Drowning Lessons

Peter Selgin's wonderful collection of short stories demonstrates an unusual consistency of theme--not a superimposed or artificial consistency, but an instinctual one. Water is the theme here, and while the theme alludes to life, it also alludes to desire: that semi-conscious realm of wanting, over which no man or woman has control. The magic of this articulate collection is that it manages to define desire as a non-articulate force in the protagonists' lives--a force both gravitational and repulsive. They live willfully, we might say of Selgin's characters, but at the mercy of the tides. "Now I see why I love cartoons," says the narrator of "Driving Picasso": "they give us the world minus gravity and suffering, a world of primary hues, unambiguous outlines, unbridled possibilities, without weight, subtext, or sophistication." Dream on, the reader wants to say. Weight, subtext, and sophistication infuse this stunning collection.

Peter Selgin's collection of short stories, "Drowning Lessons," is a seamlessly crafted, deeply affecting swim in waters that are at once welcoming, redemptive and dangerous. The author dives confidently into the minds of ordinary men, all of whom are trying desperately to connect to the people in thir lives or the strangers they come upon. The first story aptly named 'Swimming' finds an old man(a strong swimmer) imagining a last chance at love with a much younger woman whom he meets at favorite place to swim. While he dreams of what might be, he's left to grapple with the reality of his real life, his wife who has long since lost interest in him.She can't swim worth a damn. At the center of each story, 'El Malecon' for example is a moment wherein, lonely yet always proud characters must face the truth of who they are even if that happens in the last moments of their lives. We readers become witnesses to these painfully human, often funny moments. Like it or not there's isn't one among us who might not secretly identify with these characters' struggles which makes them compulsive, delicious reading. Did I mention that there's plenty of lust and humor too? Don't be afraid to take a deep breath and test these waters.

Several of the short stories in this collection are so masterful that they should be included in those anthologies of "Best Short Fiction of Whatever Year" and "Best Humorous Fiction of Whatever Year," and I would also add "Best Travel Writing of" --anyway, you get the idea. Selgin can be hilarious and is a wonderful writer of place; his stories set in Greece, Mexico, and even rural, hard-scrapple Connecticut really evoke their individual settings. As I was reading "Drowning Lessons," I kept thinking, "This is going to be my favorite story," then I'd change my mind and find another one, but two stories that really clung to me were "Sawdust," about a boy and his puzzling attachment to an older teacher, and "Boy B," a really shredding story about the bitter, intense love of a very competitive identical twin relationship. In all his stories, Selgin has an almost vaudevillian ability to do turn-on-a-dime changes in mood, voice, and feeling; he can go from bitter and sarcastic to lushly emotional and romantic in one sentence: this gives him a very singular voice, completely apart from the usual canned fluff of easily palatable commercial literature, where every line reads like it's come out of a Dairy Queen machine. There are times though when I wish some of the stories had gripped me more, stayed closer to the conflicts in them, or presented themselves with harder, less flinching situations. But the stories that I did like, and there were a number of them, like "The Girl in the Story" (a masterful, amazing tale set in Connecticut--and one of my "favorite" contenders); "The Sea Cure," deliciously scary and mean; and "The Sinking Ship Man," about the cult of big-time disasters (I won't spoil the plot by saying what famous disaster but Celine Dion warbles in it) and aging--still stick in my mind, and I think they will stick in yours for a very long time to come.

What makes "Drowning Lessons" such compelling reading is that the stories cover the gamut of human emotions, each one conveying a specific message about human relationships and the lessons we take home from them. Using a broad range of colors, moods and rhythms Selgin does that in a very direct and moving way. Not unlike some musical compositions, stories such as "Swimming", "Our Cups Are Bottomless" and "Colors of The Sea" seem to alternately emerge and fade back as if riding the waves taking us from the dark depths of despair to bursts of hope and sunshine.

This book is a great read---the stories are so alive that I felt as if I might put the book down and find myself face to face with the characters themselves, alive in front of me, all of them vibrant, real and believable. It was a pleasure for me to find that these stories lived up to the promise of the recognition given them, the Flannery O'Connor Award; these stories are sophisticated, intelligent and totally entertaining. Best of all, I found myself liking these characters tremendously. Although all the stories are different and all the characters unique, there is an energy to this book that never flags, first story to last. If you're a short story writer, this collection is one to read and ponder---this author knows how to turn a phrase and hook a reader. (He also has a great craft book out, "By Cunning and Craft," one that I use all the time in teaching writing workshops.) Highly recommended!