Customer Reviews

Carrying the Torch: Stories (Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you like reading the same story over and over again than this is the book for you. After the first three stories about cheating husbands I put this book back on the shelf and probably will not pick it back up again.

The author writes well and can spin a yarn, and the first four stories are standouts. Past the fourth though the collection starts lose some variety and edge. It isn't the ubiquitous problematic husband that's tiring, but just the way this character is approached again and again, seeming to have the same voice over and over. Plus, some of the stories are too long and talky. That said, if you're wanting to see the same sad, inarticulate husband or marriage examined in several scene changes, this is your book.

Some great stories still, and every one is graced with fine sentences. "For Those of Us Who Need Such Things" and "The Reason Was Us" are really great stories and definitely worth the admission price.

I thought "What We Won't Do" was an excellent collection of stories and was looking forward to "Carrying the Torch." I haven't yet read every story, but the stories I have read are extremely disappointing, for a number of reasons. For one, in at least four stories, Clarke gives us philandering husbands. The author seems to see no other way to create domestic turmoil than to have a loutish man cheat on his wife. This seems to be a form of politically correct (and outdated) male bashing rampant in some liberal academic circles, but not every man cheats on his wife, nor is every woman a victim. By using cheating husbands over and over, it seems that the author has an axe to grind regarding infidelity, but the axe quickly becomes dull with repeated use. Also, in "Apology," a male character tells his three previous wives that a priest had abused him, and each wife gives a callous response. Again, the author is using some rather shallow and unconvincing behavior to create a dramatic context. "For Those of Us Who Need Such Things" is a weak attempt at some sort of neo-Barthelme fiction, minus Barthelme's brilliant language, surrealism and satire. In Clarke's story, the narrator buys Savannah, Georgia, the sort of implausible act that happens frequently in Barthelme (see "The Dead Father," "The Balloon," etc.), but the mistake that many neo-Barthelmaniacs make is that they try to mix the fantastic with the mundane, with tepid results. (In a previous Clarke story, a grown man goes back to elementary school. I think something similar also happened in a Barthelme story.) "The Fund-Raiser's Dance Card" (featuring a cheating husband) is such an obvious homage to John Cheever's "The Swimmer" that Clarke even names one set of neighbors "the Cheevers." Overall, Clarke treats his characters with contempt, not compassion. There's a school of thought that believes an author should have compassion for his characters, even if they are creeps and losers. One sees this compassion in Raymond Carver, where many of the male characters are louts, yet Carver manages to impart some dignity and forgiveness to his wounded men.