Not: A Trio (Two Stories and a Novella) [Hardcover]

David Huddle (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Huddle is no stranger to difficult loves; his acclaimed novel, The Story of a Million Years, involved a middle-aged man's affair with his 15-year-old neighbor. These three interlocking tales see love bloom and wilt in a small New England town, a place where once and future partners encounter each other at the luncheonette and the gas station. The first story, "Village Tale," places its characters squarely in compromising positions: psychologist Claire treats her new lover, Danny, as if he were one of her clients, making love to him only in her office and struggling to keep the noise down. When Danny wants to actually talk in that office, the two confront the inadequacies of their arrangement. Huddle brings the same sure-handed storytelling to "Wherever I Am Not," which remembers one key morning in Claire's marriage to Ben, a dean at the local college. Ben has been confident in his daily routines: "the patterns discernible in creation and nature incline him toward something like faith." Those patterns threaten to break apart when his former wife tells him some unpleasant facts about their marriage. Claire narrates the third, and longest, novella in a series of short, disconnected paragraphs: readers will be glad to see more of Claire, but Huddle's formal choices here obscure the shape of his plot, making the title story the least successful of the three. Though it lacks the ambition of his novel, the collection still exhibits Huddle's strengths. He remains an accomplished observer of the pangs of middle age, of communities so tight they're nearly claustrophobic and of the strange turns love can take. (Sept.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 126 pages
• Publisher: Univ of Notre Dame Pr (September 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0268036519
• ISBN-13: 978-0268036515
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,080,624 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The marvel of subtlety, January 12, 2001

By 

Daniel E. Wickett "EWN and Dzanc Books" (Westland, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Not: A Trio (Two Stories and a Novella) (Hardcover)

This wonderful collection has two stories and a novella which intertwine to tell us the story of Claire McClelland, a psychologist based in Bennington, VT. It's not a very pretty story, and though the first two stories foreshadow the novella, it is done so with the extreme subtlety that only a writer as strong and confident of his world as Huddle could pull off.

The first story, titled "Village Tale," is told from the viewpoint of Claire's current lover, Danny Marlow. Danny and Claire have a physical relationship and that is all they have. He arranges for one hour sessions with her at her office and they lock the door and go at it on the office carpet. They rarely speak to each other. They do not even see each other outside the office. Unlike your basic stereotyped female character, it is Claire who insists things are this way. Towards the end of the story, he instigates a conversation between the two of them, similar to those she typically has with patients in her office. Her responses to his questions cement our understanding of her feelings. This story also foreshadows a major event in Claire's life in regards to her second husband, Ben.

The second story, "Wherever I am Not," is told from Ben's viewpoint. It involves a phone conversation he has with his ex-wife while Claire sleeps in the bedroom down the hall very early one morning. It is through his conversation with the ex-wife, while learning about their failures, that we learn more details and facts about Claire. The end of the story, though foretold in "Village Tale," still catches the reader off guard, bringing up an emotional response somewhat akin to that you'd expect Claire to have.

"Not," is the novella at the end of the book. It is told in numerous short lists or paragraphs. Only one or two of these reaches the length of a page, but they each tell incredible amounts about Claire. The essence of this novella is Claire suffering a breakdown of sorts in her office and deciding that her entire life has been a series of incidents where she has convinced herself she was happy. She leaves her life behind and goes into the mountains where she has been willed some property. Her intention is to take the right moment to end her chicanery. The will she or won't she aspect is not nearly as important as the little bits and pieces that Huddle gives us throughout the individual paragraphs, lists and incidents. These include areas of Claire's life we've seen before in the two stories as well as those new to the reader.

The only disappointing this about this collection is that it is over so quickly; the book is only 105 pages long. The best thing is that it didn't need to be any longer. In this short period of space, Huddle has given us a fully developed character and others that are nearly fully realized though they're barely mentioned in terms of space and words. He has followed his muse, and delved into an area of domestic question, relationships and absence of feeling, and plowed through it in his own way. His way is spare, it is subtle, and it is a wonder to admire.