Each year, right around the beginning of August, my dad--a teacher for thirty-five years--used to start coming in from his garden with a wistful look on his face, knowing his days in the garden were numbered. That's kind of how I am with pleasure reading. While school's in session, I make little time for reading novels, opting instead to focus on drafts of student work and keep up with scholarship...both 'reading pleasures' in and of themselves, don't get me wrong, but not the same as pouring through a stack of novels from the library, which I take great pleasure in doing during the summer. And I've enjoyed blogging some of my summer fun reading. But the days are numbered.
If you've been reading this series, you know Elmore Leonard's a favorite of mine. Nicole and I just finished his short story collection When the Women Come Out to Dance. I was somewhat disappointed, as the stories lacked the pulpy rhythm that Leonard sustains so well in his full-length novels. Leonard seems to be playing with genre here, and he works hard to develop thematic elements more eplicitly than in his novels, which are always driven forward by plot (and, of course, Leonard's noir-with-a-cheeky-sense-of-humor-like narration). His short stories are all *about* something--at times a bit moralistic, and this isn't what I expect from Leonard. But it's interesting how he uses the genre of the short story to explore marginal characters--wronged wives (one who seemingly has burned down her rich husband's mansion, one an ex-stripper fearful of her abusive spouse), an African-American army vet. in the old west. And Leonard fans like me will get a kick out of stories centering around familiar Leonard characters like Karen Sisco, and even one centering on the grandson of the protagonist, Carl Webster, from The Hot Kid.
Not his best, and not terribly consistent, but an engaging set.
No comments:
Post a Comment