LITERATURE:Prairie Schooner, Winter 2004 – Stories, Both of Them

Honest to God, there are only two stories in this issue.  I did read many of the poems, but didn’t bother with the essays other than a quick scan.  But the two stories were good ones.

What Happens Next by Susan Jackson Rogers defies structure, but she weaves these separate vignettes of different characters into a whole as they barely touch each others’ lives.  A lonely writer who goes out only to walk her dog is mentioned briefly by another character.  All are separately titled, and reminded me of the scores of "opening paragraphs" I have sleeping on my hard drive tucked away in a file labeled "Stories Started."  But the brief image Rogers gives us of each character, often no longer than a long paragraph, is well drawn out and we get the picture of who the actor is and what they’re seeking.  She winds up the collage–if I may call it that, since as a picture framer, it reminded me of such, each peeking out from a window in the mat, their affiliations and the better part of their lives hidden behind the solid matting–with a woman apparently leaving this town of images.  Well written, well planned, each like a separate little story.

You’re Not You by Michele Wildgen is a very compelling story about two women who meet when the first person narrator takes on the job of caring for the other, a wheelchair-bound victim of Lou Gehrig’s Disease.  The dependence of one upon the other builds in a steady arc, each giving the other strength to face themselves as well as their problems.  There was only one spot before the satisfying resolution that didn’t quite ring true, and that was when the narrator suddenly ends her relationship with a married man with no prior indication of any dissatisfaction or desire to do so.  It is based solely on the handicapped woman’s being left by her husband for another woman, and while that would be a clear eye-opener, it seemed to come out of the blue for the narrator to end it so quickly without any real feeling for her lover.

I normally would be bitching here about only two stories in this literary journal of 212  pages, but then again, I’ve found as many as seven or eight in other journals and only two were worth page space anyway so this just saved me from wasted reading.