Austinist Book Review: The Worst Years of Your Life
The Worst Years of Your Life
Edited by Mark Jude Poirier
Ah, the short story. The short-pants-wearing, pencil-case-carrying, crack-voiced little brother of the novel. It’s about time short stories got some love, no?
Simon and Schuster has just released a new anthology of lit-fiction short stories about early adolescence. Established names like George Saunders, John Barth, and A. M. Holmes are sprinkled in alongside younger writers. The editor, Mark Jude Poirier, writes that the collection evolved out of an earlier anthology focused around the idea of “unsafe text”—shorts that tackle crazy storylines head-on, instead of offering mild epiphanies on the back porch or strained emotions over a dinner table. The problem was, all the stories he wanted to publish ended up being about middle schoolers.
Holmes’ “A Real Doll” is one of the best. It describes the rise and fall of a pubescent boy’s relationship with his younger sister’s Barbie. He starts by stealing her off the doily she shares with Ken, feeding her Valium and Diet Coke, and making small talk that leads quickly to co-dependence issues. Their romance is, um, consummated, but gets complicated when his sister switches Barbie’s head with Ken’s. A typical selection:
Jennifer owned Barbie and it made me crazy. Obviously it was one of those relationships that could only exist between women. Jennifer could own her because it didn’t matter that Jennifer owned her. Jennifer didn’t want Barbie, she had her.“You’re perfect,” I said.
“I’m getting fat,” she said.
Okay, maybe hearing the phrase “literary fiction” makes you think of novels about reclusive older Canadians musing on missed chances at love. Poirier is on to something different here. A girl’s best friend cuts her with a razorblade after an argument over the pop singer Brandy (Stacey Richter’s “The Beauty Treatment”); a lonely jock can’t keep himself away from a feeble-minded girl neighbor’s bedroom (Kevin Canty’s “Pretty Judy”); a suspicious daughter and her pregnant, widowed mother barrel through Texas hill country and finally sneak into LBJ’s ranch (Amber Dermont’s “Lyndon.”)
A good short story teaches us rules and expectations on the first page. It lures us with fantastic or dramatic possibilities, then takes a few sharp turns, pulling our expectations out from under us, changing the rules as it goes. In the end, a lot of good stories leave the reader totally devastated, but still coming back for more. That’s also a fairly good description of middle school.
No wonder that this time in our lives makes such good fodder for short stories. We're with Poirier here. Maybe the institutional focus on "small moments" in literary fiction reflects a lack of ambition, a lack of confidence, and an unwillingness to engage readers, especially younger ones. Let’s praise writers who take risks, who can bring us back to a time in our lives when we knew we didn’t have it figured out, when we had no choice but to learn from everything going on around us—watching, listening, and waiting for the worst.
