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Executive Times |
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2008 Book Reviews |
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Our Story
Begins by Tobias Wolff |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Mastery Master
short story writer Tobias Wolff’s new collection, Our Story
Begins, offers ten new stories, and twenty one from past collections. None
are duds. This is a wide reaching collection, and in each story, Wolff
demonstrates his mastery of this genre. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning
of the story titled, “The Liar,” pp. 36-7: My mother read everything
except books. Advertisements on buses, entire menus as we ate, billboards; if
it had no cover it interested her. So when she found a letter in my drawer
that wasn't addressed to her, she read it. What difference does
it make if James has nothing
to hide?—that was her thought. She stuffed the letter in
the drawer when she finished it and walked from room to room in the big empty
house, talking to herself. She took the letter out and read it again. Then,
without putting on her coat or locking the door, she went down the steps and
headed for the church at the end of the street. No matter how angry and
confused she might be, she always went to four o'clock Mass. It was a fine day, blue and
cold and still, but Mother walked as though into a strong wind, bent forward
at the waist with her feet hurrying behind in short, busy steps. My brother
and sisters and I considered this walk of hers funny, and we smirked at one
another when she crossed in front of us to stir the fire or water a plant. We
didn't let her catch us at it. It would have puzzled her to think that
anything about her might be amusing. Her one concession to the fact of humor
was an insincere, startling laugh. Strangers sometimes stared at her. While
Mother waited for the priest, who was late, she prayed. She prayed in a
familiar, orderly, firm way: first for her late husband, my father, then for
her parents—also dead. She said a quick prayer for my father's parents just
touching base; she had disliked them—and finally for her children in order of
their ages, ending with me. Mother did not consider originality a virtue and
until my name came up her prayers were exactly the same as on any other day. But when she came to me she
spoke up boldly. "I thought he wasn't going to do it anymore. Murphy
said he was cured. What am I supposed to do now?" There was reproach in
her tone. Mother put great hope in her notion that I was cured, which she
regarded as an answer to her prayers. In thanksgiving she had sent a lot of
money to the Thomasite Indian Mission, money she'd been saving for a trip to
Rome. Now she felt cheated and she let her feelings be known. When the priest
came in, Mother slid back on the seat and followed the Mass. After communion
she began to worry again and went straight home without stopping to talk to
Dorothea, the woman who always cornered Mother after Mass to talk about the
plots hatched against her by Communists, devil worshippers, and Rosicrucians.
Dorothea watched her go with narrowed eyes. Once
in the house, Mother took the letter from my drawer and brought it into the
kitchen. She held it over the stove with her fingernails, looking away so
she wouldn't be drawn into it again, and set it on fire. When it began to
burn her fingers she dropped it in the sink and watched it blacken and
flutter and close upon itself like a fist. Then she washed it down the drain
and called Dr. Murphy. A
great way to spend a month is to read one short story a day from Our Story
Begins. Steve
Hopkins, May 15, 2008 |
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Go to Executive Times Archives |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the June 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Our Story Begins.htm For Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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