Donald Anderson
"What is art but a re-making of the
world over into forms more acceptable
to us? Writers value the world by
re-creating it."
world over into forms more acceptable
to us? Writers value the world by
re-creating it."
First time out, a writer runs circles around himself sifting
through memories in this linked collection of stories
(winner of the John Simmons Award) that builds into
something like, but isn’t quite, a novel. The opener, “My
Name Is Stephen Mann,” introduces us to the narrator of
the pieces to follow and gives us an idea of what to
expect: finely tuned memory-fiction about a middle-aged
man’s attempt to connect what he remembers of his father
and grandfather (they live in his head as hardworking men
of action) to his own nomadic and notably less brawny
present life. In each story, we’re given another sliver of
information about our narrator: he’s a writer, seems to
have had some military experience, has a child and a
broken marriage and has moved around from one western
or Great Plains town to another with no great overall
purpose in mind. “Quotidian” sums up the volume quite
nicely. Only four pages long, divided into “Reading the
Paper,” “Buying Groceries” and “Watching TV,” it gives us
a man going about the little details of his life, walking
through his house drink in hand, watching his daughter
sleep, rummaging through a storehouse of menial mental
images and trying to find something of note in them: “Lift
your rum in tribute to the lightning firing about the sky like
brain waves, then pilot, dry-eyed, toward your room.” The
mood swings from this kind of melancholy to the isolated
terror of the title story, in which the narrator agonizes
over the wayward daughter who appears, shoeless and
gaunt, at his door on a hard winter’s night. While the
material can be repetitive, Anderson’s tales are
nevertheless focused and sometimes extremely moving in
the manner of one of his primary influences, the late Andre
Dubus.
— Kirkus
through memories in this linked collection of stories
(winner of the John Simmons Award) that builds into
something like, but isn’t quite, a novel. The opener, “My
Name Is Stephen Mann,” introduces us to the narrator of
the pieces to follow and gives us an idea of what to
expect: finely tuned memory-fiction about a middle-aged
man’s attempt to connect what he remembers of his father
and grandfather (they live in his head as hardworking men
of action) to his own nomadic and notably less brawny
present life. In each story, we’re given another sliver of
information about our narrator: he’s a writer, seems to
have had some military experience, has a child and a
broken marriage and has moved around from one western
or Great Plains town to another with no great overall
purpose in mind. “Quotidian” sums up the volume quite
nicely. Only four pages long, divided into “Reading the
Paper,” “Buying Groceries” and “Watching TV,” it gives us
a man going about the little details of his life, walking
through his house drink in hand, watching his daughter
sleep, rummaging through a storehouse of menial mental
images and trying to find something of note in them: “Lift
your rum in tribute to the lightning firing about the sky like
brain waves, then pilot, dry-eyed, toward your room.” The
mood swings from this kind of melancholy to the isolated
terror of the title story, in which the narrator agonizes
over the wayward daughter who appears, shoeless and
gaunt, at his door on a hard winter’s night. While the
material can be repetitive, Anderson’s tales are
nevertheless focused and sometimes extremely moving in
the manner of one of his primary influences, the late Andre
Dubus.
— Kirkus
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“Kill the body, the head dies,” Arthur informed me on the
day he left our house for the County Home. He was
quoting Joe Louis. This conversation was the last we
would start in his room. From the side of the bed, on this
last day in his room, Arthur Mann attempted to stand. He
caught his breath, then still sitting, raised his arms. He
threw unballed fists in my direction, like slow ghost fish at
my ribs. I raised my elbows, then dropped them in to be
guards. I warded off his phony blows. I worked in slow
motion too. Elbows in place, I moved a fake hook toward
Arthur’s left side. I had to bend to do it—Arthur’s head
was below my chin—but my ducking move to the ribs
seemed to make my grandfather happy, though he
dropped his hands and grimaced. “Can the head,” he
said. “It moves,” he said. “bomb the gut.”
—from “My Name is Stephen Mann,” by Donald Anderson
day he left our house for the County Home. He was
quoting Joe Louis. This conversation was the last we
would start in his room. From the side of the bed, on this
last day in his room, Arthur Mann attempted to stand. He
caught his breath, then still sitting, raised his arms. He
threw unballed fists in my direction, like slow ghost fish at
my ribs. I raised my elbows, then dropped them in to be
guards. I warded off his phony blows. I worked in slow
motion too. Elbows in place, I moved a fake hook toward
Arthur’s left side. I had to bend to do it—Arthur’s head
was below my chin—but my ducking move to the ribs
seemed to make my grandfather happy, though he
dropped his hands and grimaced. “Can the head,” he
said. “It moves,” he said. “bomb the gut.”
—from “My Name is Stephen Mann,” by Donald Anderson