Do Not Deny Me: Stories

One of the best collection of American short stories I have read in recent years, Jean Thompson's Do Not Deny Me, highlights the internal worlds Americans' inhabit, even in the most prosaic settings. I have not previously read anything by Jean Thompson, but was shocked I haven't come across her work before, given the weight and talent these stories exhibited. Where have I been? Why haven't I come across her before? No matter. I have now. Her stories, quintessentially American,focus on characters that make up middle class America: a single, middle-aged, woman visiting her married house-wife college friend at Thanksgiving; an aging English professor who is being edged out by up-and-coming theory obsessed colleagues; a successful salesman who counters his mid-life crisis by building a tree-house. On the surface these stories sound flat, but Thompson picks away at that surface to reveal the supreme aching loneliness that swims beneath. Isolation runs through all her stories as a constant current, but sometimes her characters are able to counter this by finding meaning and small, measured pleasures within the banality of everyday life. Rather shorter version of my feelings on this collection would be as follows: Read it late into the night. Finished it in 2 days. Not a light-hearted summer read,BUT an exceptionally satisfying read. Highly recommended.

Finding a good writer of short stories is more rare than finding a gold nugget on the sidewalk while you're taking a walk. Jean Thompson is an excellent writer of the short story genre. There are several favorites that I have in this collection. My all-time favorite is the first story, 'Soldiers of Spiritos'. Ms. Thompson takes on all the politically correct 'isms' that are currently in vogue in academia. The story is about a drama teacher who feels worn-out and out of place on the faculty. At the same time, he is busy writing a science fiction satire about his colleagues who look down on him and sometimes do not even acknowledge him. We see his sensitive side and that he really cares when he can get through to his students on some level. Another wonderful story is 'Little Brown Bird'. A woman is working on a quilt and hidden among the appliques in plain sight is a little brown bird. The woman befriends a young girl from a troubled family next door and realizes that the girl's life is as visible as the little brown bird. 'Escape' is a story of two older folks who live to hate each other. Sadly, the husband has had a stroke so he is at a disadvantage in the 'let's see how I can get her back' category. They manage to torment each other and the story is sad to read but most of us know at least one couple like this. On page 251, Ms. Thompson says. "I think you're destined for something wonderful. Not sainthood, exactly." . . ."But some other kind of shining, special life. No matter what things might look like now." Sadly,in each of her stories, nothing much better than the current unhappiness that each character is facing is likely to appear on the horizon. She uses the term "emotional pollution" on page 250. That is what we see in all of the stories - - sadness, anger, bitterness, despair, hopelessness and the repetition of those same mistakes that got each character to the miserable place that they find themselves in now.

Quietly, through four novels and four story collections, Jean Thompson has been proving herself one of the finest storytellers at work in the United States. Readers of past collections such as Throw Like a Girl and Who Do You Love will expect plainspoken prose of great resonance -- stories that stay with the reader long after the book has been closed. Do Not Deny Me brings more of the same -- reports from the world of the daily, but how fierce the daily!

"Do Not Deny Me" is a collection of twelve illuminating short stories. Ms. Thompson has a gift for succinct characterization. She deftly reveals her characters essence and makes each one relatable. The reader can't help but recognize at least a piece of himself or herself in even the most repellent of her protagonists. For example, we might claim only a tenuous association with someone like Matthew from the story "Mr. Rat" but his self-absorption and neediness are prevalent in today's society (and in us?). The characters and settings featured in this contemporary collection are diverse and there is thankfully no "got you" connective thread running through them. (The student in the first story does not turn out to be the grandmother in the fourth.) The author uses a common household stable as a metaphorical device in the tales. But it seems to be more a sly wink to the reader and less an artistic contrivance. It is not necessary to read the stories in any particular order. Each one deals with life's big issues - from the ethical, to the moral to the spiritual but they don't seem to obviously build on or play off one and other. Some of the segments are lighter in tone, but there are surprising bits of humor in even the darkest of the bunch. I chuckled throughout the story "Escape" which deals with a venomous stroke victim and his equally vile wife. And, yes, it was a bit unsettling. The general tenor of the collection maybe a bit gloomy for some, but in the end it is not a fill up the tub and open a vein kind of book. Deft characterizations, relevant story lines, biting humor and first quality writing make this a "must read".

The short story form is an art and few writers have truly mastered it -- Alice Munro, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Tobias Wolff come to mind. Jean Thompson is among those rarefied authors. I loved her winsome collection "Throw Like A Girl", and couldn't wait to delve into her latest collection. I was not disappointed. These twelve stories reveal how Americans truly live -- it's like looking in a mirror. All the nuances are pitch perfect, to the point that you say, "I know that guy!" Or, "That reminds me so much of someone I used to know..." Each reader is bound to have his or her own favorites; I particularly enjoyed "Mr. Rat", the story of a presumably young man in a large, impersonal corporation, who seems at first to be bored and lethargic... and ends up being something far more horrible, a genius at self-preservation and a master at throwing his best friend "under the bus." Then there's "Escape", a tale of Hurley, a stroke victim, and his wife -- two unpleasant people who have a visceral hatred for each other. The twist at the end is reminiscent of O'Henry. You'll meet people who build treehouses to escape from life's mundanity, women who sing in German and try to save little girls, a divorcee who suffers the blind date from hell, the young "golden couple" who are victims of today's economic times and, in their own way, survivors. Some stories will make you laugh out loud, others will make you wince in self-acknowledgement. All are little gems in their own unique ways.