Richard Ford seems to have a deep connection to the human spirit. His characters convey everyday thoughts that seem unusual yet are probably commonplace. Other authors wouldn’t be as successful in describing some of the workings of the human mind through memorable fiction. I love the characters he creates, and this set of short stories is as good as his novels. At least two of these stories could pass for novellas: “The Run of Yourself” and “Second Language.” Since I appreciate character development, these were my favorites in the collection. One deals with a widower’s loneliness as he recounts the days and events leading up to his wife’s suicide, and the other makes a statement about marriage and how even a good one might not be satisfying.
Some of the themes dominating the short stories include loneliness, rebirth, and reflection. Also prevalent is a dissection of the choices we have made in life and concomitant regrets. It is incredible how he conveys indifference and ambivalence when describing the characters’ fulfilled and unfulfilled dreams. His use of language is incomparable to others. I loved the way he used the double negative in “A Free Day.”
Some memorable quotes follow.
Nothing to Declare
“Good choices don’t make very good stories,” she said. “Have you noticed that?” (p. 5). Ecco. Kindle Edition.
“I couldn’t live in that city one more minute,” his father had said, meaning New Orleans. “It wasn’t your mother’s fault. There was no Irma then. We just had nothing more to say to each other, hadn’t in years. Yes, I know. So what? But. I just became . . . what’s the word . .de-fascinated. It won’t make sense to you. I hope it never does.” (p. 22). Ecco. Kindle Edition.
Happy
“ But New York was where everything that mattered began. Ireland was where it ended. Americans were intellectually constipated, couldn’t maintain a decent conversation—forget about a tune—didn’t drink enough, took everything too literally, and rarely, genuinely laughed. But it was authentic and accepting.” (pp. 26-27). Ecco. Kindle Edition.
Displaced
“No matter how patented life’s course seems when you are leading it day to day, everything could always have been much different.” (p. 46). Ecco. Kindle Edition.
“At school, they treated me like a sick person they didn’t like—when they weren’t ignoring me. I didn’t say this to my mother. It would only have discouraged her about her own life.” (p. 58). Ecco. Kindle Edition.
“With Niall you couldn’t completely know what kind of boy he was. He was good, I believed, at heart. Or mainly. He was kind, or could be kind. He knew things. But I was certain I knew things he didn’t and could see how he could be led wrong and be wrong that way all his life. “Niall will come to no good end,” my mother said a day after his letter came. Something had disappointed her. Something transient or displaced in Niall. Something had been attractive to her about him in her fragile state, and been attractive to me, in my own fragile state. But you just wouldn’t bank on what Niall was, which was the word my poor father used.” (pp. 72-73). Ecco. Kindle Edition.
Crossing
“Last night, having gone to sleep thinking of the journey today, he’d had the ridiculous sensation—not quite a dream—that the entire passage of life, years and years, is only actually lived in the last seconds before death slams the door. All life’s experience just a faulty perception. A lie, if you like. Not actual. At the end, though, to feel this way was freeing. It was his habit to imagine many things as freeing.” (p. 78). Ecco. Kindle Edition.
The Run of Yourself
Man, a lawyer, grieving his wife’s suicide in a small Maine rental in the beach
Encounter with his daughter, then a real estate agent and then a very young woman he meets at a bar
Loneliness
Rebirth
Reflection
Leaving for Kenosha
Tempting to ask one of the red-smocked associates, a person of color, if she’d be offended by a well-meaning white child giving her child a friendship card in which the humans depicted were more or less “black.” Would it be insensitive? One more thing white people didn’t get in the advancing cavalcade. It was exhausting. (p. 173). Ecco. Kindle Edition.
A Free Day
“You simply couldn’t not try, though—not try to save the day at whatever expense of one’s dignity.” (p. 199). Ecco. Kindle Edition.
“Solo on the bus, the same. But again, you couldn’t not. It was such a small thing. Whereas to live (and die) on others’ terms was giving life away cheap. She wouldn’t do that.” (p. 191). Ecco. Kindle Edition.
Second Language
“Life was that and only that. A surface. That was what you could rely on it to be. (pp. 209-210). Ecco. Kindle Edition.
