The Stories of Mary Gordon

Mary Gordon's stories deal with the travails of modern life - of individuals who grapple with the business of family, marriage, and identity. Her protagonists are mostly women, Irish American, newly-displaced and carving a new identity at various stages of realising or witnessing and coming to terms with their American Dream falling to pieces, having a second go at their marriages, being disappointed with their children, etc. Some characters that stand out for me include the well-meaning elderly widow who tries to cheerfully face the increasing irrelevance of her existence in `Death in Naples', the efficient nun and principal who tolerates an incompetent teacher and find herself mistakenly playing out the role of friend and supporter despite her less noble intentions in `The Deacon', and the long-suffering husband who holds onto a promise he made to his demented wife, despite his inability to cope with her deterioration in `Mrs Cassidy's Last Year'. Always graceful and written in careful, delicate strokes, Gordon's stories will touch those that celebrate the honest and the frail but frustrate the cynical and those impatient with evidence of human weakness.

Reviewed by Shawn Remfrey This engrossing collection of tales is a must have for everyone's bookshelf. Each short story is exquisitely written and well-crafted with Mary Gordon's personal style. Whether the reader is wanting a quick entertaining story, or in-depth literature to study, Mary Gordon delivers. Each story deals with the human condition; thoughts, emotions, actions and where each of those leads us. The most popular theme throughout the book is disillusionment. There are also tales of hopelessness, depression, alcoholism. My favorite two stories involve an elderly woman forced to see her favorite place through the eyes of her daughter in law, and a woman forced to look at her husband through her own eyes. These stories give each person a chance to examine his or her own life. Mary Gordon's characters are alive and become dear. Vivid imagery helps lose oneself in a world that could easily belong to anyone else, too. In a space of five to ten pages, an entire story unfolds, leaving a sense of completion. Through one snippet of a character's life, the reader has a sense of that person's past, future and all that makes them up. At first I was skeptical about Mary Gordon's talent, having never read anything written by her before. I quickly learned that you truly can't judge a book by it's cover. I was captivated from story to story. Each character, literally, made me identify and sympathize with them. This collection kept me in emotional turmoil until the end. I fully intend to search for every Mary Gordon book I am able to find and spread the word about this gem. Mary Gordon comes from an interesting heritage mix of Jewish and Irish Catholic. Most of her stories reflect her upbringing. She currently teaches composition and creative writing at a community college. Mary Gordon's most recent published book is Circling My Mother: A Memoir. This nonfiction book tells the story of her mother as Mary was growing up. In 1996 Mary Gordon wrote a similar book in her father's memory, The Shadow Man. Armchair Interviews says: Wonderful to know about a first-rate book of short stories.

Choppy, some of the stories are excellent, others just so so. Overall, I'd recommend the book as a good reader of short stories and of course, Ms. Gordon.

Reading this hefty book of short stories that explores the traits and lives of everyday people is enough to wallop a reader in the gut. The tales are all too real. The characters are never seen through a kind pink haze; without softening, they show us --- in unflinching prose --- jealousy, possessiveness, despair, loss and more. And yet we cannot look away; Mary Gordon is describing us. One theme running through the collection is the notion that the past is never truly gone. The first story, "City Life," brings us Beatrice, whose marriage to Peter is founded on the lie that her parents are dead and her upbringing was normal. In fact, Beatrice has no idea if her alcoholic parents in their filthy hopeless home are still alive. Her life with Peter and her children is disrupted when they move from their restored farmhouse in the country into a New York City apartment. Beatrice meets her past there, and she can no longer deny its power over her life. The underbelly of love is another premise in many tales, such as "Separation," in which a mother struggles with society's expectation that her young child should bond with others besides herself. The author poses a question: How powerful is the force of maternal possessiveness? In this chilling piece, we see the extreme, which is strong enough to warp lives. The world constantly changes, as does our place in it. In "Death in Naples," a family jaunt to Naples leaves an elderly widow searching for both her own autonomy and landmarks of her past happy travels with her late husband. Her quest leaves her lost in a world in which she feels misplaced. Catholicism is the underpinning of many of these stories. In "The Deacon," a nun, Joan Fitzgerald, encounters a trying spiritual challenge in the form of an inept teacher in the parish school in which Joan is principal. The teacher, Gerard, is the one person Joan feels she cannot stomach. Yet fate (or Gerard would say "God's will") pushes them together in a solitary meal during which Joan must make a difficult spiritual choice. In "Bishop's House," Lavinia seeks solace at the home of elderly friends. Another guest, also recovering from an ended romance, tries the patience of everyone in the house. Lavinia discovers, in a double twist of revelation, that no one is as they appear. Revenge is served in "Cleaning Up" --- but instead of being punishment for wrongdoing, it strives to chastise an unbearable act of charity. The multilayered story acknowledges the deeply hidden rationale of a seemingly irrational action. In "Walt," the main character is stuck in a spider web where she considers the ultimate and unforgivable cruelty: her own, toward someone who loves her. The impulse to squelch him survives decades. She can't stop yet she can't live with her actions. THE STORIES OF MARY GORDON is not a light read, jabbing sharp, unrelenting elbows into the reader and whispering, "Do you recognize yourself?" The following passage in this collection's "Storytelling" st