Stories

Getting Over Tom by Abigail Thomas ’59. If you have read anything I have written about Abigail Thomas, you know that I am a fan.  I want to read everything she has written.  This book of short stories, the first volume she published, probes the subtleties and complexities of being part of families that, in their own ways, are unhappy. The various females voices, telling their stories, are frank and observant; their naivete makes them vulnerable.  Being about the same age as Abigail, I recognize the culture of teens and young adults in the late fifties and early sixties where much of what we cared about was shrouded in silence or alluded to only in hushed whispers.  These girls are on their own to figure out how to get on with the business of life. 

Touches of magical realism, which sometimes veer toward the grotesque and sometimes toward whimsy,  enliven the…

Listening is an Act of Love, A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project by Dave Isay. StoryCorps is among the most significant and far-reaching accomplishments of any Friends Seminary Alum. In addition to the many uplifting, heart wrenching and captivating stories in this volume, there is the bonus of a history of StoryCorps, how it came about and how it evolved.

In case you are not familiar with StoryCorps, here are two links. One is an animation taken from a selection of stories in this book and one is a TED talk given by Dave. https://storycorps.org/animation/listening-is-an-act-of-love/

https://www.ted.com/talks/dave_isay_everyone_around_you_has_a_story_the_world_needs_to_hear

Reading these stories feels a bit like eaves dropping, only in this case, the speakers know they will be overheard. They tell a friend or child or spouse or StoryCorps facilitator stories which are fundamental to who they are in a booth where they are recorded. One copy of the recordi…

Herb’s Pajamas, Stories by Abigail Thomas ’59. New Yorkers are trained not to wonder what is behind the mask as they pass anonymously by fellow New Yorkers. Herb’s Pajamas tells of the poignancy, humor, and emotion that goes unnoticed in four denizens of a neighborhood way up on the west side of town, whose lives marginally intersect as they go about their business. If they are in any way representative of the millions of lives in the city, then it is no wonder that we are reluctant to delve too deeply. What is going on with our neighbors risks overwhelming us. Walter, for instance, recites Dover Beach, Matthew Arnold’s powerful argument that love can be the antidote for the loss of faith, as a sort of mantra even as the love that sustained him evaporates. Edith, a fifty-two year old virgin, out to buy fish, worries about future memory…

War Stories by Lew LeBlanc, edited by Susan (Elvers) LeBlanc ’82. This is one of those “lift the curtain” books, where we get to view from the inside a workplace we normally know only from the outside. Lew, a seasoned firefighter, lets us in on what goes on in a series of anecdotes. At first I thought each tale would be “we went to fire and then we put it out.” It turns out that every fire is different, more and more the firefighters in this suburb of Boston are called upon for medical emergencies, and humans can be counted on to make mistakes and get in trouble. One fire, apparently set by an arsonist, failed to burn down the house because the windows and doors were so sealed up that there was not enough oxygen to sustain a fire. The fire flashed, making a lot of smoke, and …