A Companion to the American Short Story
Page 107
– this is a sin worse than infi delity in a community which has plenty of infi delity but
where everyone at least has a house for hiding. Telling his wife is not really a possibil-
ity; he believes he wants to, but he always fi nds other things to do, like taking a walk,
or inventory. Besides, Guy thinks his wife is having an impossible - to - have sexual
affair with the gay celibate Dooley. But Guy must tell someone about losing the
bookstore so he chooses a famous young, unnamed female author who gives a reading
at his store. And because, the narrator suggests, this is what famous, young female
authors do – reverse stereotypical gender expectations – she asks him the question:
“ ‘ What do you want out of life? ’ ” (27). The answer is that he wants to communicate
with his wife, but he cannot bring himself to do so. Guy ’ s life is all turned around.
Later that evening, as Guy lies to himself yet again that he is ready to tell his wife,
Jordan, she asks him to dance. She knows he has something on his mind, but wants
him to tell her “ later ” (29). Arm in arm, they are their own estranged community:
“ The man and woman beginning to dance, moving toward each other, moving away. ”
Just as the American short - story cycle continues to evolve, Cherry ’ s suburban com-
munity remains ultimately unsettled. As Massey points out, America ’ s “ (idealized)
notion of an era when places were (supposedly) inhabited by coherent and homogenous
communities is set against the current fragmentation and disruption ” (24). Despite
the wishes of Nina and her neighbors, Cherry ’ s Madison is such a place. Place seems
to matter less and less, while words and how things are described assume prime
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Jeff Birkenstein
importance. Words, however, like people, are now easily transportable, nomadic,
unstable; they “ can take us anyplace, even Cleveland. Words can convey us coast to
coast in the time it takes to write a subordinate clause – and without losing your
luggage ” (Cherry, Writing 95). In Winesburg it is George and a few others who are
eternally transient; in Friends it is everyone.
Characters in Friends try to advance their own lives independently on some kind
of positive trajectory, but fail to account for the unavoidable change that comes from
interaction, petty or otherwise, with others. The modern suburban American experi-
ence both brings together people of like socioeconomic status and isolates them. In
their own private dust - collecting castles, families try to operate as mini - fi efdoms; they
try to be emotionally self - suffi cient. Cherry ’ s characters, each within some semblance
of family, even a family of ghosts ( “ As It Is in Heaven ” and “ Chores ” ) constantly fi ght
the tension between the demands of their own “ lands ” and the need to go out of their
homes and to interact meaningfully with others, the key to any successful community.
Each character, then, in each home becomes his or her own country, an individual
frontier, desiring of and yet fearful of penetration. Hugo Gutsmer is one geography,
“ short and broad, and his face, with deep - set eyes and sharply planed cheekbones
and steep chin, was like a topographical map of diffi cult terrain ” (174) with a “ face
of highs and lows
”
(185); Aria
’
s body was another, her
“
arms, toned, and bare
under a fl ak vest, were like a rippling landscape – the gentle hills of her biceps, the
smooth sloping run of her forearms ” (175). About such human archipelagoes, Kim
Worthington notes the
“
tension between individual autonomy and communal
constructivism ” (10).
These islands of people ebb and fl ow; some get washed away altogether. Over time,
Cherry writes,
“
some pattern appears, some repetition or return threads its way
through the broad loom of a life so that even what had once seemed revolution reveals
itself as echo, consequence, history ” ( Writing 45). For Cherry, time is “ topological, a
codifi cation of the patterned tapestry that we weave, wittingly or not. ” Thus, in
Madison “ people came and went, they moved in or away, but somehow the neighbor-
hood stayed the same old neighborhood ” ( Friends 4). In the last story, “ Block Party, ”
the impermanence of the neighborhood coalesces into a group snapshot of an already
fading present:
In this town, there will be events to mark births and marriages and deaths. There will
be graduation parties and retirement parties. People will enter your life, but some of
them will stay in it and others will merely visit for a longer or shorter weekend. Some-
times when you wake on summer mornings, you will remember those who have left
and wonder where they are now – returned to cosmic dust, some of them, or drinking
cappuccino with a new wife in another state. There will be block parties. (171)
Guy struggles with “ the students who stay the same age always because, as soon as
they rush off into their adult lives, others, exactly like them, take their places ” (15).
Like the clich é d march of time, everything and nothing changes in Madison.
The Short-Story Cycle
497
In a mundane conversation, Nina comments: “ ‘ One day there will be a block party
on Joss Court and none of us will be here. We know that. But imagine what such a
party would be like if we were here ’ ” (181). “ Block Party ” revisits briefl y – in a kind
of mini - short - story cycle, a pastiche – the key players, while at the same time intro-
ducing a new arrival to the neighborhood, Hugo Gutsmer. Nina asks him the ubiq-
uitous American party question: “ ‘ What do you do? ’ ” (173). At fi rst she is not so
much interested in the answer as she is in fi nding out why he lives alone, not a
“ normal ” thing in a community with big houses: “ Was he gay, divorced, bereaved?
In other words, was he a possibility for Sarah? ” (173). Hugo claims to be a freelance
ethicist, which provides the opportunity for, as is typical for Cherry and her way - too -
educated characters, an overly serious, semi - ridiculous conversation about the nature
of good and evil, “ the talk being a kind of ball game, too, ideas lobbed and caught,
some with spin ” (178).
Ultimately, the lives of Cherry ’ s characters are all about spin, people spinning on
their own axes as they fl y through the universe, sometimes colliding substantially
with other bodies, but mostly not. Throughout the previous twelve stories, we have
seen characters in perpetual battle with the meta - narrative of their own lives, with
what they think their lives should be and what they think they are. Friends ends,
however, on a much different note than Winesburg , which sees George, on the cusp of
manhood, leave for what he thinks will be something greater. But for Nina, middle -
aged and in love again, after the block party, she and Palmer retreat to their home,
to their bedroom, apparently happy and, for the moment even, settled. But all is not
quite right, of course. Tavy, Nina ’ s adopted daughter and the next generation of
frustrated suburban dweller, li
es awake in her bed and worries about what might
happen: “ Parents don ’ t always know everything that can happen. There could be
someone, or something, out there, in the dark, waiting ” (192). Tavy, only a child,
has already been thwarted in love, having lost Rajan – the closest thing to a daddy
in her life (30) – when he married Lucy in a Quaker ceremony. The Quakers may be
the original “ society of friends, ” but for Tavy, all this did was separate her from his
love and teach her that relationships are fl eeting. For Tavy, as for most of the Madi-
sonians, the prowler ’ s lurking menace manifests itself as a sense of barely repressed
dread of life in suburban America.
Conclusion
The modern evolution of the short story (say, the last 150 years or so) has been spurred
by the mass marketing of periodicals, and consequently of stories published indepen-
dently, “ though publication in a book is the fi nal guarantee of [a story ’ s] immortality ”
(Luscher, “ Regional ” 12). Thus, a single short story may indeed be a beautiful work
of art, but, for the reader, it is diffi cult to ascertain any community beyond the text
of a particular story. That is, it is impossible to draw conclusions about characters not
present in an isolated story, for the reader understands the characters and plot of the
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Jeff Birkenstein
story only insofar as he or she understands the motivations, situations, etc. of the
characters in a given story. True, the reader at all times brings to bear innumerable
ideas, preconceptions, and prejudices to the text, but if the reader knows of only the
one story, removed from the whole, then certainly he or she will be on unstable terrain
when seeking extra - story connections in a book of autonomous short stories.
However, when an author presents a multitude of characters in a multitude of
stories which he or she has fashioned to create a series of inter - story connections, a
transformation undoubtedly occurs (for the reader, the writer, even perhaps for the
characters themselves) for any particular story within the cycle. Given a group of such
characters and stories, then, a larger community emerges, a community that mirrors
the evolution of the ever - changing and ever - restless American zeitgeist. As readers,
we begin to draw inferences about characters within a given story that we could not
draw if we had but a single story. Upon progressing (reading critically) through the
cycle, we simply cannot approach each successive story with a clean slate, an empty
mind; quite naturally in a short - story cycle we make connections, see patterns, impose
order and meaning retroactively, and begin to anticipate themes and possibilities to
come. We know, or sense, that a community is forming, and in our mind we create
our own meta - text, making connections progressively and regressively; that is, not
only do we know more about a later story because we have read former stories in the
cycle, but we reinterpret earlier stories after we have read later ones. Kennedy explains:
“ Assembling narratives about diverse characters to form a composite text, such col-
lections curiously resemble the gathering of a group to exchange the stories that
express its collective identity ” ( “ From Anderson ’ s ” 194). Usually, however, the char-
acters are not exchanging their stories for each other . They are “ just ” living their lives,
and it is the reader around whom the stories gather, and if the stories are good enough,
collectively they are sure to travel with the reader as he or she travels through life.
