Short stories cut to the bone
“Be brief and tell us everything” may be the mantra of poets but it applies equally well to writers of short fiction, a form that seems ready- made for our attention- reduced contemporary lives. At its best, the genre functions as a kind of esthetic and emotional sound bite. It’s writing that cuts to the chase or the bone, that in the words of essayist David Shields ( Reality Hunger), delivers “only highlights and no down time.”
Now, as a result of Canada’s Alice Munro ( Nobel Prize) and Lynn Coady ( Giller Prize) and their recent short- fiction wins, the form is in the spotlight again after years of neglect — at centre stage, in fact. Here’s hoping its residency there is a long one. Because until now, short fiction, along with poetry, has been a “low sell/ low- interest” genre, the term “blockbuster” translating here into sales of maybe 500 copies.
So, to present a debut collection in spite of chill market winds, as Mother Tongue Press has done with Eufemia Fantetti’s A Recipe for Disaster & Other Unlikely Tales of Love, is something that can be viewed as a deep commitment to the form. Cue the applause cards; bring on the band.
Mother Tongue makes beautiful books, and Fantetti’s slim volume is no exception. The cover is 21st- century ironic: girl/ boy colours of pink and blue offset a black and white photo of a ‘ 60s housewife staring wanly at batter dripping off a spoon. Inside, the six stories, each with a food- related title and graphic — spatula, rolling pin, measuring cup — unfold with tales of domestic disappointment. But all is not dour because Fantetti’s stories are leavened with a refreshingly sarcastic line here, a one- two comedy punch there.
The book runs to a scant 86 pages, but book length isn’t the point here. Brevity and emotional impact is the point; essence is the point, and engagement. And her stories do engage.
Reminiscent of Lorrie Moore’s 1986 debut collection SelfHelp, which also deals primarily with the problems of young love, Fantetti exhibits a similar sureness of touch and can be just as caustically funny.
In the story Loss of Appetite, a live- in relationship which has become all “arguments and belittling comments” is detailed through a series of he/ she exchanges in which the young woman comes to realize that “she is too young to feel so unwanted.” Underscoring this heartbreak, though, are quips such as this: “The way to a man’s heart’ — he begins. ‘— is straight through his rib cage,’ she says.”
Punch Drunk is a tender nod by a young man to his single father who once told him, “the world is a dangerous place for boys without mothers” thereby setting the stage for the son’s future domesticity: “great food but no atmosphere.”
The title story, which concerns a modern Eve and Adam, opens with a cheeky epigraph: “Prep time: Imprecise. Cook Time: In Season. Yield: Serves 2. Meet someone you are ¼ compatible with. Base this compatibility ½ on the fact that you are carbon- based life forms and ½ on your sad pasts. The recipe, in this case, results in a failed union: “She develops a mild intolerance to gluten, lactose, and Adam.” The story ends with the wry instruction, “Check your heart. Begin again. Start from scratch.”
One story that especially leaps off the page is the final one in the book, The Bread of Life. It’s about another failing relationship, the obligatory therapy sessions, and the narrator’s train wreck of a mother. About the mother: “Many days, months even, I wanted my father to hit her. There’s just not enough therapy in the world for that.” About an annoying friend: “Her very existence makes me think God is never merciful, only exacting and mean.”
Packed with wickedly droll comments, sparkling and satisfying lean, A Recipe for Disaster is a delightful read.