it’s too late.

I read the story in a day; it’s fast reading and fairly compelling. It’s sad to watch Edith losing ground so quickly, but fun to learn about her past. I did have to wonder why the 2 year old took up so much of the book; obviously she’s the most important thing for Maggie, but I felt her constant chattering slowed the story down. I guess it did show how overwhelmed by the child Maggie is! The obligatory love interest might as well not be there; he really adds nothing to the story. I would have preferred to learn more about Edith’s past, and about her dead daughter. A good beach read. 

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Beneath the Wheel, by Hermann Hesse. Bantam Books, 1970 originally published 1906

Young Hans Giebenrath is a gifted child. When the state tests show him to have the second highest score in the country, he earns entrance to a monastery school and becomes the pride of his small farm town. It also earns him a short vacation, which he plans to spend fishing and walking in the beautiful forests. But each day finds his time being taken up by different tutors who wish him to study so he’ll be ahead of the other students when classes begin. Soon all the hours of his day are used up and his leisure is gone.

At the highly regimented school, he has trouble fitting in. He is no longer special like he was in his village. He lacks social skills, so when one of the students, a flamboyant poet, befriends him, he finds himself giddily obsessed and his studies suffer. Eventually he has a breakdown and falls so far behind he is sent home. This is a permanent banishment; no student sent home ever comes back. Suddenly, for the first time, he is at loose ends; there are no lessons to learn, books to read, or tests to prepare for. For the first time, he actually has choices. Can Hans learn to live happily without a highly structured life?

While this book was written in 1906, I see the same thing still happening to gifted kids today (and regular kids whose parents want them to be gifted); they are given so many classes and structured activities that they have no time for play, socialization, or imagination. While most survive it okay, I can’t believe it’s the best way to raise a child.

Vinegar Girl, by Anne Tyler. Hogarth Shakespeare, 2016

In this contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew”, Kate Battista is less shrew than just someone who doesn’t quite fit into everyday society. Twenty-nine years old, she keeps house for her father and brings up her fifteen year old airhead sister, Bunny. Thrown out of college for telling a professor his description of photosynthesis was half-assed, she works as a classroom aid at a preschool, where the kids love her but the parents and teachers not so much. She is forthright with her opinions, never mean but just sort of missing the social niceties.  Her father is a typical absent minded scientist who is near to a big breakthrough on autoimmune diseases, but he has a problem: his brilliant assistant is about at the end of his work visa and will soon have to leave the country. His idea, of course, is for Kate-who he tells bluntly isn’t going to find a husband on her own anyway- to marry the assistant, Pyotr. Needless to say, this doesn’t go over well. Pyotr does his best to ingratiate himself to Kate, but English is a second language for him and despite being here for three years, American society baffles him. Like Kate, he has no filters and tells people what he thinks. Kate, Pyotr, and Dr. Battista all seem a bit Aspergean in their lack of social skills.

Thankfully, this isn’t a rom/com but an examination of men and women, social conventions, and how people are valued by others. It is light in tone but with a hard edge running under the surface. There were a few surprises, but the best one was Bunny, who turns out to be not the airhead she acts like. This was a light, enjoyable read, and I was surprised to find that Tyler not only moved the story to modern day, but changed the tale to fit modern day women. Not Tyler’s best work by far, but nice.

The above is an affiliate link. If you click through and buy something- anything- from Amazon,  they will give me a few cents. 

I received this book free from the Library Thing Early Readers program. 

Neither of these things influenced my review.