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The Ideal Bakery
Offers a collection of short stories, including "Christmas Snow," "Keat's Birthday," and "The Figure of the Woods"
- GenresShort Stories
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
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About the author
Donald Hall
181 books201 followersDonald Hall was considered one of the major American poets of his generation.
His poetry explores the longing for a more bucolic past and reflects the poet’s abiding reverence for nature. Although Hall gained early success with his first collection, Exiles and Marriages (1955), his later poetry is generally regarded as the best of his career. Often compared favorably with such writers as James Dickey, Robert Bly, and James Wright, Hall used simple, direct language to evoke surrealistic imagery. In addition to his poetry, Hall built a respected body of prose that includes essays, short fiction, plays, and children’s books. Hall, who lived on the New Hampshire farm he visited in summers as a boy, was also noted for the anthologies he has edited and is a popular teacher, speaker, and reader of his own poems.
Born in 1928, Hall grew up in Hamden, Connecticut. The Hall household was marked by a volatile father and a mother who was “steadier, maybe with more access to depths because there was less continual surface,” as Hall explained in an essay for Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series (CAAS). “To her I owe my fires, to my father my tears. I owe them both for their reading.” By age twelve, Hall had discovered the poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe: “I read Poe and my life changed,” he remarked in CAAS. Another strong influence in Hall’s early years was his maternal great-grandfather’s farm in New Hampshire, where he spent many summers. Decades later, he bought the same farm and settled there as a full-time writer and poet.
Hall attended Philips Exeter Academy and had his first poem published at age 16. He was a participant at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, where he met Robert Frost, that same year. From Exeter, Hall went to Harvard University, attending class alongside Adrienne Rich, Robert Bly, Frank O’Hara, and John Ashbery; he also studied for a year with Archibald MacLeish. Hall earned a BLitt from Oxford University and won the Newdigate contest for his poem “Exile,” one of the few Americans ever to win the prize. Returning to the United States, Hall spent a year at Stanford, studying under the poet-critic Yvor Winters, before returning to Harvard to join the prestigious Society of Fellows. It was there that Hall assembled Exiles and Marriages, a tightly-structured collection crafted in rigid rhyme and meter. In 1953, Hall also became the poetry editor of the Paris Review, a position he held until 1961. In 1957 he took a position as assistant professor of English at the University of Michigan, where he remained until 1975. While at Michigan, Hall met the young Jane Kenyon. They later married and, when Hall’s grandmother, who owned Eagle Pond Farm, passed away, bought the farm, left teaching, and moved there together. The collections Kicking the Leaves (1978) and The Happy Man (1986) reflect Hall’s happiness at his return to the family farm, a place rich with memories and links to his past. Many of the poems explore and celebrate the continuity between generations. The Happy Man won the Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize. Hall’s next book, The One Day (1988), won the National Book Critics Circle Award. A long poem that meditates on the on-set of old age, The One Day, like much of Hall’s early work, takes shape under formal pressure: composed of 110 stanzas, split over three sections, its final sections are written in blank verse. The critic Frederick Pollack praised the book as possibly “the last masterpiece of American Modernism. Any poet who seeks to surpass this genre should study it; any reader who has lost interest in contemporary poetry should read it.” Old and New Poems (1990) contains several traditional poems from earlier collections, as well as more innovative verses not previously published. “Baseball,” included in The Museum of Clear Ideas (1993), is the poet’s ode to the great American pastime and is structured around t
His poetry explores the longing for a more bucolic past and reflects the poet’s abiding reverence for nature. Although Hall gained early success with his first collection, Exiles and Marriages (1955), his later poetry is generally regarded as the best of his career. Often compared favorably with such writers as James Dickey, Robert Bly, and James Wright, Hall used simple, direct language to evoke surrealistic imagery. In addition to his poetry, Hall built a respected body of prose that includes essays, short fiction, plays, and children’s books. Hall, who lived on the New Hampshire farm he visited in summers as a boy, was also noted for the anthologies he has edited and is a popular teacher, speaker, and reader of his own poems.
Born in 1928, Hall grew up in Hamden, Connecticut. The Hall household was marked by a volatile father and a mother who was “steadier, maybe with more access to depths because there was less continual surface,” as Hall explained in an essay for Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series (CAAS). “To her I owe my fires, to my father my tears. I owe them both for their reading.” By age twelve, Hall had discovered the poet and short story writer Edgar Allan Poe: “I read Poe and my life changed,” he remarked in CAAS. Another strong influence in Hall’s early years was his maternal great-grandfather’s farm in New Hampshire, where he spent many summers. Decades later, he bought the same farm and settled there as a full-time writer and poet.