Notes
1
Different critics use different terms for this
sustained discussion, see chapter
1
in Dunn
genre, the two most popular being “ short - story
and Morris (they use the term
“
composite
cycle ” and “ short - story sequence. ” Kennedy,
novel ” ).
who prefers the term “ sequence, ” argues that
2
With such generic and international priority
“
juxtaposed experiences disclose connections
long given to the novel, it is interesting to note
that apparently link [the characters
’ ] lives
the pressure that even Anton Chekhov
–
a
to a larger scheme of order and meaning
”
major infl
uence on American short story
( “ From Anderson ’ s ” 194). Nagel, preferring
writers from Anderson to Raymond Carver –
the term “ cycle, ” writes: “ Indeed, in most
felt to produce a novel. In a telling letter,
such collections, ‘ sequentiality ’ is the least
Chekhov discusses a
novel
he was writing,
important aspect of the groupings of
called Stories from the Life of My Friends : “ [I am]
stories within a volume ” ( Contemporary 12). It
writing it in the form of separate, complete
should herein be acknowledged that critics
stories, closely connected by the common plot,
using either term (or, still others) are discuss-
idea, and characters
”
(14
–
15). He never
ing
more or less
the same genre. For a more
fi nished this or any novel.
The Short-Story Cycle
499
3
Malcolm Cowley recognized these intertextual
Russian writers). Nevertheless, in a 1924
connections perhaps even before Faulkner
letter, Anderson wrote:
himself. After all, Cowley edited The Portable
Faulkner
(1946), which, some argue, helped
I spent all those years fl oundering about. No
Faulkner to secure the Nobel Prize only four
approach I found satisfi ed me. Like other
years later. After
The Portable ’ s publication,
Americans, from the beginning, I had to go
Faulkner wrote to Cowley, admitting that “ the
abroad. I was perhaps 35 years old [roughly
1911, and thus before Winesburg, Ohio ] when
job is splendid. Damn you to hell anyway. But
I fi rst found the Russian prose writers. One
even if I had beat you to the idea, mine
day I picked up Turgenif
’s
“
Annals of a
wouldn ’ t have been this good. By God, I didn ’ t
Sportsman. ” I remember how my hands trem-
know myself what I had tried to do, and how
bled as I read the book. I raced through the
much I had succeeded ” (Gray 58).
pages like a drunken man. ( Letters 301 – 2)
4
Indeed, many short - story cycle critics begin
their articles and books with a purview of his-
6
Dunn and Morris write: “ the best - known
torical and generic precedent. For instance, see
twentieth - century example of such a literary
Susan Garland Mann (especially 2
–
14), who
text is probably Sherwo
od Anderson ’ s Wines-
loosely traces the genre from the fi fteenth
burg, Ohio … but other well - known works in
century, though she also notes the oral tradi-
this genre include … James Joyce ’ s Dubliners ”
tion that begins in antiquity and gives rise to,
(xiii). That
Winesburg
is more famous today
for instance, The Odyssey and The Iliad ; Kennedy
than Dubliners is doubtful and perhaps irrele-
similarly notes this long tradition, though
vant, but the point remains. Kennedy writes
“ efforts to trace the history of the form at once
that, “ Joyce ’ s Dubliners and Anderson ’ s Wines-
confront the stark discontinuity of its develop-
burg, Ohio epitomize [the genre] ” ( “ Introduc-
ment ” ( “ Introduction ” vii); see also Ingram,
tion
”
vii); Ingram analyzes
Winesburg
in his
13 – 14, and Maggie Dunn and Ann Morris for
study and notes that Dubliners is likewise an
an excellent and comprehensive multilingual
“ important ” example (18); Gerald Lynch,
chronology of the short - story cycle, beginning
writing about Canadian cycles, recognizes
with the year 1820, the year Irving
’
s
Sketch
these two as “ infl uential classics ” (94); Nagel
Book
was published (xix
–
xxxi). Such easily
writes:
“
in English literature, James Joyce
’
s
accessible iteration thus precludes this study
Dubliners
has served as an archetype of the
from tracing this same history yet again here.
genre, a role fulfi lled in the United States by
5
Frank O ’ Connor claimed, a decade before
Sherwood Anderson ’ s Winesburg, Ohio ” ( “ Cycle ”
Ingram ’
s infl uential study, that Turgenev
’
s
9); Luscher acknowledges that
“
the form
’
s
cycle of stories “ may well be the greatest book
development has been spurred … by Joyce and
of short stories ever written. Nobody, at the
Anderson ” ( “ Open Book ” 153); Charles E. May
time that it was written, knew quite how great