Win a Copy of Short People, by Joshua Furst
By Lee Thomas
We all had one. It’s one of those universals of human experience, more constant than love or rage or betrayal or grace. I’m talking about a childhood. Still, it’s impressively difficult to capture on the page, pitch the right tone, allow the perfect amount of insight and innocence, or describe the overblown drama of what it feels like to be a kid. From the opening story of his collection, Short People, Joshua Furst nails it. That first story, “The Age of Exploration,” follows the ramblings of Jason and Billy, best friends, both age six. Most of us can remember things that happened when we were six. But Furst reminds you what it’s like to be six – what it feels like to discover the world:
Billy knows about the past and the present, but Jason has learned something new. It’s a secret. Jason knows that the world gets bigger, but it gets smaller, too. He knows there are things he does not want to know. He knows his dad was an engineer once, and now he’s unemployed. He’s going to be an inventor after summer is over and move the family away to a new city, Jason knows that too, but he can’t tell anyone. Jason knows about the future, now. You can be one thing and another and then another and another and on and on, but the things you become sometimes wash the things you once were away. Jason knows what he wants to be when he grows up: he wants to be friends with Billy.
Each of the ten stories in Short People puts you right there, from the longing of a shy girl to be as brave and brash as Mariel Hemingway in Manhattan, to the mercilessness of teenage boys at a Boy Scout Jamboree. Furst’s story “Red Lobster,” which won the Nelson Algren Award, gives a hilarious and horrible glimpse of a father gone so utterly off the rails that an outing to Red Lobster becomes a life-and-death experience for his children. Just flipping through it again, I might be ready for a re-reading. Sign me up for whatever Joshua Furst writes next.
To win a free copy of the book, comment on this post!
In your comment, tell FWR about a story collection you love (or one you’re looking forward to reading): on May 31, we’ll do a drawing of commenter names, and one lucky winner will receive a copy of Short People. To be eligible, your comment must include the name and author of a story collection. Feel free, if time permits, to tell us more about the book. We look forward to hearing from you!
Learn more about how to participate in Short Story Month 2010: The Collection Giveaway Project.
I recently finished reading David Vann’s LEGEND OF A SUICIDE. [My thoughts are here: http://silverfysh.wordpress.com/2010/05/17/marginalia-legend-of-a-suicide-by-david-vann/. It’s an incredibly brave and beautiful book, presenting variations of a father’s suicide. They’re works of fiction, but even Vann admits that they’re based on actual things. It’s not too presumptuous to suppose that this is Vann’s reworkings of what has pained him for so long.
I’d like to read this! I like stories about short people.
I am currently dipping into Boy and Girls Like You and Me by Aryn Kyle.
I was blown away when I finally read Mark Costello’s The Murphy Stories last year – a devastating chronicle of domestic disharmony.
I’m reading and loving Phillip K. Dick–maybe not on everyone’s list, but boy, can the guy plot!
Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever by Justin Taylor. The title says more than I could. Read it.
Am I allowed to comment? I’m looking forward to all of the giveaway books, but this one makes me think of collections I love with stories about children and adolescents–the first two that spring to mind are ZZ Packer’s Drinking Coffee Elsewhere (”Brownies” is amazing) and Julie Oringer’s How to Breathe Underwater (all are great, but “Pilgrims” literally knocked me off my feet the first time I read it. I had to sit down.).