For some time, I’d been looking forward to reading this forthcoming collection of stories, which were co-authored by Kim Magowan and Michelle Ross. Having finished an advance copy of the collection, I’m delighted to highly recommend it. With dark humor, wit, and a sharp eye for human foibles, the stories explore what makes every kind of human relationship–from the ones we don’t choose to those with siblings, romantic partners, and children–challenging. It also considers why we seek connections nonetheless, and how we try to make meaning from even the messiest and most complicated entanglements.
The opening story of the collection, “Kindness Woman,” focuses on a major category of unchosen relationship: the kind we have with co-workers. The character described in the title displays a particularly annoying variety of positivity, at least according to two of her co-workers: the protagonist of the story, Grace, and Grace’s work friend Terry, who is part of their company’s HR department. Early in the story, Grace makes this observation about Kindness Woman:
To Grace, the most off-putting aspect of Kindness Woman isn’t her seemingly endless supply of enthusiasm, treats, and cheeriness. Instead, it’s her desire to get credit for her kindness. As Grace puts it, “She wants a standing ovation.”
When an especially scornful employee, Faye, indicates that she’s far from offering a standing ovation, Kindness Woman files an HR complaint against her “for being mean.” As part of the HR team, Terry is tasked with mediating between the two women, a responsibility she’s not looking forward to.
Through Grace’s and Terry’s travails and observations, the story makes larger points about the uncomfortable ecologies of workplaces and how they force us to spend long hours of our lives with people we may have nothing in common with–or worse. With bracing honesty and humor, the story also considers the uneasy intersections of our authentic selves with workplace expectations and norms.
The story “Oh-Oh-It’s-Cruel” considers potentially challenging relationships that we’re born into–in this case, those with siblings. This structurally adventurous tale alternates between the points of view of a sister and brother, Carrie and Shane, who have accepted their father and stepmother’s invitation to a family gathering, which also includes their sister, Lorna, and other relations. But this is far from a purely social event. The father and stepmother want to discuss their will so that “there won’t be any arguing” after they’ve died.
But discontent between Carrie and Shane had been brewing long before the gathering, and it kicks into higher gear when their father invites Carrie to be the executor of the will. Shane thinks of Carrie as an “anal as hell” control freak, “which my parents always mistook for responsibility.” And Carrie sees Shane as greedy, lacking in empathy, and far from financially responsible.
At the gathering, tensions build between Carrie and Shane. But a uniting concern is what might be up with their father. Is his fatigue the result of a recent injury or is something more serious going on? Another uniting element is the siblings’ resentment about their father’s absence from their lives when they were children. Yet at his relatively advanced age, he’s surprised them by taking up baking, and on this occasion, he presents a homemade birthday cake to Shane’s son.
This moment, and the layered perspectives of Carrie and Shane, offer a nuanced view of family dynamics and of how deeply embedded perceptions and resentments can, at certain moments, give way to new understandings and an unexpected sense of connection.
One of my favorite stories in the collection, “Twenty-Three Safety Manuals,” focuses on a young woman, Catherine, who at this point in her life feels the absence of meaningful connections. At one point, she observes, “Sometimes I feel like I don’t know anyone, and I never will.”
As the story begins, Catherine is at an uncertain place in her life. Having just completed her junior year abroad in college, she’s moved back home for the summer because she’s broke and doesn’t have anywhere else to go. But it’s “home” in name only, for several reasons. Catherine’s parents have drifted apart, her mother is struggling with what seems to be serious depression, and neither one of them is emotionally present for her. To make matters worse, her brother is a “misogynistic asshole.” Beyond her home life, things aren’t any brighter. Catherine’s close friend and confidante is away on an internship. And when Catherine briefly reconnects with a former high school classmate, Shawn, she barely escapes being raped by him.
When she starts a summer job at a local university, Catherine’s circumstances don’t seem to improve much, at first. For one thing, most men in the office see her as a sexual object. One exception is Leonard, who is kind to her and seems genuinely interested in her intellectually. In a moment of vulnerability, Catherine tells Leonard what happened with Shawn. He responds with compassion and also sticks up for her when another (male) colleague demeans her. He also admires her description of her abode as “the place-that-used-to-be home.” Looking back on his reaction, Catherine reflects:
Soon afterward, Catherine and Leonard become romantically involved. But Catherine soon has doubts about the relationship. A major issue, from her perspective, is that Leonard’s recent separation from his wife doesn’t feel emotionally complete, and in her view, some of his language surrounding the relationship seems to dodge the truth, “shrouding and avoiding what makes him uncomfortable,” much in the way her parents have seemed to steer clear of uncomfortable topics.
Through Catherine’s evolving relationship with Leonard, and through her other experiences during this unusually difficult summer, the story presents a moving and revelatory exploration of a certain variety of homesickness, not for a particular place but for deep, meaningful, and honest connections with others, connections that, at their best, can truly feel like home.
Nuances of language are also an important element in the story “Disagree to Disagree,” which takes on fraught communication within families. Throughout the story, the main character, Anne, struggles to make sense of the cryptic exclamations of her teenage daughter, Charlie. For example, when Charlie tells Anne that she’s “starving,” despite an abundance of food in their house, Anne first says to herself, “I will not engage.” However, frustration eventually leads Anne to make her own meaning of her daughter’s complaint, concluding that Charlie would rather be living with Anne’s ex-husband, Ethan, and his new wife. As Anne reflects, Charlie’s complaint is:
Ethan’s responses to Charlie’s style of communicating–or, rather, her choice to sometimes remain silent–were one of the factors that contributed to the dissolution of his and Anne’s marriage. Anne reflects that she “used to pride herself on how coolly she handled Charlie’s silences. Ethan, on the other hand, would demand that Charlie talk to him, particularly during meals.” After a disagreement about their approaches came to a head, Ethan moved out.
Anne’s experiences with Charlie and Ethan underscore how what is left unsaid, or said cryptically, can be fertile ground for the making of meaning, not always with positive outcomes. They also underscore how often communication is about the setting of boundaries–of determining how much we want to say to others, if anything. Disrespect of those boundaries is one good way to shut down communication, and perhaps relationships, altogether.
Would My Pick be Your Pick?
If you're interested in ________, the answer may be "Yes":￭ Short stories
￭ Stories about interpersonal conflicts
￭ Explorations of family relationships
￭ Explorations of romantic relationships
