The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories

If you are inclined to favor the short story to avoid commitment to longer works, don't pick up this book. It will not be put down. Valerie Martin offers up six splendid tales that explore lives driven by artistry. The protagonists cannot escape their art and narratives are rich with unexpected detail and nuanced relationships. Love and jealousy (both amorous and artistic), bad habits and brilliance, insecurity and triumph, rabbits and cats and an owl all move across her stage. Most of the loves are stressed and some are broken, but unlike the emptiness in Nothing Right: Short Stories, Antonya Nelson's recently released collection which also explores romantic failure, the characters here evoke the reader's deep concern. Martin is author of the Orange Prize winner, Property, which I have not read. I will.

I spent my weekend reading "The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories" by Valerie Martin. Expecting to finish one chapter at a time but as I read one, I could not help but read another and then another. There are not too many books that have made me want to read beginning to end but this is one of those books. Each of these three stories were written in such a way, giving each character some dimension and weight. For example, the first story about an artist named John who is quite envious of another artist. Shrewd and who has a aura of being a jerk is living with a beautiful woman named Maria. John has adored Maria and we get to peak inside of his mind of his feelings of her being with this artist that he loves his work but despises as a person. But through the success of their careers, there are major changes that affect each of them. And it all comes down to a tragedy. The way it was written was intelligent but not overly to verbose, you literally can envision this world that Martin has created, the music being played, the paintings being shown, the party of the young artists and much more. This goes the same for each and every story. These stories could have been quite depressing now that I think about it but they way they were written, you more or less get to understand the pain these characters are in, their craft and passion about their work and how the outside world affects it. Wonderfully written, touching, heartbreaking but quite enjoyable. "The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories" is an addictive book. You may want to pick a copy up for yourself.

Valerie Martin's "Mary Reilly" reimagined "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" with such compelling intensity that new readers who sought out Stevenson afterwards might ask which is the real classic; and "Property" studied the corrosive effects of ownership on slave and slaveholder with a gaze more unflinching than most writers would care to attempt. Set in recent times, "The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories" do not require, or permit, such stringency. One thinks of Henry James's tales of various artists, transposed to a wholly modern key: a painter who flees from a hapless love, and a lover who flees from a hapless painter---an actor who finds himself mortally upstaged by life---a poet who may lose her access to poetry if she relocates to remain with her partner. The present-day scenes of the sixty-two-page title story, set in a section of New Orleans that did not need Katrina to be desolate, possess the lurid lucidity of nightmare; and the concluding impasse---what to do with a manuscript one can neither read nor destroy---is resolved with a credibility that astonishes as it delights. Then, after so much tense and textural realism (many of these artists started out poor, or still are), in the final story the collection takes flight. At first "The Change" seems to refer merely to menopause, afflicting a printmaker who finds its effects anything but "mere"; but the alterations turn out to be much more drastic. That we are being guided by a master story-teller is confirmed by the way the tales resonate in the memory long after a first reading: you go back to check this detail and that conversation and the quiet magic Martin works with words. This is a book for readers to revel in, and writers to learn from.

These short stories were wrought with great craftmanship, and they are extremely moving snapshots of the lives of artists and writers. The last two stories, in particular, about a couple on the verge of breaking up who travels to Rome, and about a husband's loving struggle to understand the changes his wife is going through, are fascinating and perceptive. I look forward to reading more of Valerie Martin's work.

these stories were the first encounter i have had with valerie martin. by doing the unthinkable, i judged this book by its cover and was immediately taken in by it. every story was as engaging as the next. i was actually sad when it was over! the title story is incredibly captivating with all its twists and turns. a collection of truly engaging and fascinating stories, you'll devour it in one sitting!