Having got over my lifelong antipathy to short stories I still find myself drawn more to the linked variety rather than collections of standalones. There’s something about spotting a character familiar from a previous story and wondering how they might develop. Anna Noyes’ debut collection seemed like it might fit that category and although it turned out to be not quite what I was expecting – to be fair the press release does say ‘loosely interconnected’ – it’s immensely satisfying.
Noyes’ stories share the backdrop of smalltown Maine, and they’re about women. Men tend to be somewhere off stage, their presence – or absence – often keenly felt. In ‘Hibernation’, for instance, a woman’s increasingly unhinged husband has drowned, apparently killing himself, but she’s convinced he’s still alive, watching her. A girl ricochets between childhood and womanhood then back again while her widowed father worries about how to discuss the rape of a young woman in ‘Safe as Houses’. ‘The Quarry’ has a ten-year-old taxing her fifteen-year-old sister about her love life and finding out more than she wants to hear. The titular story sees a young woman aghast at what happens when she, her reclusive mother and the man who helped raise her since she was six take a trip out-of-state while in ‘Changeling’ a young nurse constantly searching for a mother after her own left nineteen years ago thinks she may have found her but turns out to have found something else instead. These five give a flavour of the eleven stories which comprise Noyes’ slim, elegant collection.
These are stories about ordinary, everyday people sometimes emotionally damaged, often struggling to get by. Single parents fretting about their kids; children overhearing too much; mental illness and too much alcohol; sexual misadventure and abuse, are recurring themes. Noyes’ writing is arrestingly striking at times, quietly controlled and finely honed: ‘Dad only touched me twice. Both times he was gentle and looked bewildered, like my body wasn’t the one he expected, but it was too late, too embarrassing for both of us to turn back’ exemplifies her empathetic exploration of human complexity. ‘I thought of my mother, who had taken to wearing her robe from morning until evening, and ghosting around the house with her swollen eyes and mottled face’ elegantly expresses depression’s devastating effects on both mother and child. Noyes sketches subtle word pictures of the human state in myriad shades of grey. These women are entirely believable, their lives unfolding in carefully crafted yet immediate prose – sometimes dreamlike, sometimes sharp and clean. It’s an admirable collection. Ron Rash came to mind for me although the Washington Post compares Noyes to Alice Munro with which, I’m sure, her publishers will have been very much more delighted.
Isn’t it weird, the short story collection aversion. I feel the same way: I like linked collections like Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book and Italo Calvino’s Mr Palomar but pure short story collections are at the bottom of my read list. Despite that, this sounds like a lovely collection. Did you enjoy reading it in the end?
I did, Belinda. Noyes’ writing is both subtle and beautiful. The way she places men in the wings while women take centre stage is very appealing, too. Love Tove Jansson’s The Summer Book!
This sounds fantastic. I hadn’t heard of it – I love it when that happens. Thanks, Susan.
You’re welcome, Naomi. I hope you get around to reading it. Such quietly powerful stories.
Although I have the same tendency to choose novels over short stories and linked stories over non-linked, I love the idea of a book of stories about ordinary, everyday women. Nice review!
Thanks, Naomi. As a past reluctant short story myself rather than a proselytising convert, I can recommend these.
I totally agree with Naomi, this sounds fantastic and I’m surprised the author si not more well-known on the feminist/readwomen twitesphere until now! I am not a big fan of short story collections either, but this one sounds totally up my alley. Thanks for the review!
You’re welcome, Elena. This is Noyes’ debut but I suspect we’ll be hearing much more about her in the future given the quality of these stories.
Echo Elena & Naomi – sounds fantastic and even better that I’d not heard of author or book either so feels like a treat; and of course as you know I do like, often love, short story collections even if links are tenuous.
I think this would suit you just fine, Poppy. I hope we’ll be hearing more from Ms Noyes soon.
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