Hall attended Philips Exeter Academy and had his first poem published at age 16. He was a participant at the prestigious Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, where he met Robert Frost, that same year. From Exeter, Hall went to Harvard University, attending class alongside Adrienne Rich, Robert Bly, Frank O’Hara, and John Ashbery; he also studied for a year with Archibald MacLeish. Hall earned a BLitt from Oxford University and won the Newdigate contest for his poem “Exile,” one of the few Americans ever to win the prize. Returning to the United States, Hall spent a year at Stanford, studying under the poet-critic Yvor Winters, before returning to Harvard to join the prestigious Society of Fellows. It was there that Hall assembled Exiles and Marriages, a tightly-structured collection crafted in rigid rhyme and meter. In 1953, Hall also became the poetry editor of the Paris Review, a position he held until 1961. In 1957 he took a position as assistant professor of English at the University of Michigan, where he remained until 1975. While at Michigan, Hall met the young Jane Kenyon. They later married and, when Hall’s grandmother, who owned Eagle Pond Farm, passed away, bought the farm, left teaching, and moved there together. The collections Kicking the Leaves (1978) and The Happy Man (1986) reflect Hall’s happiness at his return to the family farm, a place rich with memories and links to his past. Many of the poems explore and celebrate the continuity between generations. The Happy Man won the Lenore Marshall/Nation Prize. Hall’s next book, The One Day (1988), won the National Book Critics Circle Award. A long poem that meditates on the on-set of old age, The One Day, like much of Hall’s early work, takes shape under formal pressure: composed of 110 stanzas, split over three sections, its final sections are written in blank verse. The critic Frederick Pollack praised the book as possibly “the last masterpiece of American Modernism. Any poet who seeks to surpass this genre should study it; any reader who has lost interest in contemporary poetry should read it.” Old and New Poems (1990) contains several traditional poems from earlier collections, as well as more innovative verses not previously published. “Baseball,” included in The Museum of Clear Ideas (1993), is the poet’s ode to the great American pastime and is structured around t
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 9, 2012
Oh, he's good.
How good?
Well, the first story in this collection involves a man encountering the first woman he ever had sex with...35 years after the fact. He leaves, chastened by her biting remarks - "But you were decent enough back then. Now you are an old fool full of self-regard because you still take young women to bed with you. What a life."
The second story perfectly captures a child's excitement at a Christmas eve snowfall and sent me scurrying to the computer to look up everything this author has ever written. And, YES! Most of it still appears to be in print and readily available.
Hall is known mostly for his poetry and his Caldecott-winning children's book Ox-Cart Man. These short stories not only show his gift for language, but reveal him to be an astute observer of relationships and human nature.
The stories swing effortlessly from childhood reminiscenses to tales of marital infidelities, and manage to encompass every emotion. Widowers' Woods is a particularly beautiful story about what it is like to be old and alone, the last surviving member of the family, when memories seem preferable and more real than day to day existence.
How good?
Well, the first story in this collection involves a man encountering the first woman he ever had sex with...35 years after the fact. He leaves, chastened by her biting remarks - "But you were decent enough back then. Now you are an old fool full of self-regard because you still take young women to bed with you. What a life."
The second story perfectly captures a child's excitement at a Christmas eve snowfall and sent me scurrying to the computer to look up everything this author has ever written. And, YES! Most of it still appears to be in print and readily available.
Hall is known mostly for his poetry and his Caldecott-winning children's book Ox-Cart Man. These short stories not only show his gift for language, but reveal him to be an astute observer of relationships and human nature.
The stories swing effortlessly from childhood reminiscenses to tales of marital infidelities, and manage to encompass every emotion. Widowers' Woods is a particularly beautiful story about what it is like to be old and alone, the last surviving member of the family, when memories seem preferable and more real than day to day existence.
October 28, 2021
While these are meticulously crafted stories, they're not memorable, and it feels like their time has passed. Although the copyright on the book is 1987, every story but one seems to take place in the mid-1950s or earlier. And even the more current ones look back as their primary focus. There's more reference to soldiers in the Civil War in these stories than anything that was invented or happened after 1960.
That historic view would be fine if the stories told the reader something or took the reader to a special place and time. They don't. They're mostly just privileged white men who are unhappy with their lives, but who seem able to find dozens of younger, beautiful women who will sleep with them so that they can keep their demons at bay for a few hours or weeks. It's like John Updike or Philip Roth, but without the angry edge. (I love Updike's short stories, don't care for anything by Roth.)
In this day-and-age, it's hard to get excited about bland memories of snow-covered hills in New Hampshire or the swish of a co-ed's dress as she's ogled by a professor. It's a WASP-y world that we're better off without, even if the angsty, confused, drug-addled world that's replaced it has a lot of flaws as well.
My favorite story in the collection exists almost out of time, and I think that's why I like it best. It's called "The $50 bill," and it's about a man and his integrity and a memory he has kept for decades. It's also one of the few in which a happy marriage is recounted, with "Keats's Birthday" as the only other one that comes to mind.
