{read: short story/novel) The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

I enjoyed the portraits of these quirky characters who had only one thing in common: the international newspaper in Rome that they worked at (or in one case, read). The character sketches are written in the present, and the story of the newspaper itself, beginning with its founding, is told in italics in between the chapters. This switch in time was a little disconcerting at first, probably because I tend to skip subheads (which included the date, the big clue that we were changing time periods) and just start reading the chapters. I found the story of the paper and its founding family much less compelling than that of the reporters, editors, and other employees. My favorite chapter was the one about the copy editor, Herman, and The Bible, which is the paper's style guide. As a former newspaper reporter and current magazine editor, I had to laugh out loud at many parts of this chapter, including his diatribe about the word "literally." 

Although I typically don't like short stories disguised as a novel, these were somewhat linked and kept moving the story forward. I found myself liking it, despite my usual preference for one continuous story over short character portraits. It was an amusing read.

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman (The Dial Press, 2010)
My rating: 3 stars

{read: short stories} Boys and Girls Like You and Me: Stories by Aryn Kyle

I loved the first two stories and began to think that perhaps my idea of myself as someone who doesn't like short stories was wrong. The third story was okay, and then it went downhill from there except for the final paragraph of the final story (Boys and Girls Like You and Me). By this time I was reading impatiently, ready to be done with the book. And then, at the end of a story about loneliness and bad choices and sadness and women who let men control too much of their lives, a teenage Goth girl begs the woman in the apartment upstairs (a woman who is having an affair with a married man, who drinks too much, and who writes papers for a cheater website), to give her a ride to the regional music festival across town, where she is supposed to perform in front of a judge. The woman agrees and is surprised by how beautifully the girl plays the violin. And there was a passage of beauty and hope that I read, surprised, and then read again. The final paragraph was this (the woman talking to the teenager about when she played the violin):

And this, this is the part I want you to know: That moment lives in my head, a thing with breath and blood. A present tense. An always--that sudden blossoming of grace and beauty and competence, all of it so unexpected, all of it so undeserved, and the feeling or knowledge or faith that somehow, someday, everything was going to be all right. (p. 224-225)

For me, that made it worth finishing the book. I'd read another novel by Aryn Kyle, but not another book of short stories. I read this one because I loved her first novel, The God of Animals, which I would highly recommend.

Boys and Girls Like You and Me: Stories by Aryn Kyle (Scribner, 2010)
My rating: 2. 5 stars

{read: short stories} You Know When the Men are Gone by Siobhan Fallon

You Know When the Men are Gone, a book of short stories by Siobhan Fallon, shows what life is like for soldiers and families at Ford Hood, Texas. Full disclosure here: I don’t usually read short stories. I don’t like them. There isn’t enough space for the characters to develop, for plots to run their course, for me to connect with the story. I picked this up on the recommendation of Dave Mallmann from our lit fiction book group. Dave is also a buyer for indie bookstore Next Chapter Bookshop in Mequon, Wis., and gets to read books ahead of their publishing dates. Thanks to his tip, I knew to read this as soon as it came out. To my pleasure, I found that Fallon, an army wife herself, has written a loosely connected book of stories that feel real.

While part of me felt like it was my patriotic duty to read this book (if men and women are going off to die for our country and their families are suffering innumerable hardships stateside during their multiple, increasingly frequent deployments, surely the least I can do is read a book of short stories about it), I found myself enjoying it. Characters from some stories are picked up in other stories later on, which gives a loose sense of connection throughout the book and creates a sense of the Fort Hood community. One of my favorite things was the endings: The stories aren’t all neatly tied up in little bows, and yet they don’t end mysteriously either, leaving you wondering what the hidden meaning is supposed to be. Some end messily, some end happily, some end sadly. The characters are believable and you see the tough choices that all of the members of the families face, whether they’re wives, soldiers, or children.

This is a quick read, and I’d definitely recommend it to short story lovers or anyone who wants to give the genre another try.

You Know When the Men are Gone by Siobhan Fallon (Penguin Group, 2011)
My rating: Five stars