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Stories
by Lauren Groff
Book Reviewed by:A stunning, fierce collection from a master of the short story and one of the most important writers of our time.
Read alone, each story in Lauren Groff's electric collection is an individual triumph, bold, agile, and packed with power. Read together, they hum in exhilarating resonance. Ranging from the 1950s to the present day and moving across age, class, and region -- from New England to Florida to California -- these nine stories reflect and expand upon a shared theme: the ceaseless battle between humans' dark and light angels.
"In every human there is both an animal and a god wrestling unto death," one character tells us. Among those we see caught in this match are a young woman suddenly responsible for her disabled sibling, a hot-tempered high school swimmer in need of an adult, a mother blinded by the loss of her family, and a banking scion endowed with a different kind of inheritance. Motivated by love, impeded by the double edges of other peoples' good intentions, they try to do the right thing for as long as they can.
Precise, surprising, and provocative, anchored by profound insight into human nature, Brawler reveals the repeated, sometimes heartbreaking turning points between love and fear, compassion and violence, reason and instinct, altruism and what it takes to survive.
Brawler opens with an abrasive, racing story called "The Wind," which begins on the morning a 12-year-old girl, her mother, and her two brothers are attempting to escape from the man who is abusing them. The story ends with an acknowledgment of how misogynist violence is an epigenetic trauma, how it creates a way of looking at the world where there is danger around every turn, "this wind that is dark and ceaseless and raging within." The collection's centerpiece is a novella-length story called "What's the Time, Mr. Wolf," starring a man named Charles, aka Chip, who has failed his way out of the family business but is too rich to fail at life entirely. These stories are wracked with a simmering ominous tension, but they are also very funny in their capacity to capture the finer details and foibles of human behavior...continued
Full Review
(1036 words)
(Reviewed by Lisa Butts).
In the second story in Lauren Groff's collection Brawler, "Between the Shadow and the Soul," a woman named Eliza struggles with depression and ennui after retiring early from the post office. This is not an unusual experience, as people who have devoted their lives to a career often find themselves without a sense of purpose or meaning when they no longer have to go to work every day. It is also mentioned, offhandedly, that, while on her honeymoon with her husband Willie, Eliza was affected by "Paris syndrome"—while traveling to Paris she had been "wracked with misery" and had sobbed through the night while Willie slept soundly.
Paris syndrome is a kind of culture shock that is caused by the City of Light not living up to ...
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The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book
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