|
|||||
 | |||||
|
Marketing and University Communication UW-Green Bay, CL 815 2420 Nicolet Drive Green Bay, WI 54311-7001 (920) 465-2626 E-mail: hildebrs@uwgb.edu Last update: 9/26/07 |
|
|
In
the News Archive - Year:
February 4, 2005 New talent soars in 9 stories By Benjamin Percy Sometimes comic, sometimes upsetting, and always heartbreaking, these
nine stories concern ordinary Midwestern characters dealing with extraordinary
pain.
In "The Assignment" a woman narrowly escapes an assault and then asks
her lover to recreate the event, to attack her so that she might fight
back and in doing so regain her sense of safety. In "Good Fences" a couple
retires to the country, seeking a new start, a move that only deepens
the loveless rift between them. In "Hold Fast" a widower learns to restore
order to his life by taking things apart and putting them back together.
These eclectic characters are connected by the black bags beneath their
eyes, the lipstick smeared across their teeth, the private laugh track
of their self-deprecating sense of humor. They are haunted by the ghosts
"of what might have been. Of possibility," as they stagger forward with
their eyes squeezed shut and their arms wide open, recklessly seeking
friendship, love, revenge, acceptance.
Were these people to step off the page and into my life, I would dislike
them intensely, but Meacham sees "beauty in the rubble" of their lives,
and through her lens I could not help but (mostly) care about their many
calamities. I didn't want to let them go — or maybe it was Meacham's
voice I wanted to put in my pocket and keep. The evocative grace of her
language, her ability to capture the depth of everyday life, and her sardonic
wit thrilled me.
Consider the following maxim: "Just when you think things can't get
worse, an old lady will accost you and talk about her vagina." Lines like
this one are scattered throughout, candles in the darkness.
Her landscape is the Midwest, a flatland bursting with life and violent
with storms, the perfect partner to these richly textured characters.
At the center of each of them beats a broken heart and if you listen closely,
you will hear in its surging blood the answers to the question of what
it means to crave, to hurt, to live.
"Let's Do" won the 2004 Katherine Anne Porter Prize and has been selected
for the Spring 2005 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program.
And it's no wonder &3151; these good, powerful stories mark the unveiling
of a major talent.
| |
