Trying to Smile and Other Stories: And Other Stories

None of the young people in this collection seem to be having a good time. The stories are set in contemporary or seventies America (one in London) Three are about teenagers. The young adults have unsuccessful artistic/acting careers and not-very-successful love affairs. The style is spare detached New Yorker. One of them "Trouble People" was in Seventeen. It's about a boy bucking peer pressure and befriending an unpopular unattractive girl. I liked the first one best, about a girl with a rather horrible father who dies. I bought this a long time back on the strength of some rave reviews. It was borrowed by a daughter who recently returned it, telling me how good it was, and I re-read it and agreed with her.

The New Yorker doesn't publish as many good stories as they used to. I used to look at the "Contents" every week, to see who would be featured. An Updike story was nice. A William Trevor story, even better. A Ruth Prawer-Jhabvala story and I'd give a little whoop of joy. But there was also something special about finding a Sara Lewis story. The first story I ever read by her was "Perfect Combinations" in the New Yorker. There is a sentence in that story that I'm sure has popped into my head a hundred times since I've read the story; it is certainly one of the most moving sentences I've ever read. Rather than spoil it by quoting it out of context, I'll leave it for you to discover. What does Sara Lewis write about? If you can characterize a Lewis story, I would say it involves a person whose life is a little more complicated or a little more confusing than the person really knows how to handle, and the story tells us how the character works his or her way through it. A story about a high school senior failing geometry and being courted by the ugliest girl in the class. A story about a woman who receives a visit from her stepdaughter, not much younger than she is, with whom she has never been able to communicate. A story about a man whose girlfriend suddenly loses interest in sleeping with him. As a writer, Lewis excels in being able to very quickly convey the personality and situation of the character. The characters are for the most part likable. The writing pace is quick, with a gentle humor.