SSM 2011: "An Optimist is the Human Personification of Spring" by Caleb J. Ross and "Brains for Bengo" by Jim Ruland (reviewed by Ben Tanzer)

When it comes to short stories, I want the experience to be funny or sad. Maybe not sad, maybe its something else, upsetting? That doesn't sound right either, but whatever it is, I want it to feel like a punch to the gut. I want to find it hard to breath. Which is a lot to ask, but there you go, I'm selfish like that. Which means what though? It means that a short story collection itself might not get you there, or me, in this case. There are many collections I really like, and short story writers I like and will consume and want to see read live, and maybe even make out with given the chance. Metaphorically anyway, if my wife is reading this.

I'm thinking about The National Virginity Pledge by Barry Graham and Songs of Insurgency by Spencer Dew, Big World by Mary Miller, The Love Book by Ken Wohlrob and When the Messenger is Hot by Elizabeth Crane, Drown by Junot Diaz, Ryan Seacrest is Famous by Dave Housley, Breaking it Down by Rusty Barnes, and What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver, which is my favorite collection, Stories I through XXVII by the Scott McClanahan, and anything by Lindsay Hunter, and I say it like that because one, she rocks, and two, I haven't read Daddy's yet. Sorry. Will soon. Promise. I can see it from here.

All of which is to say, and yes all of the above was a massive preface, wrapped around a caveat and that might have even been preemptive in some way; a collection per se, even one I love may not quite garner the impact that one story can. One story that knows how to rabbit punch, and knows my weaknesses for families and pain, violence and confusion. And two stories come to mind that I read in this last year, where the collections themselves are great, but these stories, nailed it, me, to a wall, all unbreathing and doubled-over and such.

The first is "An Optimist is the Human Personification of Spring" from Caleb J. Ross's Charactered Pieces, a story about a father trying to do the best he can by his son despite his various struggles and limitations, but still ends up hurting him in a way I will leave you to read about, and you will, right, good. As the story unfolded, I knew it would go wrong, had to go wrong, and when it did, it took everything I had not to cry in the middle of the Red line "L" during the rush hour traffic, sitting saying to myself, breathe, hold it together bro, almost home, almost. Now, whether I fully recovered from that experience may be subject to debate, in my head anyway, but then, there I was on a plane maybe, reading Big Lonesome by Jim Ruland and I find myself bouncing into "Brains for Bengo," a story about children, siblings, a lack of knowledge, a lack of anything really, and there I was floating and the story was floating and there was the sense that something would go wrong, had to go wrong, I could feel it, even if I didn't want to, and even if I found myself flashing back to "An Optimist is the Human Personification of Spring" and that train ride.

And that feeling I described, back there at the beginning of this post, that sadness, it's not sadness, it's actually dread, because that feeling, that punch to the gut is dread. Dread that is not released until its just as bad as you, I, expect it to be. Ross and Ruland grasp that, in these stories anyway, and they hit me, and I was unprepared for it, and it's wonderful being punched that way. It's a gift in the way short stories are gifts. Quick and intimate. Sometimes violent. And then gone. Finished almost like they were never even there. Well, until that is you read something else that strikes that same chord and takes you back to that previous experience.

Ben Tanzer

Ben Tanzer is the author of the books 99 Problems (cclapcenter.com/99problems/) and You Can Make Him Like You (makehimlikeyou.com) among others, as well as, the forthcoming novella My Father’s House and the humor collection This American Life. You can find him online at http://bentanzer.blogspot.com/