We're in Trouble

The prevailing theme of these short stories is of love, in the face of death, and this core idea is viewed from a fascinating variety of angles: long-married love confronting terminal illness, sudden death of friends turning a young man into a reluctant father, love entwined in jealousy, depression and violence, love born of heroism. Each scenario presents real characters, people we all know, tightly drawn, speaking words we all recognize. You read these stories with a near sense of having heard of or known these people. I read this book straight through, gripped by each unique story, and look forward eagerly to future work from this author. Don't be dissuaded by the seemingly dark content; some of these stories are actually uplifting, or at least come to a satisfactory close.

The best story in this collection is "All through the House", a cinematic ride backward through time that explores the destruction of a house, and then of a family, all under the most tragic circumstances possible. It's the kind of story, if it were written by a lesser talent, that would tilt toward nihilism, toward death as spectacle, mass murder as entertaining diversion. Coake, though, works a special kind of magic, the kind that piles on the trouble, and then, without resorting to anything treacly or sentimental, leaves the reader with the feeling that, yes, bad things will happen, terrible, terrible things, but we will survive, we will go on, we will love and continue to love, and even those who have inflicted the worst pain will have also lived beautifully in moments, that no one is beyond pain, and that, while there might be no final redemption, there will be tomorrow.

The theme is death, its stunning finality, the one truth that is inarguable. Death comes in many forms, in carelessness, by accident, by design when living is no longer an option, always immutable. Its finality cannot be questioned, leaving an empty space once taken up by affection, as those left behind struggle to make peace with the aftermath of such devastation. Coake pierces the ordinary with the incisive blade of truth, nonjudgmental, people caught in the circumstances of their lives, laid bare before fate, defined by their responses. These are simple stories of complicated people confronted by their choices and their consequences. Set in the Midwest, snow is a common factor, the weight of it, the cold, the sharp etching of emotions, an acknowledgement of extremes. Each story posits a different situation, where death, or the possibility of it, plays a central role. In "Cross Country", a boy takes a single step into manhood, traveling with a man who may or may not be his father. The boy is tentative, wary, riding in a rattling truck from Illinois to Colorado. There are no answers in this story, only questions and the knowledge that this boy's life has altered course. In "Solos", a famous mountain climber's wife endures the familiar agony of waiting to hear whether her husband lives or dies in his quest of the mountain. She has made a terrible bargain by loving this man, the mountain a mistress she cannot fight, torn between love and rage. In "In the Event", a single young man is faced with raising the son of his best friends, just that night killed in a car accident, his life choices truncated without warning, as he grieves for the loss of the familiar while facing the challenge of the future. There are more such tangible dilemmas, a wife whose most intimate memory of her husband is his escape from immolation while dragging a woman from a burning car; two young adults trapped in a deadly snowstorm, one of them long-resigned to death, familiar with its weight; a sheriff's baleful memories of a murdered family, years after the event, his intimate knowledge of the people involved. It is the subtleties the author examines, the shaded emotions exposed by the response to tragedy. One by one, each story isolates a moment of clarity, a peek into this universe, so enormously complicated yet shockingly simple. It is obvious that this author is intimate with grief in all its morbidity, but as he explores its many faces, there is acceptance and a faint light of hope that finally surfaces after a black night of the soul, the brutal finality that is part of life, the alter-ego of bright days, laughter and the sweet infusion of devotion to another human being. These stories are wrenching, yet impossible to resist, Coake's talent palpable. He reaches into the human heart with both hands, sure as a surgeon, yet incredibly gentle with these fragile emotions. To read We Are in Trouble is to be changed, the world illuminated. Luan Gaines/2005.

The character development, the detail, the conflict, realistic dialogue, the themes-all the components of careful writing are here. But it's the pace that makes this book so much fun to read. These grim stories leap off the page when I read at night and then haunt me when I switch off my bedside lamp (especially "Cross Country"). Chris Coake is the literary Martin Scorsese-accessible plots but complex themes that require attentive reading. At his best, Coake finds the perfect balance between craft and story. He tells thrilling tales, and he tells them well.

Christopher Coake's first collection of stories reads more like the work of someone with decades of publication behind him. The writing is gripping, mature, taut, full of apprehension and revelation, and entertaining despite the difficult themes. What more do you want? Check out the long story "All Through the House" (the last piece in the collection) and tell me you haven't just read an instant classic.