Customer Reviews

Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing: Stories (P.S.)

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I began to read this book of stories--elegies actually--having just finished C. E. Morgan's All the Living. I say this because it seems so ironic that I would discover both books at the same time, each set in areas where tobacco was the main crop. And each brilliantly composed. I say elegies because that is what all of the stories really are. In a world gone mad--and sometimes I truly believe it has--where collecting possessions seems to be our only reason for existence, it is wonderful to have stories like these. I too had a wonderful set of grandparents who also owned and labored on their farm, theirs up at the tippy-top of Vermont where instead of tobacco maple syrup was the crop they harvested (in addition to haying for their Jerseys). These are stories, like Annie Proulx's, which are firmly held together by the landscape from which they emerge. I found many of the characters to be like shadows, ghosts really, who refuse to let go. And that was wonderful for me, seeing the grandfather crying and the son occasionally lifting lids on the spices his long-dead mother once used in her cooking. The landscape in these stories is both harsh and unforgiving and yet not necessarily so because asparagus does continue to grow, year after year, in spite of all else human that has occurred. Tractors replace mules, the mules who created the roads upon which the huge trucks with all their noisiness take these mules off to slaughter. But Lydia Peelle leaves us with those mules because of memory left by those still living. I believe this is a book that will--and should--win awards. And not least it is wonderfully presented in his binding.

Lydia Peele's debut book, "Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing", a superb collection of eight short stories, is an astonishing book written in splendid prose. The cumulative effect of reading these marvelous stories lingers in a reader's mind for a very long time.

There is a unifying theme, a common thread running through most of these stories: the effect of modern technology on the human psyche, the deleterious effect of human progress on nature, the rapidly dwindling wilderness, the pain and cruelty man inflicts on others and also on animals, and the most alarming phenomenon - the diminishing ability of man to empathize with others. These points meld perfectly in the story I most admired, "The mule killers", about the effect of the advent of tractors not just on the narrator's grandfather's farm, but on the grandfather's mind itself. The narrator describes the heart-rending scene of the mules of the farm carted away in trailers to the slaughterhouse, to be sold as cheap meat for dog food. This story just tugged at my heat and caused me a great deal of pain and anguish. This story won the O Henry Award in 2006.

"This is not a love story", "Shadow on a weary land", "The still point", and "Sweet hearts of the rodeo" are extraordinarily good. I enjoyed reading them.

Two of these stories have been featured in the "Best New American Voices", and two others have won Pushcart Prizes also. And all these stories have been published, individually, as e-Books by "Mobypocket".

I do not wish to compare Lydia Peelle with other short story writers such as Jhumpa Lahiri and Alice Munro because Lydia Peelle has a unique voice and a unique style. Reading this book was a great joy.

Gripping stories about how development and modern life is changing the south. It's a beautifully written book, however, it is not uplifting, not light. I finished some of the stories asking if there was any hope. I'm not saying not to read the book, since it takes a well written book to make me question how I view the world, but be prepared for the emotions it will surely evoke.

Lydia Peelle will be one of the writers in residence at Rollins College's Winter with the Writer's series in 2011, so I took the opportunity to familiarize myself with her writing, before I have the opportunity to meet her. These eight stories remind me of Maile Meloy's writing - bleak but powerful - of characters who take an ever-decreasing responsibility for their world, and the ever-increasing challenges these positions create.

"The Mule Killers" a story about an aging farmer who slowly goes crazy as he is forced to keep up with modern technology won the O. Henry Award in 2006, and two of the stories in this collection won Pushcart Prizes.

prose is well written, but bleak...maybe I'm not fond of the regional malaise. (southern fiction with the exception of the title story.) Strong characters and voice, atmospheric but certain indifference to suffering I find disturbing.