I intensely dislike the first story, "The First Woman," even though parts of the seduction are written well. It's such a guy story. Whether it's a total fantasy or the reality that a certain class of men lived is irrelevant. Either way, it's about how women are disposable, and it would be laughed out of an amateur writing group today.
A couple of the stories are recalling sweet times ("Christmas Snow" and "The Figure of the Woods," which is bleak in some ways but mostly positive), but there isn't a lot to them. "Widower's Weeds" is trying to be sweet, I think, but it feels half-finished; it has no point.
The title story, "The Ideal Bakery," is okay, but nothing special. It's about the losses a person experiences over time, though they happen to people at earlier ages in this story than in most of our lives, so it has that as a semi-tragic element.
"Embarrassment" is an awful male show-off story, this time with an impossible-to-believe sex punchline. "Mrs. Thing" has a different kind of embarrassment, and if you buy into the ridiculous premise of (again) a guy cheating on his wife with a beautiful woman, and then dumping the beautiful woman and looking her up after his marriage has gone sour, then I guess you can feel good about his comeuppance. But I can't help thinking that this stuff doesn't really happen, except in short stories by a certain class of male writer and in TV dramas.
"Argument and Persuasion," the last story, is pretty good. It's got a chilling moment and also a bit of an epiphany for one person and the sadness he feels that nobody else has the epiphany. And it's got yet another bad marriage. The bad marriage is a staple of almost every story.
In short, these are worthwhile only as period pieces to show what the writing zeitgeist was a few decades ago, and how we've moved on.
That historic view would be fine if the stories told the reader something or took the reader to a special place and time. They don't. They're mostly just privileged white men who are unhappy with their lives, but who seem able to find dozens of younger, beautiful women who will sleep with them so that they can keep their demons at bay for a few hours or weeks. It's like John Updike or Philip Roth, but without the angry edge. (I love Updike's short stories, don't care for anything by Roth.)
In this day-and-age, it's hard to get excited about bland memories of snow-covered hills in New Hampshire or the swish of a co-ed's dress as she's ogled by a professor. It's a WASP-y world that we're better off without, even if the angsty, confused, drug-addled world that's replaced it has a lot of flaws as well.
My favorite story in the collection exists almost out of time, and I think that's why I like it best. It's called "The $50 bill," and it's about a man and his integrity and a memory he has kept for decades. It's also one of the few in which a happy marriage is recounted, with "Keats's Birthday" as the only other one that comes to mind.
I intensely dislike the first story, "The First Woman," even though parts of the seduction are written well. It's such a guy story. Whether it's a total fantasy or the reality that a certain class of men lived is irrelevant. Either way, it's about how women are disposable, and it would be laughed out of an amateur writing group today.
A couple of the stories are recalling sweet times ("Christmas Snow" and "The Figure of the Woods," which is bleak in some ways but mostly positive), but there isn't a lot to them. "Widower's Weeds" is trying to be sweet, I think, but it feels half-finished; it has no point.
The title story, "The Ideal Bakery," is okay, but nothing special. It's about the losses a person experiences over time, though they happen to people at earlier ages in this story than in most of our lives, so it has that as a semi-tragic element.
"Embarrassment" is an awful male show-off story, this time with an impossible-to-believe sex punchline. "Mrs. Thing" has a different kind of embarrassment, and if you buy into the ridiculous premise of (again) a guy cheating on his wife with a beautiful woman, and then dumping the beautiful woman and looking her up after his marriage has gone sour, then I guess you can feel good about his comeuppance. But I can't help thinking that this stuff doesn't really happen, except in short stories by a certain class of male writer and in TV dramas.
"Argument and Persuasion," the last story, is pretty good. It's got a chilling moment and also a bit of an epiphany for one person and the sadness he feels that nobody else has the epiphany. And it's got yet another bad marriage. The bad marriage is a staple of almost every story.
In short, these are worthwhile only as period pieces to show what the writing zeitgeist was a few decades ago, and how we've moved on.
July 19, 2024
Excellent for mostly being about middle-aged men who don't know how to sustain relationships. It confronts these narcissistic heroes with flashes of other perspectives that they fail to take lessons from. I was a little disappointed that it didn't explore its heroes' infidelity and divorce more intentionally. Maybe it couldn't in the 80s, or maybe the pattern of lessons not learned is answer enough. Vividly written. The stories about childhood were comforting and warm, though not hopeful.
October 2, 2022
Its hard not to like this book. The author weaves very good stories. I found one or two of the 'tales' to be a bit sluggish...like something from the 1950s. His writing is better than most...even if the topic, story-line is a bit weird.
I had the thought the author might try his hand at science-fiction/fantasy. Right?
I had the thought the author might try his hand at science-fiction/fantasy. Right?
February 22, 2022
I prefer his poetry.
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April 6, 2022I heard good things, but was unable to get into these stories. Perhaps I should try again another day.
July 24, 2022
exceptional short stories, picked up from side of the road on cape cod
March 4, 2015
Great book of short stories, especially the last story.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews