Happy Trails to You: Stories

Reading this book was an interesting experience. The author is playing around with different things. The writing is very clear and distinct but what she's communicating is subtle. Like Hemmingway, but more satirical. Sometimes the stories in this book seemed to be concerned with emptiness, but I couldn't really say for sure what's in the author's mind. The last story in the book made the whole book worth putting up with the annoying, self-absorbed snobby narrator.

As a fan of Do the Windows Open? and The Unprofessionals, I was eagerly awaiting Julie Hecht's latest collection of stories. In Happy Trails to You, Hecht once again made me laugh out loud at various ridiculous aspects of the modern world: the "globally warmed-up" climate, our "Alfred E. Neuman president," the zombie-like state caused by late night TV-watching. Hecht's neurotic musings are easy to relate to if you care about the world. I recommend Hecht's books to everyone, in particular vegetarians and vegans, health nuts, followers of Dr Andrew Weil, liberals, people with anxiety disorders, and anyone who wishes we could go back to a simpler time.

Julie Hecht writes rarely, but when she does it is with a rare delicacy. She describes the everyday, but with a special sensitivity, and always, absurdity, though not of the obvious sort. She describes the gift of a pair of mittens, an encounter with an actor-waiter, her relationship with her cleaning lady, with a mixture of bemusement and outright bewilderment. I feel Julie Hecht is a stranger on her home turf, and especially, a stranger in 21st century America, or what this country has become. I wish we could be friends, but that would be impossible, since I live in New York City and my food choices would deeply offend her sensibilities. In fact, her intolerance in a hyper-tolerant culture is one of her most attractive qualities. Her doctrinaire insistence on standards, albeit standards that are politically liberal and nutritionally vegan, is again, charming, because it is deeply rooted in an at-times off-kilter humanity. I was disappointed, though, in the last story, where a bizarre interview leads to poignant reflections on the state of the culture and the ignorance of young people. It was to me too much, it veered off the atmosphere of hothouse sensibility that Julie Hecht's narrator previously had inhabited. But the story that culminates in her taking down the American flag, and particularly, the reason why she takes it down, is deeply patriotic, albeit in an offbeat, quirky way. A fine follow up to her brilliant Do the Windows Open?

I have avidly awaited this sequel to Hecht's wonderful first story collection (Do the Windows Open?), and was thrilled to find that this collection is deeper, wiser, more mature, and a joy to read. I have just finished it and want to immediately re-read it. The writing is delicate and elegant, with sudden hilarious moments, and although the narrator could be described as rigid, neurotic and judgmental, she also comes across as deeply sensitive, intelligent and caring - i.e., very human - a wonderful sleight of hand for an author. Many of the stories are almost perfectly crafted and all are subtly understated. I love this author and I love this book.